April 7, 2013 2nd Sunday of Easter

John 20:19-31

19 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!" 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
    21 Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."
 24 Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 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."
    26A 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!" 27 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."
    28 Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
    29 Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
    30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may[a] believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Two themes come on loud and strong in this text.  Doubting Thomas and
forgiveness.

We don’t get very far into the Easter season before we run into Thomas -doubting Thomas.

He is the one who grounds the resurrection in the physical appearance of Jesus.
He is, as one person put it, “...a pioneer of the faith through whose persistency we are given a message of grace and joy.”
He is also the one who reminds us that doubt is a part of faith.  It is often on the growing edge of faith.

As Luther said, “There is more faith in honest doubt then in all the creeds of Christendom.”

What we say we doubt may well be what we most want to believe.
What we say we believe may be the very thing which keeps us from seeing the greatest glory of God.
It is no sin to doubt.  Our doubts not only keep us honest and humble, they also are openings for God’s spirit to touch our lives.

Our doubts open us to believe what is too good to be true, and confess with Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”


We also don’t get very far into this text before running into forgiveness.

The goal of faith is forgiveness - always!

“It is hard for us to realize, but actually the only requirement the loving Father places on us, is that we forgive as we have been forgiven. “  p. 68, The Other Side Of Silence, Kelsey

Forgiveness was at the heart of all that Jesus said and did.  Our sin is not that we forgive too much.  Our sin is that we don’t forgive enough!

Christianity is the only major religion that places such a high value on forgiveness.
We are not to settle for letting people rot in their sins; we are to work towards the liberation of forgiveness which makes them and us alive again in a new and different way.


“Believing Is Seeing”

Doubting Thomas is with us as one of us.
It is hard to believe what I cannot ‘see’.
It is hard to accept as true what I cannot prove.

Even our beliefs keep us from seeing - seeing what we don’t want to see or believe.
Yet our beliefs are meant to open life up.  To do this they must be beyond our control.
The truth is, we see what we believe.

To believe in the resurrection is to see beyond human understanding, discovering new horizons and becoming new people.  It leads us where we never wanted to go and opens up truths we never dreamed possible.  It is resurrection living!

Cellar in Cologne Germany after WWII - these words were found on the wall:
“I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining.
 I believe in Love even when I feel it not.
 I believe in God, even when He is silent.”