A Sermon Based Upon John 2o: 24-29, NRSV
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin.
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Second Sunday of Easter, April 3rd 2016
Easter is a hope that can put us on “cloud nine.” Cloud nine is a place everyone wants to be, but as a comedian used to joke, “cloud nine might get all the publicity, but cloud eight is cheaper, less crowded, and has a better view (George Carlin).”
In John’s Easter story Thomas didn't even get to cloud eight. Thomas almost missed Easter altogether. When Jesus first appeared to the disciples who were huddled together in a locked room, Thomas was not there. Thomas was MIA---missing in attendance. Though most of the disciples had been “locked in for fear,” Thomas seems locked out by doubt.
Who could really blame Thomas for skipping Easter? All the disciples had been through some very dangerous and disappointing events. At any moment they still could be killed. When they informed Thomas that Jesus surprisingly appeared to them, it was just too much. After everything that had happened Thomas could not make himself believe Easter was true.
“But Thomas Was Not With Them” (v. 24)
When you think about it, any belief about ‘resurrection’ should not be easy. While most religions have some kind of hope of life after death, it is rightly said that ‘Jesus’ resurrection makes heavy demands on our faith’ (HM Kuitert).
The gospels do not hide the difficulty of belief, especially when it comes to resurrection. In Mark’s gospel, the women fled the tomb ‘seized with terror and amazement’ and very much ‘afraid’ (16:8). In Luke, disciples on the Emmaus Road had difficulty with all that had ‘taken place’ (24:18). In Matthew, even as the resurrected Jesus was being worshipped, ‘some doubted’ (28:17). John’s gospel does not avoid the difficulty of resurrection either. No matter how close they were to Christ, they still had to navigate their doubts.
Thomas was not the first to have doubts, nor was he the last. If we have honest, authentic, growing and living faith, we too will have to navigate them. Living faith is not about stone-cold ‘facts’, but about “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (KJV). Because we are believers, believers in God or golf, believers in science or faith, or even believers in love or life, we will have to entertain the possibility and probability of navigating our doubts. Doubt comes with the territory of life and faith.
I first learned about having to ‘navigate doubt’ when I was in college and seminary, learning to be a serious student of the Bible. Some my close friends had warned me that my going to seminary would be like going to a ‘cemetery’—it could destroy my preaching. But what I actually encountered was that higher learning was a place where I could meet doubts head on. It was a place where questions could be safely raised and beliefs could be rigorously tested. There, I also learned that an untested faith could have such shallow roots it might not survive the storms of life. The only way to keep faith vital, alive and growing, I was told, was to be willing to face doubts head on, to deal with them, even when it was difficult.
In John Bunyan’s 17th century classic, Pilgrim’s Progress, the only book that has come close to the Bible in sales, the main characters, Christian and Hopeful, unexpectedly find themselves camping on the grounds of “Doubting Castle,” belonging to a giant named Despair. Christian did not intentionally find this castle of doubt, but as they traveled along life’s journey, he and Hopeful accidently awaken on the grounds of this dark, dreadful, difficult and dangerous place. Since they were caught trespassing, the Giant threw them into the castle’s dungeon, where they were beaten and encouraged to think that ‘death’ was better than ‘life’. They were even shown the skulls of other pilgrims who did not make it out of this “Doubting Castle” alive. In every way possible the Giant of Despair tried to break their will and faith in the “Lord of the country to which they are going.” http://www.covenantofgrace.com/pilgrims_progress_giant_despair.htm
Perhaps you’ve been to “Doubting Castle” yourself and you too have encountered this “Giant” called Despair. Maybe, like Thomas, the doubt you have is not in the goodness of Jesus, but in the credibility of resurrection, of miracles, or of the value of having faith in a secular world.
Only five years before I went off to college in 1975, Stephen Schwartz wrote a popular Broadway musical called Godspell. In that wonderful musical, Schwartz gave us that powerful song of Christian dedication, entitled ‘Day by Day’, which I had often sung in youth choir. Perhaps you recall that unforgettable line: “to see thee more clearly, follow thee more nearly and love thee more dearly, day by day”. Interestingly, when Schwartz interpreted the story of Jesus for his musical, he did it without, what he called, ‘that embarrassing tale of Jesus’ resurrection’. Like those who first heard the witness of the women, and perhaps just like this disciple named Thomas, Schwartz had doubts, believing that resurrection was just another ‘idle tale’ (Lk. 24:11).
"Unless I See The Mark…” (v. 25).
Well how do you believe in something you haven't seen or experienced? This was Thomas’ problem and it is ours too. Thomas said: “Unless I put my finger in the mark of nails and my hands in his side, I will not believe?” Thomas had trouble believing in what he couldn’t see, or didn’t have proof of. Don’t we have the same problem? Have you ever seen anybody resurrected? How do we, who have to look straight into the face of the death and dying; who have to let go of our own loved ones, who face aging, illness, or losing our own physical lives---how do we keep from ‘waking up’ on the grounds of ‘Doubting Castle’?
The truth is we can’t keep from having doubts, and sometimes it’s not a bad thing to have doubts about many of the things we read or hear about. When several stories recently came out in popular books describing children going to heaven and returning, some Southern Baptist preachers were openly skeptical and critical about it. “If it wasn’t in the Bible, they wouldn’t believe it?” they said. That first sounded a little harsh or narrow to me. But since one of those children has recently come out to admit his story was a hoax, I'm glad that those pastors were doubtful about all those ‘heaven stories’, aren’t you? (http://ktla.com/2015/01/16/boy-who-came-back-from-heaven-author-says-story-was-a-hoax/).
The great problem of our age, wrote one catholic scholar, ‘is not too little belief, but too much of it’ (Karl Rahner). And it’s not just that “There’s a sucker born every minute”, as P.T. Barnum used to say, or that 48 percent of Americans believe that aliens have landed somewhere in the United States, but what is so troublesome today is that so many many are making up their own faith, religion, or worldview as they go along. The real danger of our world is not less belief, but everyone believing whatever they want.
Untested, unevaluated belief can be a big problem---even a bigger problem than having doubts. Because we are fallible humans, who can’t handle the absolute without bringing about death (Old Testament), we will always need to have doubt than we do belief. I certainly wish radical Islamist had doubts about their own violent, inhumane ideology? I also wish that some Christians, especially those who think they know everything about the end of the world, could have doubts about end-time speculations. Especially in this political year, I’m hopeful that more politically minded politicians, who dare to to suggest that they all the answers, might at least have enough doubt about themselves to work with others across the political aisle. The founding fathers built our democracy on the need for having enough doubt to negotiate the truth and make it hard for one group to govern alone.
The world always needs honest, humble, sincere doubt to help us overcome dishonest, self-serving, self-righteous attitudes. As the poet Tennyson once claimed, ‘there lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.’ Or as someone has humorously put it, “doubt are the ants in the pants of a growing and thriving faith” (F. Buechner).
'Put your finger here … see my hands (v.27)
So when Thomas had doubts, do you think he looked smart, or was being sorry or stupid? When Thomas said he would not believe ‘unless’ he saw the marks, it certainly sounded as if he was not being a ‘good’ disciple. His demand to ‘touch’ or ‘see’ before he believed may sound weak or negative until you have gone through some difficulty or doubt yourself.
When John Claypool was in the midst of his work as a pastor, he was devastated when he learned that his 4 year old daughter Laura Lue was diagnosed with leukemia, and eventually died. Of course, it wasn't supposed to happen that way. Your child is supposed to watch you die, not the other way around. But it did happen this way, and it threw the very gifted pastor into a crisis of faith which, he says, distorted his whole sense of reality.
Claypool had conducted many funerals and had spoken sincere words of comfort to many families, but when his own daughter lay dying, he was left completely numb. He said that when the doctor on the other side of the bed finally said, ‘She is gone,’ he was the ‘most astonished person on the face of the earth.’ “I did not want her to die,” he said, “and I was so passionate in this desire that it completely distorted the way I perceived what was happening….”
What Pastor Claypool wanted to have happen (seeing his daughter healed) was keeping him from living what was actually happening (she was dying and needed him to be strong for her). He said, strangely enough, that even his dying 4 year old daughter showed more maturity and courage about facing death and having faith than he did. But as Claypool finally learned, “eventually we will all have to adjust to reality because reality will not adjust to us. Truth will ultimately reign supreme.” (The First to Follow, John R Claypool, Morehouse, 2008, p.67).
Since we need doubt, and even believers will encounter doubt throughout our lives, as Thomas did, let’s turn now to focus on the ‘reality’ Thomas finally saw. It was a week later when Thomas returned to the community that was his home. It was Sunday morning worship service that Thomas went back too, even when he still had doubts. Perhaps that is the greatest truth is this whole story; not that Thomas doubted, but that he came back to church even when he had doubts, and that is where Jesus invited him to recover his faith. For when the risen Christ returned, Jesus did not scold Thomas for having his doubts. Jesus simply invited Thomas to see what he could not have imagined on his own. As Jesus shows Thomas the marks and scars for the ‘proof’, he wanted, as he encounters Jesus himself, Thomas didn’t need proof anymore. Instead of reaching to confirm who he was seeing, Thomas fell down to worship Jesus as his “Lord and God”. This face-to-face encounter with the risen Lord changed Thomas’ perspective on everything.
In 1996, when I was living in Winston-Salem, my daughter shared a school bus with a girl from India. Her mother was a doctor working at Wake Forest Baptist Hospital, and they were living just around the block from us in the Ardmore Neighborhood. Once, I went to that home to invite the little girl to a birthday party and I was having a nice conversation with her mother.
“Oh, you’re from India,” I said. Then I asked, “Are you Hindu?”
“No,” the mother answered, “We’re Christian.”
“Oh, you’re Christian. Did you become Christian after you came to America?”
“No, we grew up Christian in India,” she said. “We are from southern India. Perhaps you’ve heard how the apostle Thomas came to our area and personally brought the Christian faith to us almost 2,000 years ago.”
At that moment, I couldn’t believe that I was talking to a person, the very first person I'd ever met, who could tell me that her faith and her church went directly back to one of the apostles; Thomas. Thinking I was going to share my faith with her, she was witnessing to me of the truth of Christ’s resurrection. Yes, resurrection. Why else would a ‘doubting’ Thomas have gone to India where preached and was martyred, witnessing to the truth of the resurrection faith? Why else would any of the disciples have risked their lives to preach a faith based upon one rejected man who died on a cross, unless Christ’s resurrection is true. The Romans crucified thousands, but we remember only one among those thousands and thousands, who still comes to us as the ‘risen Lord’ and our God, who took on flesh for us.
“My Lord and My God!”
Can you think of any better ‘proof’ of resurrection than a church that was born because of faith in a risen Christ? Would this kind of proof help you with your doubts? Maybe, or Maybe not?
Consider the last thing Jesus said to Thomas about us. After Thomas bows in worship, Jesus commends those of us who have faith, not because we have proof, but because we believe without it: “Blessed are those who have not seen, but have come to believe.” (v. 29).
Discussing doubt with his congregation, the Danish pastor Soren Kierkegaard explained that finding ‘reasons’ or ‘proofs’ for believing is not the best way to overcome doubt. To look for proof or reasons is only confirmation that you have doubt, even making matters worse. If you want to master your doubts, the pastor claimed, you need to act upon, follow and imitate Jesus in your life. The greatest thing you could ever do for your faith is to make the decision to live it, to try it, and to stop trying to figure it out. A living, vital, redeeming faith figures you out, not the other way around. When you are so busy following Jesus, doing the hard work of being Christian in this world, you may still have some doubts, but the difference is that doubt doesn’t have you. Because you are abiding in Christ and Christ abides in you, no doubt can ‘snatch you out of his hands’ or destroy a faith that is alive and active in you (From Kierkegaard’s Writings in Provocations, Plough Press, 1999, p. 77-79).
As we conclude, let’s go back to the final scene from Doubting Castle in Pilgirms Progress, where it was early Sunday, and the pilgrims were still locked in the dungeon of Doubting Castle and praying. Suddenly, Christian, ‘half amazed, breaks out passionately in speech: “What a fool am I thus to lie in this stinking dugeon, when I could be walking freely! I have a key in my pocket, right next to my heart, which can open any door in Doubting Castle.” Being encouraged by Hopeful to try it, Christian pulled this key labeled Promise out of his pocket, put that key into the bolted door, turned it and the door flew open and they both came out. They still had a gate to open; it was harder, but the key labeled Promise open it too. Thrusting open that large gate, they made their escape with speed.
The Giant Despair had heard the creaking gate, but he could not keep up, as they made it back on the king’s highway. When they were safely out of the Giant’s jurisdiction, in order to prevent any who would come after them from falling into the hands of Giant Despair, they erected a pillar, engraved with this sentence: “Over this hill is the way to Doubting Castle; kept by Giant Despair, who despises the King of the Celestial Country, and seeks to destroy his holy pilgrims.” Those who would read this sign, can escape the danger therein” (http://www.covenantofgrace.com/pilgrims_progress_giant_despair.htm).
The key to opening any doubt is to claim and live God’s promise.
This Promise was explained by Paul, when he wrote, “If Christ has not been raised then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain” (1 Cor. 15: 14). Paul meant that everything we believe about Jesus is validated though Easter. Paul continues: “If Christ has not been raised, then your faith is futile”… (15:17). Without this resurrection PROMISE, “those who have hoped in Christ have perished’ (18) and even with Christ, without resurrection, we are to be most pitied. Our hope in Christ must be an ‘Easter’ PROMISE of resurrection, or it is really no hope at all. Christ gives us the key to this Promise, because Jesus “holds the keys of Hell and Death” (Rev. 1.18). Amen.
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