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Easter 2008 - John 20.19-31
SERMON - 10.15am, Emmanuel Church, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Sunday 30th March 2008
Revd. Matthew Vernon
A priest walks into a bar and is indignant to find so many of his church members there.
He rounds them up and shepherds them into the church.
Then he solemnly says, "All those who want to go to heaven, stand over there."
Everyone moves, except once man, who stubbornly stands his ground.
The priest looks at him grimly.
"Don't you want to go to heaven?"
"No," says the man.
"Do you mean to tell me that you don't want to go to heaven when you die?"
"Of course, I want to go to heaven when I die. I thought you were going now!"
That man could be called Thomas.
The one who was independent and refused to go with the crowd.
"Thomas … was not with [the twelve] when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, 'We have seen the Lord.' But he said to them, 'Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.'"
I like Thomas.
No just because he's patron saint of the independent.
But because he's patron saint of doubters too.
That makes him someone I can relate to.
And one of the most important faith icons.
The writer of John's Gospel was wise to include the Thomas story –
• Thomas' doubting is not in the other Gospels.
The emphasis in John's Gospel is believing that Jesus is the Son of God,
• but the writer must have known that belief is a complicated business
• and that belief and doubt are closely related.
So the story of Thomas' doubts is included.
Would the writer of John have gone as far as saying that
• doubt is not the opposite of faith, certainty is the opposite of faith?
I don't know.
But he is aware that doubt is faith's friend.
The story of Thomas and his doubts is only in John's Gospel,
• but there's uncertainty in the other Gospels too.
A story in Luke is similar.
"Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you.' They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, 'Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.' And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering' (Luke 14.36-41a)
"in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering".
These bits in the Easter stories are very reassuring for us as we wonder what to make of the accounts of the resurrection in the Gospels.
They are nearly 2000 years old and come from a very different world to our own.
And they came through the process of the early church putting the Bible together:
• a long contentious political process
• that left some condemned as heretics
• and their Gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas, outcast.
But there's more to it than that.
More than how to reconcile our 21st Century mentality with 1st Century texts.
Not knowing,
• doubt,
• is the point of the Easter stories.
Easter is all about how you can't put God in a box
• or in a tomb.
Our inclination is to think we've got God sown up,
• but we haven't.
God does the unexpected.
God is a God of surprises.
The resurrection was the last thing the disciples expected –
• hence Thomas' quite reasonable doubts
• and hence all the disciples' fear and disbelief.
We suffer from hindsight.
We know the outcome already.
But the disciples didn't know what was going to happen.
How could they?
They knew Jesus had been killed.
People don't tend to come back to life.
You can be certain of that.
But then God catches you out again!
As God always does when you settle for certainty.
Not knowing, is the point of the Easter stories.
The authorities who killed Jesus were certain.
You don't execute someone unless you are:
• certain that you are right;
• certain that you want the power to stay with you;
• certain that God is on your side.
Unless, killing someone helps you feel you're right and they are wrong.
God doesn't play that game.
Thomas was modern before his time.
He wanted evidence:
• 'Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.'
Thomas wanted evidence –
• as we in our scientific age do.
But there's no scientific evidence for the resurrection
And we can't touch Jesus' hands and side as Thomas did.
We have these strange, ancient stories of a man coming back to life.
What can we make of them?
We have to rely on the evidence that the story rings true in our lives.
"Do you believe in the resurrection?" is really another question in disguise:
• "Have you experienced what it is like to be broken and healed?
• Do you know what its like to die the death of shame or disappointment and somehow come back to life?
• Have you walked through the valley of the shadow of death and survived?"
That's the "proof" we have –
• though "proof" is probably the wrong word.
It's more experience.
Experience that indicates that Easter faith fits and is possible.
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