Remembering the Past...
        Planning the Future

    Park Christian Church
                                                                    (Disciples of Christ)

April 19, 2009

Scripture:         John 20:19-31

Sermon:           “Grasping the Resurrection”

            I do love this story about ‘ole Doubting Thomas.  And it makes its way to us about this time every year.  Easter is over.  The church isn’t quite as full as it was.  We’re all taking it a little bit easier.  And then there’s Thomas who, one week after the resurrection, still didn’t believe that Jesus was risen from the dead.

            He hadn’t seen it for himself, you know.  Had to see it to believe it.  And we have given him the name of Doubting Thomas because of that.

            Do you think that makes us feel better for all of our doubts when it comes to faith?  Like, maybe, Doubting Thomas was the doubter exemplar of all time?  Our doubts might not be so bad?

            See, I kind of think we might be projecting some of our own stuff onto poor ‘ole Thomas.  If you want to know the truth, I don’t think anybody has ever truly believed that Jesus was risen from the dead.  Not without seeing it with their own eyes, or experiencing it somehow in their own lives.  Only in those experiences do I think any of us ever truly believe.

            Maybe that’s what this story is ultimately all about.  Let’s hear it again.  In the 20^th chapter of John’s gospel, there in verses 19 through 31.  It’s on page   of the New Testament in the pew Bible if you like.

            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.

            There were several big moments that we shared together last week.  Susan Lawrence has a young relative that was being baptized last Sunday.  And we celebrated that in our prayer time together.  And, of course, Alison Nash came forward at the end of the worship service last week, too.  She came forward and made her confession of faith in Jesus Christ.  And that is always such a powerful moment for me.

            My own niece, Ansley, was baptized last Sunday down in Georgia.  She just turned 10 years old, two days before her baptism.  I think she’s one of a kind and I’m so very proud of her.  Ansley’s been kind of exploring who she is, you know.  So, she’s tried her hand at music, sports, arts.  And while she’s pretty good at whatever she sets out to do, few things have really clicked with her.

            Recently, my niece wanted to give gymnastics a try.  So, she signed up for gymnastics.  Tumbling.  Turning cartwheels.  Doing things that few people besides young girls can possible do physically.  And she’s somewhat of a daredevil.  Gymnastics would probably suit her just fine.

            But, what actually caught on was not the gymnastics so much.  Instead, Ansley heard some sort of commotion down the hall from her own class and went to check it out.  She got to another room down the hall where there was a group of girls, mostly with Down’s Syndrome, learning how to be gymnasts.  And before her mom could get there to pick her up, Ansley was headlong into helping these other kids do their thing.

            Now, the girl is ten years old.  And at the mature age of ten, Ansley decided that she’d found something to really get involved with and give herself to.  Just this past weekend, she served as a helper at a Special Olympics event.  There she was, helping these other gymnasts out, cheering them on, supporting them however she could.

            My sister wrote to me afterward.  Of her daughter she wrote:  “You should have seen her with the Special Olympics girls—my heart nearly burst with pride and joy.”  I got a little choked up myself reading that.

            But, it’s what she wrote next that really got me.  She said, “I told [my husband] that our time watching these girls this morning was more ‘church’ than anything I have experienced in a very long time.”

            Did you hear that?  Watching her daughter help out with Special Olympics was more “church” than she’d experienced in a very long time.

            It is a much more powerful thing than words alone to actually witness the gospel in action.  When you see, or when you, yourself, actually participate in acts of compassion and generosity, there are few preachers of the word that can compete with what you are saying in your actions.

            Maybe that is what ‘ole St. Francis had in mind when he said, “Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.”

            You’ve heard that before?  Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.  Your life can be a powerful witness to God’s grace.  Very powerful.  The kind of powerful that’ll make folks say things like “that’s more ‘church’ than anything I’ve ever experienced.”

            Consider Thomas—you know, Doubting Thomas.  Where he got off to on that first Easter day is anybody’s guess.  But, he wasn’t there when Jesus showed up, resurrected from the grave.  He wasn’t there.  Don’t know where he went.  But, all the others were locked up in a room, hiding from folks they thought might come and kill them, too.  Thomas was gone.

            The all saw it with their own eyes.  Right there in the midst of them—Jesus came.  He stood right there among them, three days after the nightmare of the cross.  “Peace be with you.”  So, believing in this strange rumor of an empty tomb was suddenly not so strange to them.

            Where was Thomas, anyway?

            By the time these fellows caught up with him, Jesus had gone again.  And they couldn’t convince him that the Lord was alive.  He wasn’t there.  He didn’t see it.  And who’s going to believe something like that—even if the man had said a few times that it was going to happen?  Thomas said, “Come on, guys.  It’s over.  Give it up, already.  We’ve been chasing after a dream.  Don’t tell me about Jesus being alive again.  You’re just holding on to a mistake.”

            He said, and you can get a sense of the sarcasm here, “Unless I see the scars of that brutal cross…unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and rub my finger across it…I tell you what, until I feel the wound in his side where that coldhearted soldier pierced him with a spear, then you can talk to me about Jesus being alive.  I’m not hearing any of it.”

            To all of those protests, of course, Jesus gave his own answer.  A week passed when Thomas was with the rest of them and Jesus appeared again.

            Now, that’s a long time, isn’t it?  A whole week went by and Thomas is just sitting with those doubts and questions inside of him all that time.  You ever have a test with your doctor and have to wait a few days for the results?  I mean, that’s the kind of stuff we’re talking about.  Just stewing over it for seven whole days.  I’ve know folks to about lose their minds over something like that.

            But, he got his answer.  Jesus said, “Go ahead, Thomas.  Feel the scars.  Touch them if you need to.  Don’t doubt but believe!”

            Do you think that it’s possible for us to talk and talk and talk about faith and wind up missing the point sometimes?  I mean, is it possible that Thomas isn’t very much unlike most folks?  The other disciples didn’t seem to believe in the resurrection until they saw it, either.  Why is Thomas the “doubter”?  Seems like most of us have a pretty good idea of why Thomas would act the way he did.

            But, if you experience the gospel…now there’s something.  If you experience this risen Jesus somehow, well that’s something completely different than simply hearing about it all.  You can tell the old, old story all the day long.  But, if you demonstrate it, well, you might just get somewhere.

            I think that’s what my niece has gone and done.  She’s made this good news real somehow.  I don’t even think she had it in mind that her own mother might need to experience it again.  But, that happened.  She said, “It’s more church than I’ve experienced in a very long time.”

            It very well might be that there isn’t a single person to ever have faith that came across it just because of what they were told.  Resurrection, you know, is not how the world tends to operate.  Good Friday is our more accepted pattern for the world.  Isn’t it?  You talk about resurrection and it doesn’t make a great deal of sense.  Folks can’t grasp resurrection.

            Folks can’t grasp resurrection.  I’ll say it again.  That is they can’t grasp resurrection until they happen to experience it for themselves.  And I’m willing to bet that it’s true for you, too.  You learned all about faith in church, maybe.  Sunday School, perhaps.  A preacher here or there.  But, it’s what those folks actually did, the way they loved you, accepted you, gave themselves to you—that’s what allowed you to grasp that resurrection is real.

            It very well might be that the whole world is asking to see the scars of the cross for themselves.  And until the body of Christ can demonstrate—that’s you and me, by the way, the body of Christ—until they see those scars transformed in our own lives, we might be drowning out our own voices.

            But, I’ll tell you.  You show them the resurrected Christ.  Let them experience something of grace, compassion, love—and suddenly grasping what we dare not even dream of becomes completely possible.  Of course Jesus is risen from the dead!  Look at how his disciples are going about trying to heal a broken and dying world.

Rev. David James Brown

Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)