Acts 2:42-47; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31; Psalm 118

April 23, 2017

Marvin Friedman-Hamm

 

Seeing and Believing

The Lord is risen…. He is risen indeed

The Lord is risen…. He is risen indeed.

This is our affirmation. This is our faith. That Jesus was crucified – and died – and then God made him alive again. Do you believe it?

Today’s Gospel reading is about Thomas – famously known now as “Doubting Thomas” – and about his coming to believe that Jesus is alive again. In John’s Gospel, there are a series of stories of how the risen Christ reveals himself to his inner circle of disciples. We heard them in the Gospel reading on Easter Sunday and again today. The stories are about the interplay of doubting and believing, of seeing and not seeing. The stories are about the different ways the disciples come to believe.

It begins with Mary Magdalene. “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb”. She didn’t know what to make of it, and she ran and told Peter and John. They raced to the tomb – and Peter went into the tomb and saw that Jesus was not there – only the linen wrappings were lying there. “Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first (that’s John) –  also went in – and he saw, and believed” Actually, John didn’t see. He did not see Jesus – he saw the tomb was empty – and he believed. He believed without seeing.

Then Peter and John went home, but Mary stayed back by the tomb, weeping. And Jesus appeared to her, and said “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Mary saw Jesus – but she did not recognize him. She thought he was the gardener. And he said to her, “Mary!” Mary saw – but that was not enough. Only when she heard Jesus did she recognize him, and believe he was alive again. And she went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”. Well, more accurately – I have heard him, and then I saw.

That same evening – still the same day – the disciples were gathered together, behind locked doors, because they were afraid. They had heard the testimony of Peter and John and Mary – but they were not sure what to make of it. They were still afraid. They were not sure what to believe. And Jesus came to them, and showed them his hands and his side. And it says – “Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord”. They had heard the testimony of the others, but they believed it when they saw with their own eyes.

Only Thomas was not there that evening. And the 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.” In a way he is just like the other disciples – they had heard the testimony of Peter and John and Mary – but that was not enough. They only believed when they saw Jesus – and Jesus showed them his hands and side. Thomas only asked for what they had been given – until then he could not believe. He did not leave the group, he did not run away, they did not push him away. He stayed among them – they with their belief, he with his doubt.

A week later, they were together again – and this time Thomas was there – and Jesus came again , and came to Thomas – with no rebuke, without judgement for his doubting. Only “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side”. And Thomas answered “My Lord and my God”.

So there was John, who believed ... without seeing.

There was Mary who believed ... when she heard.

There were the disciples, who believed ... when they saw.

And there was Thomas ... who would not believe ... without touching and seeing.

And Jesus came to each of them, and revealed himself to them in the way they could receive it. If you need to see to believe I am alive again, look, here I am. If seeing is not enough, hear my voice. If you need more, Touch me, put your fingers in my wounds.

And then Jesus says to Thomas – but he is really saying it to us – “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” The disciples had their doubts but they could see, hear, touch the risen Lord. We cannot. All we have is the witness of those disciples.

I’ll come back to that, but first a comment on the nature of doubt. The disciples doubted. Thomas doubted. We doubt. But maybe our doubt is different than Thomas’s. Because we are children of the Enlightenment, we live in the Scientific Age. The Enlightenment taught that questioning and skepticism is the path to truth. Do not accept truth on the authority of others, question everything. Try to understand it for yourself. This is the method of science. And there is a bias, in the Scientific Age, toward seeing only material reality. If you cannot touch it or see it, it does not exist. All of reality is understood in terms of the interaction of physical forces. Reality works by the rules of physics and biology, and we can understand these – or if we can’t understand them yet we will eventually if we keep questioning and exploring. There is no room for spiritual forces in the worldview of the Enlightenment. No room for miracles, no room for resurrections. And this is the worldview of our culture, its in the water, it’s the air we breathe. As children of the Enlightenment, how could we not doubt the resurrection?

For Thomas and the disciples, spiritual forces were very much a part of reality. Things happened not by the laws of nature and the interaction of physical forces – but by the will of God and spiritual powers. Miracles happened. Even resurrections happened. Just a week prior Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. So when Thomas doubted that Jesus was alive again, it was not because he believed that cell tissue dies after a few minutes of lack of oxygen, and that irreversible cell decomposition begins shortly thereafter. For Thomas, doubt had more to do with trust. He had trusted Jesus, he had been willing to give his life for Jesus. He had believed that Jesus had a special mission from God. When Jesus was killed, all that fell apart for him. His trust and hope were destroyed. He was disillusioned. He was shattered. When his friends told him Jesus was alive again, he needed more than their word to begin to trust and believe again. He needed to see, to touch, before he could dare to commit himself again.

Notice Thomas’s words to Jesus when he finally does see and touch him… “My Lord and my God”. Those are words of commitment, of loyalty and allegiance. Its not just that Thomas now believes Jesus is alive again, it’s that he can again give his life to Jesus.

For Thomas and the disciples, believing means more than affirming that “Christ is risen” It is more that an declaration that the resurrection happened, more than saying I believe this to be true. It includes that, but it is also a statement of allegiance. It is a statement of following. Jesus is alive again and I will follow wherever he leads me. And that’s what they did. After Jesus appears to the disciples – and they hear and see and touch and know that he is alive again – they are off  - telling everyone the Good News –  living as he taught them - following where he leads them.

There are very old writings that tell us that Thomas the Apostle – Doubting Thomas – preached the gospel and established churches in India, where he was killed – and there is still a church in a region of India that claims it was founded by him.

It’s not so much that the disciples believed in the resurrection, its that they lived the resurrection. They practiced the resurrection. Jesus was alive again – and he was alive in them. His Spirit filled them and enlivened them.

There is a quote I love from Clarence Jordan. Clarence Jordan is the founder of Koinonia Partners community in Georgia and he is author of “The Cotton Patch Gospels”. He says

The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his transformed disciples. The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship. Not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church.

We cannot see the risen Christ with our own eyes, or hear him, or touch him. We have to rely on the testimony of those who did see. But not just on their account of what they saw. That alone would probably not be enough to silence our questions or quell or doubts. Not just what they saw, but what they did. We can know that Jesus is alive again because he was alive in his disciples. From a handful of men and women cowering behind a locked door in Jerusalem came a fellowship of preachers and teachers and followers that spread through the known world establishing communities of caring and healing and forgiveness. That continues to this day.

I started with the question. “Do you believe in the resurrection?” I want to leave you with a better question, a more helpful question:  “Do you live the resurrection? Do you practice the resurrection?” “Is Jesus alive – in you?”

There is a wonderful hymn that captures what I want to say, better than I can say it myself.  I don’t know if we have sung it before, but if we haven’t, I think its time we did.

Page 278 in the Hymnal. “Christ is Alive. Let Christians Sing”. The writer is Brian Wren, its written in 1968. It was written as a response to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. In the face of death, this is a cry of hope and an affirmation of the power of love.