Thomas the Realist
Eric Lemonholm
Acts 2:14a, 22-32; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-29
Easter 2A
May 1, 2011
It’s the evening of the first Easter Sunday.
The eighth day of creation!
Mary Magdalene has been to the tomb and seen Jesus.
But the male disciples do not believe that Jesus the Christ is risen.
They are afraid.
Their leader, their Rabbi, their Lord has been arrested and crucified.
Could they be next?
Wouldn’t you be afraid if you were in their sandals?
The text says that they were afraid of “the Jews,” more literally “the Judeans” or even “the Judean authorities.”
The disciples were all Jews; they were not afraid of themselves. Instead, they were afraid of the Judean authorities who ruled with the blessing of their Roman overlords.
They have heard the testimony of the female disciples that Jesus Christ is risen.
But they have not taken that testimony to heart.
The truth is, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!
He is no longer in the tomb. He is no longer subject to death or decay. Here he is, alive and more than alive.
Closed doors cannot keep him out.
Distance is no barrier to his appearing.
It would be absurd to think of Jesus Christ being arrested and crucified again. He has conquered sin, death, and the devil once and for all. Jesus was not simply revived, brought back to life. He was resurrected by God to an unconquerable life.
Jesus said to his friends, “Peace be to you.”
Jesus blessed the disciples who had abandoned him with the gift of peace.
Then Jesus breathed God’s breath, God’s Holy Spirit, into them.
This is the Gospel of John’s Pentecost experience.
And Jesus commissioned them. He gave them a mission, a purpose for their lives together. Just as God sent Jesus into the world with a mission, we are sent out into the world with a mission, a purpose.
One of our purposes is to forgive sin. By Jesus Christ’s promise, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we followers of Christ have the authority to forgive one other’s sin.
That’s why we confess that we are sinners at the beginning of each worship service, and hear another human being, another follower of Christ, forgive us.
For the sake of good order, a pastor usually speaks the word of forgiveness in our worship service.
But there is no reason that you cannot share God’s promise of forgiveness with a friend, child, or spouse – or me.
It is God who forgives sin, for Jesus’ sake. But we often hear that word of forgiveness spoken by a Christian friend.
Forgiveness is one reality that Jesus’ Resurrection brings about.
We experience Christ’s Resurrection life when our sins are forgiven.
It is our sin which separates us from God.
So God’s forgiveness is no small thing, and we cannot earn it by anything we do.
God’s forgiveness is a gift. It is Jesus appearing in the middle of a locked room and saying, “I forgive you.”
By God’s mercy, we have received a new birth into a living hope through Jesus’ resurrection (1 Peter 1:3).
Our sin is forgiven.
We are given the gift of faith, trust in God’s promises.
And we are given a purpose, a mission, as we are sent by Christ into the world. Our mission is To Live and Share Jesus. Another way to say our mission could be: to share the gift of Jesus’ forgiveness and resurrection life with our neighbors and the world.
One disciple of Jesus was absent on that first Easter Sunday: Thomas.
Thomas was a realist.
When the other disciples of Jesus told him, “We have seen the Lord,” he doubted it.
He needed to see and touch Jesus, to experience the Resurrection, before he would believe it.
As far as Thomas was concerned, Jesus was dead until he saw evidence to the contrary.
Thomas gets a bad rap.
He’s often called Doubting Thomas, with the idea that doubting is a bad thing.
Again, put yourself in Thomas’ sandals: if three days after your best friend died, someone told you that your best friend was alive again, would you doubt it?
So a week after the first Easter Sunday, on the Eighth Day, Sunday, all the disciples of Jesus are together again, this time including Thomas, and here comes Jesus. “Peace be with you.”
What a gift to Thomas! Jesus says to his friend, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”
In the modern Western world, we often turn belief into a head trip.
For us, everything hinges on the beliefs we hold in our mind.
So, faith in Jesus Christ becomes a matter of thinking certain thoughts about Jesus.
That’s not what Jesus is talking about here.
When he says, “Do not doubt but believe,” a better translation is “Do not be unfaithful but faithful.”
The same word in Greek is used for belief, faith, and trust: Pistis.
Jesus was not putting Thomas down for doubting.
Instead, he came to Thomas in the power of God’s resurrection life, and he called Thomas back to a restored relationship with Jesus.
Thomas experienced the Resurrection of Christ in a powerful and direct way, and he believed. He trusted in God’s promise of resurrection life because he experienced it.
It is not fair to call Thomas a ‘doubting Thomas,’ for he responded to Jesus with one of the strongest statements of faith in the Bible: “My Lord and my God!”
Eventually, Thomas brought his faith in Jesus Christ all the way to India, where today there are over 40 million Christians who trace their faith back to the ministry of Thomas.
Jesus also blesses us in this story.
Jesus said to [Thomas], “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
At this point, John the narrator himself reveals the purpose for writing the Gospel story:
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
Who can believe in the Resurrection?
William Willimon tells this story: We were having a discussion of “difficult Christian beliefs.” In due time, someone mentioned the difficulty of believing in the bodily resurrection of Christ. Many found this a rather farfetched possibility. Life from death? A dead body risen from the tomb? How can that be credible?A woman spoke up, “Well, I do believe in the resurrection. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. When my husband walked out on me, I could have died. I did die. My life was over. Dead end.“But then, by the grace of God, and with the coaxing of good friends, I came back. I came to life. I got a whole new life. It was a miracle.“I believe in the resurrection. I’ve lived it.”[ii]
Probably not one of us has directly, physically met the Risen Christ in the same way his friends did that first Easter Sunday.
But we have met Christ in many and various ways.
We have experienced his Resurrection life.
We have come to believe in the Easter message that Christ is risen.
We have heard the testimony of Jesus’ friends.
By God’s Holy Spirit, we also have the testimony of our own experiences of Christ’s resurrection life – experiences of forgiveness, experiences of new life coming after death, experiences of comfort for our grieving souls, experiences of the presence of Christ through our neighbor – especially our neighbor in need, or our neighbor who helps us in our need.
We have not seen, but we believe. And God blesses our belief, our faith, our trust.
Through that faith, we have life in Jesus’ name.
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