Doubting Thomas sermon 2024: Stories

John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were 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 his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them 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."

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

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.

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This is my next-to-last sermon from this pulpit before Fr Steve and I retire next month, and I'm thinking of stories! True stories, tribal stories, campfire stories, personal stories, faith stories, good old Sunday school Bible stories, gospel stories; and especially today's post-resurrection Easter story of Doubting Thomas from Gospel John!

In a church I served as rector years ago, one of my office helpers was a parishioner whose heritage was Native American (Indian). She used to tell me her tribal folklore stories, and some of them were absolutely outrageous. I remember once telling her, “Margo, that's impossible! Surely you don’t believe that, it’s impossible!” She said, “We know that, but it’s our story and it’s true for us," and, she chided me, "you have impossible stories too, Father Tom!” Margo taught me as much about Truth, as I taught her about Jesus! 

Gospel John tells a captivating story today: pragmatically outrageous, but it's ours, and we’ve read and heard it many Times, a beloved holy story of "Once upon a Time, long, long ago in a far away land!"

Judaism with their “Heilsgeschichte,” holy stories, holy history, is a religion of stories. The Hebrew Bible is stories of their history with God. Among the most outrageous and enjoyable are tribal “campfire stories” they must surely have told under the stars those forty years in the wilderness with Moses, when stories about Abraham and Jacob brought them together as a People, and made folks laugh, and feel loved, and special, and even warm and safe on dark wilderness nights! 

At Genesis Two, an earthy, very ancient one begins, “This is the story of the heavens and the earth when they were created - - on the day the Lord God made heaven and earth … the Lord God formed ha-adam (the earthling) from the dust of ha-aretz (the LAND) and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and ha-adam became a living being. (Genesis 2:4a,7). 

Their holy stories are the foundation for their history as the chosen people of Adonai Elohim Melek ha-Olam, Lord God King of the Universe.

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OUR Christian story begins, “Very early on the morning of the first day of the week, while it was yet dark, the women came to Jesus’ tomb, and saw that the stone had been rolled away,” the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. From that magical morning in Jerusalem, storytellers fill out the story backward and forward to include Mark’s story of Jesus' baptism in the River Jordan when God tells Jesus, “You are my beloved Son” - - Christmas stories with Luke and Matthew’s nativity scenes, angels in the night sky, shepherds in the field, the babe in a manger, wise men, a bright, guiding star. 

And later, Gospel John with his intentionally Genesis-One-like story, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word WAS God” - - and ending with the story of our brutally murdered God being raised from the dead and returning to us, coming straight back to us because God loves us just as we are, the way we are, no matter how we treat God. And that's the gospel!

Different Bible writers tell The Stories differently, depending on their perspective, and their purpose in writing, and who they're writing to, and what they’ve heard and want to pass along. 

Some of the Resurrection stories -> -> -> for example, Paul saying there are mortal bodies and there are spiritual bodies, with the resurrection body being a spiritual body, and the Risen Christ as first-born of the dead heralding the general resurrection at the End of Days ->->-> are in tension with, for example, Gospel John's story today of the resurrected Jesus appearing, apparently spiritually, out of nowhere inside a locked room, to show the wounded hands and side of his mortal body. In the same scene in Luke, Jesus eats a piece of broiled fish, to prove he is not a ghost, he's real, as ghosts do not eat human food! 

In Gospel John's later post-resurrection story (John 21), Jesus appears on the beach, tells the disciples where to cast their net to catch fish (they don't recognize him, he's in his resurrection body). They catch 153 large fish and come ashore where Jesus has a charcoal fire going. Now maybe in a mortal body, he cooks them a breakfast of grilled fish, and has a conversation with Simon Peter (disgraced and ashamed because he denied Jesus): "Simon, do you love me?" Simon is forgiven, and so are you forgiven.

Mark, Matthew, and Luke are called “the synoptic gospels” because their stories are so similar: they see things “together” with the same “eye” - - “SYN (together) —OPTIC (eye, see).”  Matthew and Luke rely heavily, and often verbatim, on the Greek text of Mark, who had written twenty or so years earlier. The synoptics are earthy, mundane stories of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry, like that ancient Creation Story when the Immanent God comes down to earth, scoops up dirt from ha-aretz, The Land, forms humans: ha-adam, earthlings (that's us!).

Gospel John is different. Spiritual, more like the Seven-Day creation story at Genesis 1, when the Transcendent God IS, and MOVES, and SAYS, and the universe comes into being at God’s Word. Unlike the earthy synoptics, Gospel John begins his story with Jesus the Creating Word pre-existing in eternity with God and AS God.

UNLIKE the synoptics, who tell stories of HUMAN JESUS THE SON OF GOD doing healings and other miracles for the sheer lovingkindness of it, Gospel John has DIVINE JESUS GOD THE SON doing SIGNS that prove who and what he is. Their storytelling is quite different. 

EVEN though writing generations after Easter and the Ascension, Gospel John quotes Jesus verbatim in long discourses that are not seen elsewhere - - [?] A Bible student's first question is, "How did Gospel John know what Jesus said, and what Jesus prayed in private?" if you want to believe God literally dictated all that to Gospel John, fine, but that is NOT a teaching of the Episcopal Church; with us it's all up for study, contemplation, discussion, and being okay with The Mystery of Faith: more questions and doubt - - than answers and certitude. 

UNLIKE the synoptics, where Jesus is crucified on Passover, GOSPEL JOHN has Jesus crucified with the lambs, the day BEFORE Passover, when the lambs were slaughtered - - so, early on in his story, Gospel John, anticipating, retrospective, enticing, calls Jesus “the Lamb of God” [which Revelation John picks up as “the Lamb that was slain” in his Apocalypse]. 

GOSPEL JOHN alone reports Jesus referring to himself as I AM, the unutterable sacred Name of God, identifying himself as one with God the Father. To those who hear him, it's capital blasphemy.

ONLY in Gospel John is there the mysterious figure “the disciple Jesus loved” - - although you may encounter him again in a weird gospel called "Secret Mark," another story! 

UNLIKE MARK the first gospel who deliberately leaves us at the empty tomb in limbo, disarray, stunned, with the women fleeing and "not sayin’ nothin’ to nobody," because they are terrified - - years later, Gospel John, Matthew and Luke tell post-resurrection stories of Jesus appearing to his disciples ->

in today’s story, the risen Jesus shows up inside a locked room, sudden and unexpected; he’s alive! But there’s a puzzlement: is he spiritual or mortal? Thomas is not there and does not believe what the others tell him, because it’s impossible, dead is dead! A week later it happens again: this Time, Thomas IS there, and sees for himself, and finally Thomas can be μακάριοι, happy, which is THE KEY WORD in today’s story: μακάριοι

Gospel John wrote maybe between 90 and 125 AD, generations after Easter, for folks who are having trouble believing stories about a dead Messiah coming back to life. Gospel John’s point is that people who believe the disciples’ witness are happy in their salvation! Again, Gospel John’s NT Greek word is μακάριοι, which does not mean they are bless-ed, sanctified and holy; μακάριοι means they are happy in believing, conTENT, satisfied, at peace, to be envied because they’ve found their salvation. 

The story is for you, because you also have not seen. Unlike Doubting Thomas, you can be μακάριοι happy believing the stories the apostles have passed on, that Christ is risen. 

The Bible contains our holy stories. It’s the most fun book I’ve ever engaged. A once and sometime amateur astronomer, I, with the apostle Thomas, am Chief of Doubters, but faith is a decision for Christ, and I hang in there as a confessing, believing Christian, NOT for a free ticket to heaven when I die, but for this earthly life, because I need a leader, a teacher, a role model, a hero, an example, a master - - and Jesus is my man who shows and tells me how to live.

A God who has been here personally because he loves me just as I am, the way I am no matter what, is more to me than gazing out into the Universe with my telescope, and wondering, in all the vastness of interstellar space, “Who and What and Where is God?” and how can it be that the Lord God King of Creation, loves me, a human speck on this tiny speck we call Earth? Jesus is the answer: Jesus is Lord: μακάριοι - - HAPPY are those who have not seen, and yet come to believe. I am one of them, and I invite you to join me.

Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

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Sermon homiletic endeavor by the Rev Tom Weller in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida on April 7, 2024, the Second Sunday of Easter: Doubting Thomas Sunday.

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Clipart pinched on line.

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