Disbelief moves to Belief

Easter 2 at Wing Church

Reading Revelation 1.4-8

John, To the seven churches in the province of Asia:

Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father – to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.

Look, he is coming with the clouds,
and every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him;
and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him.
So shall it be! Amen.

Gospel John 20.19-31

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” All Alleluia.

When the Gospel is announced the reader says

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to N.
All Glory to you, O Lord.

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

This is the Gospel of the Lord.
All Praise to you, O Christ.

Sermon

John 20 is the penultimate chapter in John’s gospel. It’s a story of belief and disbelief. Belief and disbelief ebb and flow. People start by doubting, and move towards faith.

There are 4 scenes in chapter 20 that illustrate what is happening. I’ll describe them to you one by one. Remember – each move from disbelief to belief. Think about how this transition might apply to you.

Scene 1 – It’s Sunday morning – the first Sunday. It’s still dark. Mary Magdalene arrives to find the tomb where Jesus was laid empty. Disbelieving, she runs to Peter and the unnamed beloved disciple and says: They have taken the Lord.

The two disciples run to the tomb. Peter enters and sees the folded grave clothes. The other disciple comes shortly afterwards. His reaction was: He saw and believed.

Disbelief turns to belief.

Scene 2 – Mary Magdalene still disbelieves. She is crying when a man she assumes to be a gardener approaches. If you have carried him away, she says, tell me where you have put him.

The man calls her by name, and she recognises it is Jesus. Convinced, she goes to find the other disciples, and tells them I have seen the Lord.

Disbelief turns to belief.

Scene 3 – this forms our gospel reading in today’s lectionary. The disciples are still in the Upper Room. The door is locked for fear of the Jewish authorities, not the Romans. Jesus appears, and says Shalom – Peace be with you.

The disciples believe, but one among their number is absent. He is Thomas the Twin – who garnered the ill reputation as Doubting Thomas for the rest of time, even though he ended up a greater believer than any of the others who had been present. Thomas, in this sense, represents us. We can all associate with what he went through. Who among us would not have done the same?

The other disciples catch up with Thomas, and tell him We have seen the Lord. Disbelief and fear turn into some form of belief, but Thomas doubts.

Finally, we come to Scene 4. Jesus appears to Thomas. A week has gone by, yet the disciples are still locked away in the Upper Room. So how lasting was their belief, and how strong their fear? They had seen clearly the risen Christ yet they remained in hiding. Why were they not proclaiming the fact from the housetops and on every street corner? The answer – they were human and fallible, like us. For the time being, they remained out of sight. It would take some time before the enormity of the implications of what they had seen and experienced for themselves sunk in.

But Thomas reacts much more strongly. Faced with the evidence in front of his very eyes, he doesn’t even bother to reach out his finger and touch the cruel wounds left by the process of crucifixion. No – previously Doubting Thomas shows himself one of the Bible’s greatest believers. My Lord and my God – he says.

Just think of that huge leap of faith. For a Jew of his time to come to the conclusion that the risen Jesus is actually divine – none other than God himself. How unfairly history has treated Thomas! If we think he is much like us, then we focus on his doubts, and ignore completely this major statement of faith.

At the end of Scene 4 – Jesus in effect turns and speaks directly to each and every one of us. It’s like he turns from Thomas, and addresses the great cloud of witnesses gathered round, including we ourselves.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Jesus is offering us his blessing, if only we number ourselves among the believers, who have faith yet have not seen him in the flesh — incarnate.

Does it matter that our faith ebbs and flows —just like Mary and the disciples? Those disciples only reacted with joy when Jesus was present with them. After he had left, they remained under lock and key. So how strong was their faith?

Their faith might have been imperfect—isn’t that what faith is all about anyway? Faith is not knowledge, nor is it even strong belief. It is faith. Even with that imperfect faith, still the disciples took forward the mission of the Messiah, and our presence here, thanks in large measure to Paul and others, is evidence of what results from... from what?

Well, certainly not the strength of 11 fallible men, together with a larger group of women and men who formed the outer corps of followers. No, it was more than human activity and endeavour.

Even before he met Thomas, remember that Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” So it was in the power of God’s Spirit that those fearful men were empowered to take the mission forward. That was what changed for the disciples —it wasn’t that they saw the Lord in the flesh, but that he conferred on them the gift of the Spirit which then convicted and convinced, and then led them into all truth.

This gift does not have to come to us in a flash, with fire and noise, heat and impact obvious to all. No, what is quieter than a breath? Jesus breathed on them. Like the sound of sheer silence—the still small voice as Tyndale translated it from I Kings 19. Barely audible. Intimate even. Yet intensely powerful and transforming. So let us pray for that same Spirit, and for its transforming power in our lives, both now and for evermore. Amen