Life in His Name

Sunday, April 3rd, 2005
Easter 2
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton, VA
John 20:19-31

19 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.’ 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ 24But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So 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.’ 26 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.’ 27Then 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.’ 28Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ 29Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’ 30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31But 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.

I’ve often wondered what Thomas’ voice sounded like when he uttered that ultimatum.

More often than not, the words have been spoken in a sarcastic ‘yeah, RIGHT - I wasn’t born yesterday’ jaded tone.

But as I read over the passage again in preparation for this morning, I thought that perhaps his was in an altogether different tone.

Imagine yourself hoping against hope for a reality that cannot objectively become fact, a hope on which you have built your life, a hope born out of three years of living, and eating, walking and talking with and learning from the most amazing man you’ve ever known; Jesus of Nazareth. And not just a man, but you’ve almost come to believe him to be the Messiah, the Son of God.

You’ve seen him heal the sick, silence the storm, cast out demons, cast out the money changers and call the priests and rulers to task for making the desecration of the temple possible, and you’ve seen him raise the four-days dead Lazarus.

But you have also seen him arrested, beaten beyond recognition, and finally crucified. And you’ve gotten the report that he had died.

You’ve only gotten the report because, in that darkest hour of your life, you ran and hid. You didn’t want to end up on the cross like him, with him. You’d heard Peter vow that he would die first, before he would betray the Lord, and just a few hours later you heard the betrayal from that same mouth.

And now, on the third day from that hellish event, everyone is telling you that they’ve seen him – in PERSON, and you dare not believe it.

You don’t dare because if you do and it is NOT true, you have only set yourself up to plunge again into the pit of despair from which you so desperately want to climb, but in the face of unending hate and violence, and callousness, you find yourself completely overwhelmed.

In the last 72 hours, your world has become a place devoid of truth, devoid of grace, and devoid of hope. You’ve been confronted with a world that rolls over dreams and visions and faith as indifferently as a wave crashes over a grain of sand on the beach.

You are angry. How can they play with that which has become so sacred to you??!! How can they so blithely prattle on about having seen him when everyone who was there saw him die? And though he may have been able to raise someone else from the dead, how could he act to raise himself from the dead when there was no breath left in his body?

What he did, what he said, what he taught, none of it belonged in the world after all, even though he tried. YOU tried. You really did. After he sent you out, along with the other disciples, to cast out demons and heal the sick in his name, you watched it happen with your own eyes. You couldn’t believe it at first, but it kept on happening. And when you came back together, you compared notes with the others, and they told of the same thing happening to them.

And so, hope was born.

Against all odds, against what your logic told you, you began to believe. It was tiny at first. No bigger than that mustard seed he’d mentioned. If you hadn’t known what you were looking for, you would have missed it.

And the seed grew, just like he said it would, into that huge bush.

And it started taking root in you, and reaching its branches all through you.

Into that place where you were thinking “It’ll never work HERE,”

And there, where you couldn’t help but wonder “what world is he living in?”

And over there, in that far corner, where that hissing, slithery whisper was telling you “perhapsss, but YOU could never measure up to THAT.”

And the roots and the branches were pushing those voices out. You found yourself smiling a little more often, believing a little more deeply, questioning a little less frequently. And the world started to seem like a different place. It seemed like there was something new happening in the world, something magnificent, and magnificently different.

Then, in a night and a day, the hope was dashed to pieces. It was beaten and crucified and died just as surely as Jesus was. And you heard that slithery voice inside say “see, I TOLD you so.” And as much as you hated it, you found yourself agreeing, realizing that a part of you always held back, always reserved judgment, always sat back and just watched.

And now, your hearing that he’s back, “We have seen the Lord!”

And your heart starts beating faster and faster, and you can’t catch your breathe and your mind is trying to wrap itself around the news and then you can almost HEAR the fist slam down in your head.

“NO!” It can’t be true. It’s too good, too good to be true. And like they say, if something is too good to be true, then it most likely ISN’T. And you’re thinking,

“DON’T MESS WITH MY HOPE. I ALREADY LAID IT TO REST, AND IT IS TOO PAINFUL TO TRY TO RESURRECT IT ONLY TO HAVE IT DIE AGAIN. I CAN’T KEEP MOVING THAT STONE BACK AND FORTH”

And the words spill out of you in a furious torrent:

‘"UNLESS I SEE THE MARK OF THE NAILS IN HIS HANDS, AND PUT MY FINGER IN TH E MARK OF THE NAILS AND MY HAND IN HIS SIDE, I WILL NOT BELIEVE!!"

You see, the voice that is crying out of you is the voice that did not want to give up hope, but is finding it so hard to FIND, it is setting itself an impossible barrier to cross – the barrier of the tomb, the one that was sealed with that stone, the one that is separating you from Jesus.

And then it’s a week later, but it feels like an instant, and just like that, he’s there, in front of you, plain as day, but different. The door was closed, but he is THERE. And his first words are: “Peace be with you. Shalom.”

Then, “Okay, here’s what you asked for. Here’re my hands. Here’s my side. Go for it. TRY ME.”

And your heart slows, and you breathe deeply, and the air seems purer, and the light seems brighter.

“My Lord and my God.”

And like he always did, he snaps it into perspective. “Do you believe because you see me? Was your hope born of what you see, or was it born from what you now understand to be the endless possibilities for life in my name, what you know can happen but which you CAN’T see?

Let’s pray.