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.

You may or may not know that in some parts of the Christian Church, this Sunday, the one after Easter, is officially dubbed Low Sunday. And believe me when I say, for ministers and worship leaders and organists, this can seem like a very apt description. Technically, this is meant to be the joyous continuation of the Easter Celebration, which continues for 50 days, until Pentecost, but in many churches, it can feel like Low Sunday. Many minister friends of mine take this Sunday off. Holy Week for John and I was just nuts, with music performances and many services and decorations to be done, and on Holy Saturday I was privileged to conduct Kent Crawford’s wedding, which was a lovely day, but after a week of singing, I sounded more like Charlton Heston than myself. Yes, to be in worship today can feel a bit like showing up at a birthday party after most of the guests are left and the food has been eaten and the remaining few report on what an amazing time you missed by coming late.

You know, we all missed Easter by a bit – just two thousand years or so. We have never lived at any other time than the time after the moment of Easter. For us, every Sunday is a Sunday after Easter. Sure, we can hear the accounts, but we were not really there; we did not see and touch and experience it for ourselves. We’re late to the party.

No one knew this better than John, the writer of the Gospel. Writing near the end of the first century CE, John addressed people who had never seen or heard Jesus in the flesh. Most of them had been born long after Jesus died, so the stories they heard became second or third-hand. There were some eyewitnesses still around, but they were getting on in years. A child who was six on that first Easter morning would have been closer to seventy by the time John wrote his gospel.

The problem John faced – and the problem we still face today – is how to encourage people in their faith when Jesus was no longer around to be seen or touched. And so we encounter this story of Thomas. By detailing this disciple’s doubt, John took the words right out of their mouths and put them in Thomas’ instead, so that each of us now has the opportunity to take a step back, and think about how we do, or do not, come to believe.

Let’s have a think about Thomas’ story. Thomas was not there the first time Jesus appeared to his disciples. He was the only one of the eleven who was not there, which tells you something about his character. Like Peter, Thomas distinguishes himself by saying things no one else had the guts or audacity to say. Just three weeks ago, when Jesus was bent on going to Lazarus’ home in Bethany, enemy territory, and everyone else was trying to talk him out of it, Thomas says, “let us also go, that we may die with him” When Jesus sat down at the table in the upper room, and told his friends not to be afraid, because they knew the way he was going, it was Thomas who said, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?”

Thomas was not, in other words, an automatic follower. He was a doubter in the best sense – he was a brave and literal-minded man who could be counted on to do the right thing, but only after he had convinced himself that it was the right thing. I wonder if you have known someone like that – someone whose refusal to go along with the crowd has more integrity to it than those who go along easily, even when going along with it is the right thing to do.

Those who were there that first Easter evening saw the risen Lord themselves. They were so convinced it was him afterwards that they told Thomas he could just take their word for it. Jesus was back, still wounded, but fully alive. And he had forgiven them – he who had every right to hunt them down and punish them for deserting him, chose not to say “shame on you”, but “peace be with you.” And with those words, he healed them. He gave them back their lives, and made them partners in the revival and reconciliation of the world.

“We have seen the Lord,” they told Thomas in perfect unison. By all rights, his response should have been, “all ten of you saw him at the same time? That’s good enough for me; I believe! What’s next?”

But we hear that that is not what he said. What he said was, “until I see, I will not believe,” which makes Thomas a model for all of us who want to see something for ourselves before we decide whether it is true or not. And who can blame him? Their friend rising from the dead? Is it even fathomable, let alone believable? Like you, I have heard some convincing stories about UFOs, ghosts, angels, magic, and even intelligent life forms on other planets – but so far I have not experienced any of them for myself. Until I do, they remain hearsay for me. I am not saying that they are not true. I am saying I do not know them to be true for myself. Unless I see, I will not believe.

John understood this attitude. Why else would he have elected to tell us about Thomas? Even Jesus understood this attitude. In one of his more generous moves, Jesus did not dismiss Thomas from the circle of disciples, for failing to trust what the others told him. No, Jesus made sure that Thomas was fully included, by coming back and repeating the whole scene a second time, for his benefit alone. In the end, no one who was there that night had to take anyone’s word for anything. They all saw for themselves, and believed.

But again, that would seem to leave us out – all of us who were not there, who will never lay eyes or hands on the concrete person of Jesus Christ. We are late to the Easter party by two thousand years. And yet, Jesus means to include us in too. Imagine Jesus speaking over Thomas’ shoulder right to the rest of us, and saying: “have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Who is he referring to? Us. Those of us who have never seen him in the flesh, who only have the testimony of others to rely on – people who were there back then, and who, though they are long gone, still beg us to take their word for what they are sure they saw. They knew they were privileged, that this world-changing event happened during their lifetimes. But they also knew it was up to them to keep it alive somehow, so that generations to follow could participate in the wonders they themselves had witnessed. And so we receive this Book.

Part of this book is a collation of all the stories those people could remember about Jesus, especially those in which he was most who he was. They wrote them down with all that power still in them, so that when they read them aloud to each other, they could feel their hearts beat faster and their palms sweat and their eyes tear up. In fact, they left plenty of the stories intact, even when they found them puzzling or troubling or offensive, because they knew those were the ones that stood the best chance of staying alive. Thousands of years later, we’re not able to leave such stories alone. We keep coming back to them over and over again, discovering some new fresh truth each time we do – which is the precise task of people like John and I.

If you are a lover of good books, then you know this is true. A great novel does not just tell you about something that happened once upon a time. It brings that time back to life, so you can enter it and walk around in it and experience it for yourself. When I finish Gone With The Wind, I feel lonely for days, missing Scarlett and Rhett and Melanie. When I finish Hawaii by James Mitchener, I feel as seasick as the sailor character, even while sitting in my chair. When I finish Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter, I find myself being much more grateful and optimistic, despite life circumstances. That is the power of word and language, and when the word concerns Jesus Christ, this power becomes the power of God.

This wonderful book is the message our ancestors rolled up and put in a bottle for us, because they wanted to us experience the person of Jesus – if not in the flesh, than in the Word. Reading what they set down for us many years ago, we are free to believe our ancestors or not. But one thing this morning’s story tells us is that seeing is not superior to hearing.

We as humans can trust either sense. One can come to believe either way, but where Jesus is concerned, only a precious few saw him in the flesh, either before or after his resurrection. Millions and millions more have discovered him not in the flesh but in these stories, which have a way of jumping off the page. These stories are more than historical narratives. Jesus is alive and still alive in them, with the power to make us weep and rejoice and hope and act. This is why we affirm that this book bears testament to the Word of God. The Living Word of God is our risen Lord and Saviour.

Can we put our finger on Jesus’ scarred hands? Can we put our hand on his side? No. But can hearing the story make us feel like we can? Yes, if we open ourselves to it. If we believe, because believing is all the Holy Spirit needs to bring us life, breathing on us the same way Jesus breathed on his disciples.

Think about it; this is the way most of us have come to believe. We did not see or touch; we were not there. But we heard. Someone told us the story in a way that invited us to say yes. We heard someone say something, and it spoke to us, as if calling us by name. There was a sermon or a Bible passage or a hymn or a prayer, and we heard. We heard, and then chose to respond. This is true even for those who have spent their entire lives attending church. And this is why we believe it is our joyful duty to make our children here our priority. It takes a village to raise a child; it takes a church to raise a Christian.

Yes, the living Word of God is alive, whether we choose to believe or not. How do we believe? By entering fully into it – by singing on Palm Sunday, eating on Maundy Thursday, fasting on Good Friday, dancing on Easter Sunday, being set on fire on Pentecost Sunday – in these and in a thousand other ways, to be part of Jesus’ risen life here on earth, so that the testimony goes on being heard, in generations to come. We have seen the Lord! In the flesh, no. In the story, perhaps, In our life together as the body of Christ? Absolutely. Amen.