I Doubt It
Sermon based on John 20: 19-31
During the season of Lent, Germantown Mennonite has been talking about fear, and what’s on the other side of it. We’ve identified corporately and personally those things that can stand in the way of relationship with God and each other.
But in order to get to the other side of the fear, we’ve had to wade into some difficult spiritual and emotional territory. We’ve had to walk through the muck of our fears to get a glimpse of what may be on the other side.
And we learned–at Easter last Sunday–that upon hearing that Jesus was alive at dawn on the first day of the week, the women disciple were “full of fear and great joy.” The fear was still there, but the joy was greater. The fear was still there, but the joy overshadowed the fear.
And then we get to today’s text. The story of Thomas, the “doubting disciple.” I do feel bad for Thomas, every year when we come to this text the week after Easter. The week after Easter, we’re still high from the joy of new life, and the hope of resurrection. And we get to Thomas and he feels like a…I don’t know…a downer.
Thomas, have a little faith, man! Jesus is alive! Let’s all sing the Hallelujah chorus!
But by the end of the first day of the week, the day that the women saw Jesus resurrected, and the grave empty, the disciples were back to being fearful. And with good cause. The people of Jerusalem were angry, convinced that the disciples were playing a trick on everyone with this resurrection thing. And they were out for blood. So, the disciples were back in the upper room, that same place where they shared their last meal with Jesus. They were hiding out, waiting for things to cool off. But Thomas was not there when Jesus came through the locked doors and breathed the peace of Christ on them.
So, when Thomas heard this news–that the rest of the disciples had seen and that the women saw early that morning– he couldn’t believe it. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hand and put my finger in the wound, I will not believe.”
Thanks for that powerfully visceral image, Thomas. Thanks to thomas, we have a whole bunch of classical images of Thomas putting his finger into Jesus’ fleshy wound on his side. And every year it makes me feel–for lack of a better word–icky.
The traditionally interpretation is that Thomas didn’t have enough faith because he demanded to see Jesus in the flesh, for insisting that he must put his finger into Jesus’ fresh wounds in order to believe. But, this is one of those very human moments in the gospel that I really relate to. I appreciate Thomas’ honesty, his true disbelief out there in the open for all to see.
The day I turned 18 my mom was diagnosed with colon cancer. A pretty awful entrance into adulthood, but we were all hopeful that she’d be fine. The first cancer diagnosis didn’t shake my faith–it was the recurrence six short months later, after she’d had surgery and a lot of chemotherapy.
My mom called me at work to tell me that the cancer came back. I was sad and angry. I was sad that my mom had to experience cancer and it’s treatments again, and I was furious that the almighty God would allow this.
I grew up in a pretty conservative church–the kind of place where questions, particularly questions about God, were not allowed. God is like this, and if you have questions or doubts about that, there’s the door.
So, when I expressed anger about my mom’s cancer and my doubts about God’s presence in that, it was really scary to my family. Doubt meant no faith. Doubt meant I was messing with the Lord of the Universe, and was just asking for it.
But, that’s not what was happening to me. I was demanding answers of God as Job did in the Hebrew scriptures, but it didn’t mean I didn’t have faith. It meant that we were having a conversation–an honest, angry, conversation–perhaps it was the first honest conversation God and I ever had.
My mom’s cancer didn’t kill my faith. After my mom’s death, my faith remained. My questions began a long conversation with God and I. And my questions and demands of God were probably the only thing that kept me going. In fact it was my questions that brought me .
Thomas was a faithful disciple, a disciple that understood Jesus more articulately than most of them in the story did. In fact, if you are following the lectionary for lent, you’ll remember the story a few weeks ago of Lazarus’ resurrection by Jesus. Thomas made an appearance in this story. When Jesus told the disciples that Lazarus has died, Thomas said, knowing the danger of their situation, “Let us go with Jesus, that we may die with him.”
Thomas understood that Jesus’ message was putting them at danger. He understood the risk. Thomas was a man of great faith, of great courage, a disciple that understood the risk of discipleship.
This is a disciple that had great faith in Jesus, but happened to be the only one to not see Jesus that terrifying evening after the resurrection. And his friends claims of resurrection was pretty outlandish–would we not also say to our friends, “I doubt it!” if they told us such a thing?! Probably!
And for Thomas, it took him a full week to come to beleive that Jesus was really alive. And that was when Jesus appeared to the disciples again in the upper room, showed Thomas his wounds, and invited Thomas to touch him. And all that time–in Thomas’ doubt–he remained with the disciples. Skeptical, but bound together by their love for Jesus, and their identity as disciples.
This move from Lent to Easter, from death to resurrection, fear to joy–it doesn’t happen in an instant. It can take a while for us to figure it out. We can have such high expectations for ourselves too–that with the resurrection, everything changed cosmically in an instant, and therefore our transformation should be instantaneous.
While Jesus changed everything in an instant, discipleship is a journey. We don’t arrive like Dr. Who in the Tardis, magically skipping the journey to get to the right spot. Our journey to understanding Jesus and his resurrection is a process that happens over time. And that journey is hardly a straight line. It is up and down hills, on smooth roads and rugged ones, in darkness and light, in sunshine, rain and snow. (This year, more snow than usual.)
But in this circuitous journey of discipleship, we are never alone. God is always with us. God’s people are walking with us, and God is guiding us.
I once asked my Episcopalian friend how he could recite the apostles creed every Sunday–”You can’t possibly believe all of that, can you?” Something any self-respecting Mennonite would say about a creed, right?
He said, “Goodness no! I don’t believe a lot of it! But the church does. And when I have difficult with believing in a part of it on a Sunday, I know the church believes it for me.”
And we do. We hold the faith when others can’t. We support each other through times of doubt, of fear and of anger–we support each other, not with judgement, but with love, because we’ve been there too.
Just a few days after Easter, where we’ve celebrated the certainty of Jesus’ resurrection, we gather today to express our doubts, to return to a moment where the fear feels larger than the hope, where the doubt feels greater than the joy. To wonder if things are really as we’ve been told. This is all a part of our faith journey.
Today, we can feel free to be a little more like Thomas, honest about our doubts, sincere about our disbelief. St. Thomas, the man who had doubts until he saw Jesus come into a locked room, saw his wounds and knew–like the other disciples–that it really was Jesus.
This same apostle–who had a time of doubt–went on to start the church in India. This apostle–who famously doubted the resurrection–declared Jesus to be his Lord and his God. And he went on to tell others about the risen Christ.
Let us enter into this season of Easter, a time of joy and celebration, holding our faith and doubts, sharing them on this journey of discipleship. Blessed are you, people of God, who are honest about the fear, but join with joy on this journey together. AMEN.