Becoming People of Faith Not Fear
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
John 20:19-31
20:19 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.”
20:20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
20:21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
20:22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
20:23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
20:24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
20:25 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.”
20:26 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.”
20:27 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.”
20:28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”
20:29 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.”
20:30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.
20:31 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.
Notes:
- Thomas is the questioner that lurks inside many Christians at one point or another—the one who wants and needs proof of God’s existence and God’s grace.
- The answers that are given are based on who Jesus is and not who Thomas or we are as doubters.
- The point of this story is that God comes to us and meets us wherever we are. Jesus doesn’t let locks block or thwart his love from making it to the one whose faith is faltering.
- When doubt drowns out hope, Jesus will come to meet us where we are, even if it is out on the ledge of disbelief and we are ready to jump.
- God is still coming through the walls and doors that hardship and challenging life circumstances have built up around our hearts.
- God still offers love and grace even when both seem like the most impossible and improbable thing—like someone rising from the dead and walking through closed and locked doors.
- Jesus walks right up to Thomas, yet the disciples still seem like they don’t know who he is and Thomas’s reaction is strange too—No reaction of amazement.
- Perhaps we don’t recognize Jesus either when he shows up in our lives. (Matthew 28: 16-20 – when they saw him, they worshipped, but some doubted and Luke 24: 36-39 he appears and invites people to look at his hands and feet. In their joy they are disbelieving and still wondering.)
- So how do we recognize him when doubt dims our capacity to see and identify him clearly? Jesus offers two clues. First, he speaks words that he had shared with them before, “Peace be with you,” and then he asks him to feel the wounds.
- When God comes to us, we will recognize God’s presence in times when peace is offered even in the wake of violence and brutality. Then we recognize Christ among us and we are not alone. Though we were once lost, we have now been found.
- This is all great, but it doesn’t end here. The temptation is to stay behind closed doors, as a church and as individuals.
- The disciples were hiding out for fear of the Jews—because of the treatment Jesus got or that they’d be accused of taking his body. Today, we might confess we are behind locked doors right now for fear of burglars, Covid, gun violence, car jackings, strained financial resources so you can’t go anywhere, climate change resulting in poor air quality and other environmental concerns. We lock ourselves away physically because of something. We also can be locked away mentally because of something. Fear of the future and the unknown.
- But Jesus prepares the disciples for what is to come by essentially recreating the work revealed in Genesis 2:7 (breath of life)—Jesus breaths the Holy Spirit into them RECREATING them not only as those who follow him which are disciples, but now as those who are sent—apostles.
- As missionary people laying claim to the promise and gift of Easter, we are given the power to bring peace into every sphere of our lives which extends throughout the breadth of the human experience. We don’t get to forgive sins, but we can bear witness to the identity of God and God’s grace revealed in Jesus.
- People will come to believe not by witnessing first-hand the visible signs and other experiences the disciples had, but rather through hearing of those signs in the scriptures and in our personal testimony of the peace in our own lives.
- Jesus lives, not just because he can walk through locked doors and show his wounds to frightened and huddled disciples, but because he continues to breathe new life into us, through the gift of the Spirit enabling us to become people of faith not fear. Amen.