Thomas doubted... Wouldn't we all ?
The 50th anniversary of the murder of Martin Luther King fell earlier this week and it was he who said, ‘Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase’... It’s perhaps a challenge which some of us will struggle with at times and today in our gospel reading (John 20:19-31), we have one of the most famous doubters in the Bible – Thomas.
It’s hard to believe that anybody could fail to have some sympathy for Thomas – Jesus had risen from the dead and had appeared to the disciples – but Thomas wasn’t with them, and when they told him, he simply thought they’d gone mad or perhaps were just trying to play some sort of mean trick on him. Perhaps in these circumstances we might all think the same. They had seen Jesus, but he hadn’t…
There may be many reasons for Thomas’ doubts but this morning I want to think of 3 – and each of them offer something for us to think about as well…
Firstly perhaps Thomas had gone a little bit cold in his faith. He had been with Jesus and watched many incredible things happen… he had witnessed miracles, listened to teaching and preaching. He had watched as lives were changed in front of him, and as Jesus displayed a kind of love and commitment to people that was way beyond ordinary understanding.
But Thomas had also witnessed the arrest of Jesus, the humiliation of a mock trial, and ultimately the death of Jesus on the cross. And these incidents had perhaps taken away some of his fire, some of his enthusiasm and even some of his commitment.
Some years ago a lady brought back a Crown of Thorns from the Holy Land to display in the church where I was at the time…. I don’t know how many of you have seen or touched a crown of thorns – it’s very sharp – I can vouch for that as I accidentally sat on it at one point and it was very painful !
And perhaps in a small way the crown helps to remind us of the humiliation Jesus must have felt as they forced it onto his head prior to the crucifixion – it must have been painful, but the pain was almost meaningless compared to that humiliation and rejection…
But after being in church through Lent the Crown had actually got a little softer – it was still quite sharp but nowhere near what it once was. The cold and damp in the Church had actually softened the wood a little bit.
There are all kinds of worrying analogies that could be made about us growing cold if we spend too much time in Church- but maybe there’s an element of truth in that and if we spend all our time here we will not have the chance to go out and live and share the glorious message of the resurrection with others, and the fact is that left untouched, our faith like the crown of thorns can lose it’s edge, it’s sharpness…
And living our lives away from Jesus we will grow cold, and we will lose our sharpness - faith needs to be fed, just like most things. Easter gives us a tremendous lift in our lives of faith – we can put ourselves in the events of 2000 years ago – travel with Jesus to the cross – recognize his love for us – recognize his power as he conquers death and so on, but after Easter life goes on, and we need to keep that fire of Easter burning, and we do that as we continue to build our relationship with God.
There is nothing Thomas wanted more I’m sure than to see Jesus alive again and that is a challenge for us – do we really want to follow his risen life ? do we really want to live his risen life by following his example and his teaching in the world today ? If we do then we must be prepared to challenge ourselves – to read more about him, to ask questions, to pray more, and so on, and we must be prepared to move forward in faith, not believe we’ve gone far enough – not one of us achieves that !
Faith is a constant living thing – something that we can constantly challenge ourselves on and expect to be challenged by others. But we can be confident – we can be sure that God is with us.
So Thomas had perhaps in a short time grown a bit cold and we need to be aware of doing the same – And secondly Thomas just couldn’t seem to believe what he was hearing – it was all too much for him. He knew Jesus had died so how was it possible for him to be back there with them. Perhaps he thought the disciples in their time together had consumed a little bit too much wine – it all seemed far-fetched.
And for us too we can water down a lot of our belief and in doing so lose an element of faith - Today it is sometimes hard for us to take things on faith because we are so good at finding tangible - or at least scientific - proof for so many things. We can prove so much with our God-given minds, that anything we can’t absolutely prove we tend to treat as less important.
But how foolish that is – for example we can’t prove someone loves us, we can’t prove our love for someone else absolutely – but it doesn’t stop us knowing… We can’t prove God, we can’t prove the resurrection absolutely 100%, but we can know – we can absolutely know it is true !
Thomas wanted the proof because he didn’t understand how what he was being told would be possible, but sometimes faith is beyond understanding and we are simply invited to trust and experience God’s limitless love and grace…
And the third reason for Thomas’ doubts about Jesus was the natural response for someone who didn’t believe the resurrection could happen and that is that he wasn’t expecting Jesus to rise from the dead – his rational mind had taken over and he just didn’t think it was going to happen – and for us there is a cons tant need for us to expect Jesus to work in the world today, a constant need for us to look at signs of resurrection and hope all around us, a constant need to be part of that risen life in our communities today.
Thomas’ doubts and fears led him to a greater faith – in the future he would expect Jesus to act, in the future he would know the power of God to transform any person or situation, and this expectation is very important.
We worship a God who is always seeking to do the unexpected, and who is always seeking to provide more abundantly for us than we can ever ask or imagine… but the fact is we need to be looking – we need to remember the promises of Jesus, remember how he promised that he could transform people and society, remember how he promised to love without limits, remember how he promised chance after chance for those of us who constantly need another chance !
The God who raised Jesus from the dead is the God who loves every one of us so much that he is absolutely devoted to us – he is concerned about every moment of every day for every one of us… and that is an incredible thing…
Last week and through Easter tide we celebrate Jesus, risen from the dead, alive for evermore. With that amazing Easter truth may we never grow cold and apathetic in our faith, may we never doubt that God can indeed do all things, and may we always expect the unexpected from God – the gifts that are beyond our imagination, and let us pray that we will constantly seek to reignite the Easter fire of passion, of love, of courage and hope in our own lives, so that inspired by God, we will inspire others to share in some of the wonderful gifts God has prepared for us all. AMEN
It’s hard to believe that anybody could fail to have some sympathy for Thomas – Jesus had risen from the dead and had appeared to the disciples – but Thomas wasn’t with them, and when they told him, he simply thought they’d gone mad or perhaps were just trying to play some sort of mean trick on him. Perhaps in these circumstances we might all think the same. They had seen Jesus, but he hadn’t…
There may be many reasons for Thomas’ doubts but this morning I want to think of 3 – and each of them offer something for us to think about as well…
Firstly perhaps Thomas had gone a little bit cold in his faith. He had been with Jesus and watched many incredible things happen… he had witnessed miracles, listened to teaching and preaching. He had watched as lives were changed in front of him, and as Jesus displayed a kind of love and commitment to people that was way beyond ordinary understanding.
But Thomas had also witnessed the arrest of Jesus, the humiliation of a mock trial, and ultimately the death of Jesus on the cross. And these incidents had perhaps taken away some of his fire, some of his enthusiasm and even some of his commitment.
Some years ago a lady brought back a Crown of Thorns from the Holy Land to display in the church where I was at the time…. I don’t know how many of you have seen or touched a crown of thorns – it’s very sharp – I can vouch for that as I accidentally sat on it at one point and it was very painful !
And perhaps in a small way the crown helps to remind us of the humiliation Jesus must have felt as they forced it onto his head prior to the crucifixion – it must have been painful, but the pain was almost meaningless compared to that humiliation and rejection…
But after being in church through Lent the Crown had actually got a little softer – it was still quite sharp but nowhere near what it once was. The cold and damp in the Church had actually softened the wood a little bit.
There are all kinds of worrying analogies that could be made about us growing cold if we spend too much time in Church- but maybe there’s an element of truth in that and if we spend all our time here we will not have the chance to go out and live and share the glorious message of the resurrection with others, and the fact is that left untouched, our faith like the crown of thorns can lose it’s edge, it’s sharpness…
And living our lives away from Jesus we will grow cold, and we will lose our sharpness - faith needs to be fed, just like most things. Easter gives us a tremendous lift in our lives of faith – we can put ourselves in the events of 2000 years ago – travel with Jesus to the cross – recognize his love for us – recognize his power as he conquers death and so on, but after Easter life goes on, and we need to keep that fire of Easter burning, and we do that as we continue to build our relationship with God.
There is nothing Thomas wanted more I’m sure than to see Jesus alive again and that is a challenge for us – do we really want to follow his risen life ? do we really want to live his risen life by following his example and his teaching in the world today ? If we do then we must be prepared to challenge ourselves – to read more about him, to ask questions, to pray more, and so on, and we must be prepared to move forward in faith, not believe we’ve gone far enough – not one of us achieves that !
Faith is a constant living thing – something that we can constantly challenge ourselves on and expect to be challenged by others. But we can be confident – we can be sure that God is with us.
So Thomas had perhaps in a short time grown a bit cold and we need to be aware of doing the same – And secondly Thomas just couldn’t seem to believe what he was hearing – it was all too much for him. He knew Jesus had died so how was it possible for him to be back there with them. Perhaps he thought the disciples in their time together had consumed a little bit too much wine – it all seemed far-fetched.
And for us too we can water down a lot of our belief and in doing so lose an element of faith - Today it is sometimes hard for us to take things on faith because we are so good at finding tangible - or at least scientific - proof for so many things. We can prove so much with our God-given minds, that anything we can’t absolutely prove we tend to treat as less important.
But how foolish that is – for example we can’t prove someone loves us, we can’t prove our love for someone else absolutely – but it doesn’t stop us knowing… We can’t prove God, we can’t prove the resurrection absolutely 100%, but we can know – we can absolutely know it is true !
Thomas wanted the proof because he didn’t understand how what he was being told would be possible, but sometimes faith is beyond understanding and we are simply invited to trust and experience God’s limitless love and grace…
And the third reason for Thomas’ doubts about Jesus was the natural response for someone who didn’t believe the resurrection could happen and that is that he wasn’t expecting Jesus to rise from the dead – his rational mind had taken over and he just didn’t think it was going to happen – and for us there is a cons tant need for us to expect Jesus to work in the world today, a constant need for us to look at signs of resurrection and hope all around us, a constant need to be part of that risen life in our communities today.
Thomas’ doubts and fears led him to a greater faith – in the future he would expect Jesus to act, in the future he would know the power of God to transform any person or situation, and this expectation is very important.
We worship a God who is always seeking to do the unexpected, and who is always seeking to provide more abundantly for us than we can ever ask or imagine… but the fact is we need to be looking – we need to remember the promises of Jesus, remember how he promised that he could transform people and society, remember how he promised to love without limits, remember how he promised chance after chance for those of us who constantly need another chance !
The God who raised Jesus from the dead is the God who loves every one of us so much that he is absolutely devoted to us – he is concerned about every moment of every day for every one of us… and that is an incredible thing…
Last week and through Easter tide we celebrate Jesus, risen from the dead, alive for evermore. With that amazing Easter truth may we never grow cold and apathetic in our faith, may we never doubt that God can indeed do all things, and may we always expect the unexpected from God – the gifts that are beyond our imagination, and let us pray that we will constantly seek to reignite the Easter fire of passion, of love, of courage and hope in our own lives, so that inspired by God, we will inspire others to share in some of the wonderful gifts God has prepared for us all. AMEN
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