Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Amen.

           Text: St. John 20:19-31, but especially these words –

 Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. When the other disciples told him that they had seen the Lord, he declared, “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…Jesus came and stood among them and…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.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dear Friends in Christ Jesus:

Often a person finds it hardest to believe that which he most eagerly wants to believe. If you care a lot about someone or something, doubts may suddenly enter your mind. Who is more tormented than the one who says – “It can’t be possible that she loves me. How could she ever love a person like me?” You see, he is allowing his doubts to overwhelm the fact that a person could indeed actually love him. Or a mother whose son is reported safe following combat, when she’s told he is returning home, suddenly says – “I simply can’t believe it until I hold him in my arms.” Her doubt has to be proved before she can really believe. Doubt and faith do belong together. The text for today shows us how they do belong together, not only in Thomas’ life, but also in our lives. 

It was that way with Thomas. He doubted before he had faith. However, his doubt had not destroyed his faith. It simply drove him to reaffirm the faith that was such an important part of his life. But he had to struggle. To Thomas, the cross was only what he had expected all along. Thomas never lacked courage. But in so many ways he was a natural pessimist. There can never be any doubt that Thomas loved Jesus. He loved Him enough to go to Jerusalem, even when the other disciples had been hesitant and afraid.

What Thomas had expected really happened. Christ had died and Thomas was broken-hearted. So broken-hearted, in fact, that he didn’t want to be with the other disciples – therefore, he went away. Thomas wanted to face his suffering and sorrow alone. And so it happened that when Jesus did return to the disciples following the resurrection, Thomas wasn’t there. To him, the news that Christ had come back to life seemed too good to be true and he refused to believe. Thomas became angry in his pessimism. He said he would never believe that Christ had risen from the dead until he had seen and handled the prints of the nails in Jesus’ hand and put his own hand into the wound that the spear had made in His side.

Thomas’ doubt began to smother his faith. In his aloneness, his doubt was turning him bitter. Another week passed and Jesus came to His disciples again. But this time Thomas was there. Maybe he was starting to come out of his grief a little. Maybe he began to realize that the place to find an answer to doubt – wasn’t holding up within himself, but rather, to be with other people. Jesus knew Thomas. He repeated Thomas’ own words and then invited him to make the test that he had demanded. Thomas’ heart must have broken at the same time that it rejoiced. He fell down on his knees in love and devotion, and all that he could say was – “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him – “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

 Jesus was really saying to Thomas – “Look, you’ve been looking in the wrong places. You’ve had all kinds of doubts. But when you’ve had those doubts, you should have kept looking and then you could have believed. Thomas, everything in life can’t be seen. We have to believe. Seeing is not believing.”

The tragedy of Thomas wasn’t found in his lack of love or faithfulness. The tragedy for this man was that for eight days he lived in the anguish of uncertainty and doubt. The reason he failed to have his Easter hopes realized was simply that he was looking in the wrong place. He was looking in the place other than the place where

Jesus was. The disciples were all together, but Thomas wasn’t with them. He was alone.

In the battle for understanding between doubt and faith, one of the greatest things that we can learn from Thomas is that we can never find the answers if we’re alone. Rather, we can only find the answers of faith in fellowship. This was the one big mistake Thomas made. He withdrew from the fellowship of the other disciples. He looked for loneliness rather than togetherness and because he wasn’t there with his fellow disciples, he missed the Christ.

We also miss a great deal when we separate ourselves from our Christian fellowship. Things can happen to us within the fellowship of Christ’s church – that could never happen to us when we’re alone. When Jesus spoke a word of peace to His disciples and gave them His Spirit upon them, it gave them the power to forgive sins and to find forgiveness. It gave them an understanding of what it meant to be together as fellow believers, and to seek, to search, to console, and to sorrow with one another, as well as to rejoice with each other.

On this Second Sunday Of Easter, the question I suppose almost every pastor asks is – “Where are all the people who were here on Easter Sunday? Why would they come to proclaim the Lord’s resurrection with all of its power, and the confession of faith that He lives and rules in each and every life, and then this Sunday, just seven days later, not be here.” At least when Thomas missed the Lord the first time, he discovered that he couldn’t find Christ alone, if he was going to stay away and feel sorry for himself. He wouldn’t discover the meaning of his faith, if he stayed alone. The second time Christ appeared, Thomas found himself among the fellowship of believers. He found himself in relationship to others who were looking, waiting, and praying for the Lord – and in this way did discover the Savior.

Doubt always gives birth to doubt. But faith gives birth to faith. The fellowship of believers means that we come together with those who confess and believe like we do – so that we can strengthen each other, so that we can share an understanding of what God is trying to say to us, and so that we can share one another’s burdens, sorrows, and questions. This doesn’t mean that there’s no room for doubt. It means exactly the opposite. It means that this is the arena in which we can voice our doubts. This is the arena in which we can ask questions that relate to our faith because this is where we gain understanding of what God’s Word says to us.

Our doubts should drive us to find answers. Our whole civilization has been built on doubt. It has been built on the drive of men and woman who were dissatisfied with the old answers, so they began to push into new frontiers of knowledge. Doubting is good – but only when it leads us to search for the truth and for knowledge in a way that we might find the answers. It was the doubt of Thomas that made him separate himself from the other disciples. But it was also the doubt of Thomas that led him to seek the right answers, that drove him back into the fellowship of other people – and there, he made his great confession of faith as he gave himself to Jesus Christ once again.

It was important for Thomas to doubt. It was important for him to say – “I don’t believe it, and I won’t believe it until I see it.” It was important for him to say that – because he was being very honest with himself. However, he didn’t leave it there. He went out to search for the answers. Doubts should always lead to answers. Our doubts should drive us to seek the truth. They should drive us to a deeper commitment to Jesus Christ, just as they did for Thomas.

And this is what the Christian faith is all about. Doubts do come – and yet we find the answers in Jesus Christ, and in relationship to others. Doubt should always be linked to faith, and faith must always be linked to others. Faith in Jesus Christ is always a proclamation and a moving out and a great commission of going and doing as Jesus Christ would go and do. There is power in the Gospel, but that power has to be used. Yes, the power of God is still here. Wherever lives are open channels through which it can go, there is the proof of God’s presence and power. It means that as we struggle with doubts in our lives, our faith will drive us out to proclaim the Gospel. If Christ means anything to us, we cannot help but tell others. And they, in turn, can be assured that they too can come to the place where they will receive that power and that strength – so that we can together confess as Thomas did – “My Lord and my God!” 

Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen

Authored by Reverend Carl Trosien.