E-mail: lowell“at”revlowell.com

  Date:      Second Sunday of Easter

Texts:

Acts 4:32-35

Psalm 133

1 John 1:1-2:2

John 20:19-31

  Theme:      Jesus offers his peace to those whom he sends.

  Subject:      peace, faith, doubt, Holy Spirit

Title:

Peace for a Doubting Thomas

Tip:  The  following sermon integrates music, Scripture reading, and message  into  a single presentation.   If  possible, the Scripture text should be  read by  someone  other than the preacher.

[Choir or Congregation: COME, THOU LONG-EXPECTED JESUS

Come, Thou long-expected Jesus, Born to set Thy people free;

From our fears and sins release us; Let us find our rest in

Thee.                                                 Israel’s strength and consolation, Hope of all the earth Thou art;

  Dear Desire of every nation, Joy of every longing heart.

·       Charles Wesley]

1.   The Peace of His Injured Humanity

On  the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors

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 side. The  disciples were overjoyed  when  they

saw the Lord.  

A  group  of senior citizens at a retirement home was having a great  time  discussing

their  various aches, pains, and ills.  One had arthritis; another indigestion (or was it  an

ulcer?); a third complained about insomnia.  And on and on it went.  Finally an 85-year-

old  man said: “Think of it this way, my friends.  It just proves that old age isn’t  for  sis-

sies!”

And being a Christian isn’t for sissies either!

Frightened and  confused,  the followers of  Jesus  huddled together  behind  locked

doors.  They  hadn’t  been sleeping well.  The horrors of Jesus  betrayal, arrest,  torture,

and execution  were  too immediate  and real for  them.  The  incredible  reports of  an

empty tomb  and  of Mary  Magdalene’s vision or  hallucination  added  to  their inner

turmoil. “Could it be true?” they wondered. “Could it possibly be true?”  Could Jesus be

alive?  Or is it all a trick to bring us out into the open so the authorities can arrest us and

murder us as well.”

“Shalom,” said Jesus. Shalom—the most common greeting in Palestine then and now.

Three times  during  his brief visit to his fearful disciples,  Jesus  says “Shalom.”   He

wouldn’t have  repeated  it if they had gotten the message the first  time.   He  wouldn’t have  offered peace to his friends if they already had it.  Peace is a slippery  commodity. No  matter  how tenaciously  one  clings to it, it always slips  away.  Yet  it  is  infinitely renewable—if one knows how to find it.

What  is  God’s Shalom?  What is the “peace of God” of which we often speak  and for which we frequently pray? Shalom means hello and goodbye and so much more.  In the Old Testament,  shalom  is wholeness or well being.  To have peace  is  to  have security and  prosperity.   To have  peace is to live in a land committed  to  justice.   Peace  exists between  people or between people and God.  The idea of peace as individual harmony with God or inner spiritual tranquility is alien to the Old Testament.  In  the  New Testament, peace is the absence of strife or conflict.  Peace  is  associated not with prosperity and security but with righteousness, grace, mercy, joy, love, and life itself.  Without such spiritual endowments there is no peace.  Without peace, no spiritu-al endowments.

Peace  is  God’s gift  to  humanity. Through the sacrifice of his  son,  he has  broken down the wall of separation between heaven and earth.  In Jesus the Christ, God is with us  and for us.  We are a forgiven, restored people and, in consequence, a forgiving and restoring people.

God’s gift  of  peace is the very heart of the Easter message.  The world is  a place  of trial  and tribulation, of suffering and dying.  On Planet Earth it is always Good  Friday. Yet  in  the midst of death,  we are renewed.  In the crushing coils of  mortality,   we  are daily born anew.  The God of hope and the hope of God fill us with peace.  At the  heart of the blackness is a light so bright and penetrating that it cannot be hidden.  In  us  and between us, it is always Easter Sunday.  Alleluia!

“Shalom,”  he said, the first time, and showed them his hands and side.  Here was the resurrected,  glorified  Christ, but his body still bore the wounds of  Good  Friday.  His body will always bear those wounds. 

God knows.  God understands.  God stands with us.

The body of his son is scarred.

And by those scars we are healed.  We are made whole.  We receive courage and joy.

[Choir:

SO SEND I YOU

stanzas 1 & 2

So send I you - to labor unrewarded, To serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown, To bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and scoffing - So send I you, to toil for Me alone.

So send I you - to bind the bruised and broken, O’er wandering souls to work, to weep, to wake, To bear the burdens of a world aweary - So send I you, to suffer for My sake.

. . . .”As the Father hath sent Me, So send I you.”

·       John W. Peterson]

2.   The Peace of the Spirit

Again  Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me,  I am sending  you.”    And with that  he  breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy  Spirit.   If  you  forgive anyone  his sins, they are forgiven; if you do  not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” “Shalom,” he said the second time and told them both to “go” and to “receive.”

This shalom means “Pack now!  Get ready to go!  I am sending you.”

This shalom also means “Pack right!  Go well equipped!”  He gave them the Spirit. And this shalom means “Pack light! Get rid of the excess baggage!” Having the  Spirit is simple.  Being spiritual is being forgiven by God and returning the favor by forgiving others.

Is  that  too simple?   Would you prefer supernatural  endowments like  speaking  in tongues or the power to work miracles or the strength of Samson or the ability  to  raise the dead?  John lets Jesus cut to the chase.  Being spiritual is saying “thank you” to  God, accepting your acceptance.  Being spiritual means reaching out to others in the power of that acceptance.  Being spiritual means being welcoming and accepting to others.  He  breathed on  them.  They each took a deep breath of their own.   Join  them  now.  Take a deep breath.  As they exhaled, they imagined that all the fear, uncertainty, guilt, and  tension  of the past days flowed down and out of them like water into  the  ground. They  inhaled  and felt  new strength, vigor, and vitality  flow  into  their  bodies.  They exhaled  again,  letting go of all their anger and hostility—toward one  another,  toward the cruelty of life and fate, toward those who did not meet their expectations.   They  let go of  disappointment  and frustrations.  Let them pour out down their limbs,  into  the floor, into oblivion.  They drew another breath, and as they did they felt God’s  forgive-ness, God’s peace uniting them with him, with one another. They felt safe and secure in God’s embrace and reached out to enfold one another in a circle of reunion.

[Choir:

BREATHE ON ME

Holy Spirit, breathe on me, Until my heart is clean;

Let sunshine fill its inmost part, With not a cloud between.

REFRAIN: Breathe on me, breathe on me,

Holy Spirit, breathe on me,

Take Thou my heart, cleanse every part, Holy Spirit, breathe on me.

Holy Spirit, breathe on me, My stubborn will subdue;

Teach me in words of living flame What Christ would have me do.

Holy Spirit, breathe on me, Fill me with power divine;

Kindle a flame of love and zeal Within this heart of mine.

Holy Spirit, breathe on me, Till I am all Thine own, Until my will is lost in Thine, To live for Thee alone.]

3.   The Peace of Not Getting What You Want But Getting What You Need

Now Thomas  (called  Didymus) one of the Twelve, was not with the   disciples  when Jesus came.   So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But  he  said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands  and put my finger  where  the nails were, and put my hand into  his side, I will not believe it.”  

A  week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas  was with them.  Though  the

doors were  locked, Jesus came and  stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”    Then  he

said  to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it into  my side.  Stop doubting and  believe.”  

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”  

Then Jesus  told  him, “Because you have seen me, you have  believed; blessed  are those  who have not seen and yet have  believed.”  

Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his  disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of  God, and that by believing you may have life  in his name.

“Shalom,” he said a third time and told them and us to stop doubting and to trust.  The  New Testament  story of Thomas, as brief as it is, is a story  of  courage, loyalty, and  limitation.   When Jesus told his disciples of his determination to  go  to Jerusalem, they  protested that such a move could cost him his life (11:8). It was Thomas  who  de-clared, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (11:16).  When Jesus predicted that he would  go ahead of them to his Father’s house and there prepare places for them, it  was Thomas  who  objected, “Lord,  we don’t know where you are  going,  so   how  can we know  the  way?” (14:1,5)  And now in this locked room, Thomas  speaks  again, speaks the words that will forever brand him as “Doubting Thomas”: “Unless I see . . .  I will not believe.”

What  an  injustice history  has  done this brave, honest man.   John tells  us  that his nickname  was  “the Twin.”   If  he is anyone’s twin,  he  is yours  and  mine.  Call  him Frightened Thomas.  Call him Confused Thomas.  Call him Practical Thomas.  Call  him Seeking Thomas.  We should have no difficulty identifying with his fear, his confusion, his struggle.

He  needed neither more nor less than any of us. He did not need  theological  argu-mentation or air tight evidence.  He needed the presence of the living Christ.  I  recently  read  a report  of a dialogue between a  man whose  life  had been  trans-formed by his faith and a skeptical friend:

“So you have been converted to Christ?”

“Yes.”

“Then you must know a great deal about Christ?  Tell me, what country was he  born in?”

“I don’t know.”

“What was his age when he died?”

“I don’t know.”

“How many sermons did he preach?”

“I don’t know.”

“You certainly know very little for a man who claims to be converted to Christ!” “You are  right.   I am ashamed at how little I know about him.  But  this  much I  do know:  Three years ago I was a drunkard.  I was in debt.  My family was falling to piec-es.  My wife and children would dread my return home every evening. But now I  have given up drink; we are out of debt; ours is now a happy home. All this Christ has  done for me.  This much I know of him.”

The  point of the story of Thomas’ doubt is simple: Believing is seeing.  That is not so strange.   It  is a  teacher’s  belief in a student that transforms  a mediocre  pupil  into a scholar,  a  “discipline problem”  into  a self-respecting  individual.   It  is that  student’s belief  in his or her own specialness that works the magic of transformation --  that  con-tinues to  work  the magic for years and years to come.  Because Mr.  Johnson  (or Miss Jones)  believed  in me, I found that I could believe in myself.   The  hard-hearted, hard-nosed, bottom-line-watching  world  says,  “Seeing is believing.”  But  the  heart knows better.  It knows “Believing is seeing.”

Thomas wanted what you and I want.  He wanted love that was there for him --  love irresistibly and undeniably his.  The risen Christ never reproved Thomas for his doubts.  Doubts  are usually  just  excuses anyway.   Some  doubts are  rationalizations  for not making  commitments  or for not honoring commitments.  Other doubts arise  from  our unwillingness  to  let go of the unsatisfactory religion of our childhood.   We think  that we  have successfully rebelled and left the authoritarian repressions of Mom and Dad’s faith  behind.   But we have no more successfully divorced ourselves  from  yesterday’s dogmas and doctrines than we have from Mom and Dad themselves. Yesterday’s  reli-gion clatters and chatters in our consciousness until we courageously face it.  “I will not believe unless . . . “ declared Thomas.  Jesus paid no attention  to Thomas’ mental reservations.   He  ignored Thomas’ need to  work  out Thomas’  own  infantile faith.   Jesus  offered  Thomas what Thomas really needed—himself.  It is  the courage  to risk intimacy that silences doubt.  It is the giving and accepting of love that settle the demand for certainty.

In  the  words of Jewish novelist Isaac Bashevis Singer: “Doubt is part  of  all religion.  All  the religious thinkers were doubters.”  Casanova recognized, “Doubt begins only  at the last  frontiers of what is possible.”  Einstein felt that while certainty is of  value,  “the important  thing  is not to stop questioning.”  Wilson Mizner observed,  “I respect  faith, but  doubt is what gives you an education.” And Francis Bacon echoed, “If a  man  will begin  with  certainties,  he  will  end in doubts; but if he will  be content  to  begin with doubts,  he  will end  in certainties.”  And, finally, the  most  profound  word about  the triumph  of courage  over  doubt was spoken by Thomas Carlyle:  “If  you are  ever  in doubt as to whether or not you should kiss a pretty girl, always give her the benefit  of the doubt.”

Doubting Thomas  began  with doubts and ended in certainties.  If  life  had been  a pretty girl, he would not only have kissed her, he would have proposed marriage.  Thomas had insisted that God meet his expectations.  He learned that God is at large. 

God is free and full of surprises.  God is on the loose.  Alleluia!

[Choir or Congregation:

Born Thy people to deliver, Born a Child, and yet a King, Born to reign in us forever, Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.  By Thine own eternal Spirit Rule in all our hearts alone;

By Thine all-sufficient merit, Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

--Charles Wesley]

--LDS

[23 minutes with music]