It was Friday but Sunday came... Do not doubt but believe...

There’s a very famous sermon titled, ‘It’s Friday but Sunday’s coming’. It contrasts of course the despair and misery of what we know as Good Friday with the joy of Easter Day. Jesus, first of all seemingly defeated but then rising in a victory that would never be overshadowed. 

And through Holy Week we go through the range of emotions – we have the palm waving and hosanna shouting on Palm Sunday. We reflect on the last supper Jesus had with his disciples on Maundy Thursday, on the torture and humiliation and despair of Good Friday as Jesus is brutally executed. On Holy Saturday we wait, and then on Sunday we have Easter eggs and we celebrate ! 

Of course we celebrate something rather more important than Easter eggs, however much we like chocolate. We celebrate new life, resurrection, hope, love winning the day and God being in control… It is the day that history changed forever…. The day when an invitation was issued to us 2000 years down the line to be part of this transformation… 

And now, a week on from Easter Day with eggs mostly eaten and life getting back to normal we’re asked to think about what normal is… 

Our gospel reading today (John 20:19-31) hasn’t moved on quite as far as we have from the resurrection, but things have still changed a lot – the disciples were still locked in fearing the Jewish authorities – confused by these stories that Jesus had risen from the dead… 

And it’s time to put ourselves into that account – the one whom they followed and trusted was brutally taken away and they started to believe perhaps that the world’s powers were stronger than God’s powers; maybe even that the powers of darkness and evil would always win over light and good…

Now, things were changing – there was a glimmer of light which was about to become almost blinding to these disciples as Jesus appeared to them and simply said, ‘Peace be with you’. In a masterful display of understatement Jesus announced he was back – death had been defeated…. 

And immediately Jesus commissioned them for service. First he gave them his peace, then he said ‘as the Father has sent me so I send you’…. The work of mission was that urgent – there was no time to just reflect on what was happening, there was no time to just have a party to celebrate Jesus being back… ‘As the Father sent me, so I send you…’ 

Here were the disciples locked away in a room, the same people who had mostly run away from Jesus as he was taken to the cross, the same people who fell asleep on the night of the last supper, who, in the case of Peter, had denied even knowing Jesus… 

These people who had really let Jesus down were the unlikely people who Jesus was saying should go and start telling people some good news that Jesus was risen, death was defeated and the world could have hope…. 

And then he came close to them and breathed on them and they had the gift of the Holy Spirit, a foretaste of what was coming at Pentecost, and in that action they were reminded that they were never alone and never would be… 

Then Jesus went on to talk about forgiveness, not about retribution or about grand displays of the sort of power that could even conquer death – he spoke of peace and forgiveness. The message of the cross and the resurrection changed everything for those disciples, and it changes everything for us today, but it didn’t change the message of Jesus… It was still about peace and hope and forgiveness and love… 

But of course, one of the disciples was missing - We don’t know where he was but Thomas wasn’t there... We know that he wasn’t a coward – we recall when Jesus first decided to go and visit Lazarus in Bethany (John ch.11), some of the disciples didn’t want Jesus to go because they knew there were people there who wanted to kill him, but it was Thomas who said, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with Jesus...’ 

For Thomas it seems that life without Jesus meant very little – if Jesus died what was the point of life ? And so we don’t know where he was but perhaps we can understand his doubt... Someone he continued to love and trust with everything had seemingly gone. 

Good Friday had happened – what Jesus said would happen had happened... And in the confusion of that day Thomas ran away. Perhaps his way of dealing with the grief was to go and spend time alone – we don’t know... 

But we do understand surely Thomas’ grief. Who was there now to give God’s words a human voice ? Who could do God’s work? Who would heal the sick, give hearing to the deaf and sight to the blind ? Who would give hope to the person desperately needing hope and love in the way that Jesus had ? 

And then came Saturday and Jesus still wasn’t there – and maybe the sense of loss just got deeper. What sense could Thomas make of life ? Where was God when he needed him most ? 

And so in that week after the resurrection there must have been all kinds of emotions going around – confusion and excitement and doubt amongst them… 

And I think this gospel reading speaks powerfully to us today… Like the disciples in that upper room we are commissioned for service – inadequate in so many ways, fearful perhaps, but we’re called to be disciples today – not just believers, but disciples…  

So we are commissioned to go out as Jesus went out, but we are also reminded of God’s strength and power with us through the Holy Spirit. We will never travel alone, we will never serve God alone… We can trust in the one who even gives life out of death… 

So we are called to serve and given God’s power to help us to do it; And we’re to do it following the example of Jesus himself – to try and live displaying the love that he displayed in his earthly life, the kind of love that talked about forgiveness even after he’d suffered so much… 

In a society, even a world where there seems to be so much talk of looking after ourselves, of fear of others, of greed, of nationalism, it seems Jesus has a lot to say, and he asks us to be the ones to say it…. 

So firstly, we’re called to serve knowing God’s power; and secondly, we’re called to love as Jesus loves and finally from this reading we can’t forget Thomas – known so often as doubting Thomas, but why wouldn’t he have doubted… 

Aren’t there times when all of us struggle, maybe with doubt, maybe with confusion, maybe with struggling to live as Jesus wants us to live. Perhaps we’ve also experienced that Saturday in our lives, that first Holy Saturday when Jesus was in the grave. The day when things don’t seem to make sense and our cries of pain or grief don’t seem to be heard and we don’t know where to turn. Doubt and misery and a lack of hope seem to dominate our existence... 

Saturday is perhaps also the day when the church seems lost – worried about lack of numbers attending or lack of money, or a building falling down, and failing to hold on to the vision of the church being the body of Christ on earth, living out his vision and his way... That way of healing and reconciliation and love... 

It’s the day when the church loses focus on the body of Christ being at the centre of community and people’s lives, and instead becomes inward looking. It’s the day when small things which really don’t matter very much suddenly seem important, and big things, like mission and vision and love get lost somewhere... 

That Saturday is when we retreat behind closed doors, or just be somewhere else as Thomas was... When Thomas saw the others and was told about the appearance of Jesus, of course he doubted... Then a week later Jesus appeared again and this time Thomas was with the other disciples. There were no recriminations and Jesus didn’t get angry about Thomas not listening to the others – he simply offered the proof he wanted and offered the advice, ‘Do not doubt, but believe !’ 

And Jesus went on, ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe’ – and in those words Jesus still speaks to us 2000 years later... 

He calls on us not to doubt but to believe; not to be people stuck in Good Friday or that Saturday in the tomb, but to be alive as we celebrate resurrection.

Jesus calls us and all his church as one to be people of new life, people sharing a gospel message that even in the darkest moments of life, the light of Christ still shines through... 

We can have confidence day by day, not because life is easy, but because  Jesus has risen. Jesus is alive. Jesus is here... Do not doubt but believe... AMEN