April 27, 2014 Second 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 Jewish leaders, 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’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
  24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]), 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.”
   26 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!” 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 performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe[b] that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

 “Loved Into Believing”

 For John, believing in God and believing in the resurrection is all tied up with loving one another. It is not something we do in isolation, something we achieve by ourselves.
 It is something which happens to us when we obey his commands and do good to one another. Faith active in love increases faith so we can see what we could not see, believe what we could not believe, and know what we could never know - even the awesome truth of the resurrection.

 The near impossible task of self-forgetfulness, the unappetizing chore of loving one's neighbor as Jesus defined that person, has the qualities of a baptism by fire. Dostoevsky teats the problem of unbelief in a cruelly realistic, forthright way, as do the gospels themselves. In both cases, many of us wait for faith and wait some more for faith to transform us. We are the spiritually dead. but we can be resurrected by loving; we can recognize that we are called by love to love.” Alcyone Scott in Christian Century.

 “Shalom - Peace”

Peace or shalom does not mean the absence of struggle and pain;  it does mean the presence of love in our wounded, fearful hearts.

No one lives without fear; God embraces our fear with his presence and gives us a peace which passes human understanding.  We are loved in the place of our greatest weakness.
This is the perfect love which casts out fear and replaces it with peace.


 “Life In His Name”

The Easter message still rings in our ears; it brings a peace which passes human understanding;  a joy which cannot be taken away; ; forgiveness which is God’s healing grace at work in our lives; and a faith which dares to doubt yet believes.  A faith which risks life on the resurrection and believes what it cannot see.  A faith which hears and believes! Rom 10:17 “Faith comes from what is heard and what is heard comes by preaching Christ.”


Doubting Thomas

Be a doubting Thomas!  It is a part of healthy faith.

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

Be a doubting Thomas:
It will keep you honest and open to change; open to Gods will for your  life. It will keep you humble - you will not get so easily caught in the idolatry of certainty.

Faith will be a voyage of discovery, often disturbing, yet also fulfilling.
Doubt helps faith happen - it opens us to the miracle of faith happening in us.

For doubting is a part of believing.

We don't believe by our own reason or strength...we believe by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us. Our doubts lead us to faith. They keep us healthy - not too sure and thus blind.  Blind faith is not a healthy faith; it is a dangerous faith.

Quotes On Doubt:

 Frederick Buechner
 “Whether your faith is that there is a God, or that there is not a God,
 if you don't have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep.
 Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.”

 Alan Jones
“In a world where there is no room for doubt, ambiguity, or questioning, there is no room for genuine faith.”