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How blessed are they who have not seen, and yet whose faith has constantly been, for they eternal life shall win. Amen. Christ is risen. Alleluia.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Don’t be such a doubting Thomas. Odds are you’ve heard this said, maybe to you before. I remember when I was younger and I first heard this, and I didn’t really know the scriptural reference, and I thought, who is this Thomas guy and why is he so skeptical? And I think it’s a little odd that we use the adjective doubting to refer to Thomas, because you won’t find that word anywhere in today’s gospel lesson. But I guess that doubting Thomas has a better ring to it than unconvinced Thomas or incredulous Thomas, and I’m not sure that you can actually preach a sermon on this text without talking about Thomas.
And that’s somewhat unfortunate because he doesn’t need to be the focus of the lesson, nor his disbelief. It’s easy to skip over the first part of this lesson and head straight for Thomas, but there are many words of comfort and assurance from Jesus that we should really occupy our thoughts on. So I want to hone in on these in a few minutes, but for now let’s talk about our friend Thomas because the Holy Spirit highlights his doubt for our benefit.
So given our tendency to say doubting Thomas, it’s no wonder that we might think of him in a bad light, especially if we only look at him in the context of this passage. We might think to ourselves, what was Thomas doing while the other ten disciples were locked in a room and hiding from the Jewish authorities? Was he hiding somewhere else? Was he running away for fear of his life? Worse yet, was he cooperating with the authorities to turn the others in?
Now, this hardly seems the case that Thomas had somehow turned his back on his disciple brothers, and thus Jesus. Others say Thomas wasn’t with them the week prior because of his doubting, that he had simply given up hope. Now, this too simply cannot be the case. If so, why did he go to the room a week later to rejoin the others after Jesus’ first appearance? Surely he had heard about this appearance and returned to see if Jesus might reappear.
Now, earlier in John’s Gospel, when Jesus learns of Lazarus’ death, he tells the disciples, let us go to him, and the disciples were afraid for fear of the Jews that they would try to stone Jesus. But Thomas agrees with Jesus and he says, let us also go that we may die with him. So this doesn’t sound like a man who was afraid, even though he was well aware of the dangers of being close to Jesus.
Now some, maybe our pastor, speculate that Thomas was actually out looking for Jesus. After all, if he wasn’t afraid of the Jewish authorities, then maybe he was out looking for the risen Lord. Now, if we don’t think poorly of Thomas for his absence, then we probably do because of his unbelief. After all, he was the only one of the eleven who had doubted, wasn’t he?
John isn’t clear about this, but the other gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, each tell us that all the disciples doubted. Mark says Jesus rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. Luke’s account says they still disbelieved, even as Jesus stood before them showing them his hands and feet.
So we probably shouldn’t single Thomas out because he was only doing what the other disciples were doing. So why then does John, and only John, mention Thomas? It’s so we get to hear Jesus tell him, blessed are those who believe and have not seen.
Now it’s not wrong of us to think that John points out Thomas’s actions so that he and both we will identify ourselves with it. We all experience doubt and disbelief at some point. We all say, I believe; help my unbelief at one time or another. And in today’s world of reliance on science and technology, we become suspicious of claims that cannot be proven by physical sight. Seeing is believing. I saw it on the internet, so it must be true.
So at first we may think John uses this example of Thomas to show us our own doubt, so we think on our own failure to believe without physical evidence. But the crux of any gospel lesson is to take us away from ourselves and focus on God’s goodness and mercy in his plan of salvation through us, through faith in Christ alone. And now I can almost hear Thomas in heaven saying, you’ve already spent enough time talking about me. You better talk about Jesus.
So Jesus’ first words to them at his appearance were, peace be with you. Now according to John, this blessing had only been given to them once before, and it sounds like a phrase that we might mistake for just some simple casual greeting. But this isn’t some kind of 1960s feel-good saying or gesture. It makes me think of this sign that’s on 183 between my house and church. It says, make this the year, and then underneath it, peace. To the right, there’s an image of a hand making the peace sign.
Now I guess the people that pay for this advertising don’t realize that every year since AD 33 has been a year of peace. Maybe not the peace that the world wants, but it’s certainly the peace that we need. So when saying, peace be with you, Jesus isn’t speaking of peace of reconciliation in the external world. No, he’s talking about the peace of reconciliation between God and man, which has only been achieved through his own death and resurrection.
So the time had come for this, and Christ is proclaiming this peace to his disciples. Now, of course, Jesus knows they were still in disbelief, so he shows them his hands and side and declares again, peace be with you. With this, Jesus is reassuring them that he holds nothing against them for their doubt or their disbelief, and this is in fact an absolution for them. This peace is also given to them to encourage them for what is about to come.
So now that Jesus has absolved them of their doubt and their sin, he gives them their task. In John’s version of the Great Commission, Jesus places them into his ministry that they may go out and share the gospel and his peace with the world. And in doing so he breathes the Holy Spirit upon them to strengthen them and endow them with this authority to carry out the office of the keys, which is the gospel of forgiveness given in the authority and name of Christ.
Now Thomas, of course, missed all this conversation, but there can be no question that Jesus was aware that Thomas did not believe, and that he was actually there for this meeting, and that he saw and heard what Thomas said, especially when Thomas said, unless I see, I will not believe. And not just that he needed to see, but that he needed to touch.
So what does Jesus do? Well, he accommodates Thomas’s stubborn demands to touch and see him, but he waits until Thomas is back with the others eight days later. Now can you just imagine Jesus’ anticipation waiting to do this, to spring this on Thomas? I mean he could have easily given Thomas some kind of Saul on the road to Damascus moment in a blinding flash of light. The point is that Jesus is the one who seeks out Thomas. Thomas is the lost sheep, he’s the lost coin. He’s the prodigal son.
Imagine the joy that Jesus felt as he returns Thomas to faith with the words, do not disbelieve but believe. Now notice that John doesn’t tell us whether Thomas actually touched Jesus. Maybe this is just some inconsequential detail, but Thomas didn’t need to touch him. He didn’t even need to see Jesus. Like the unclean woman who reached her hand through the crowd to touch Jesus’ garment in the hope of healing, Thomas’ cure of doubt came not from a touch or sight, but through Jesus’ words which placed belief in Thomas’ heart. Belief that was expressed in Thomas’ exclamation, my Lord and my God.
Now this wasn’t merely Thomas saying this in the shock of seeing Jesus; it was Thomas’ confession that he sees Jesus for who he is, both his Savior and his God. And so what we might see is a mild reproach to Thomas and really the others as well. Jesus asks, have you believed because you have seen me? They might as well have said, yeah, of course, Jesus, because they had all professed disbelief without sight.
So Christ appears to them so they would believe, just as he healed and did other miraculous deeds in the sight of all people so that they might believe. But now Jesus says the day is coming when belief will come without sight and those who believe in this way will have favor with God. And this is why the disciples are being called to preach, to preach salvation and bear witness to Christ’s resurrection so that many would come to faith not by seeing but by hearing the Word of God alone.
Now in the last two verses, John tells us there was more he could have written regarding Jesus’s many other signs, but that the things he did write should be sufficient for us to believe. The Gospels weren’t written as some kind of guidebook for our lives or just simply as a mere historical account of the life of Christ. John’s words should give us confidence that all the comfort and assurances that Christ gave the disciples in that room, he gives to us also.
This peace that Jesus shared with them is the same peace of reconciliation with God that we heard Pastor Gizzi announce to us in the absolution. We sang of this peace in the Kyrie, and we’re going to hear it declared yet again in a few minutes when we sing the Pax Domini, the peace of the Lord, before we receive the Lord’s Supper. We even sing it at Christmas in the hymn, Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.
So as Jesus says, even so I am sending you, when he charged the disciples to go out and preach the good news, he also says this to us as he bids us to do the same in our daily vocations. Christ showed them again his hands and side so that they would see that he is indeed raised from the dead, and so that we too will be confident that we are going to have our own bodily resurrection.
As he came to the disciples in bodily form to show them that he is indeed God and man, Jesus will come to us in the physical presence of his body and blood in the bread and wine of his Holy Supper, not just as a remembrance of him or a symbol, but his actual body and blood, just as he said.
And as he breathed the Holy Spirit on them, he sends his spirit to us in his word and in the waters of holy baptism so that we may come to belief and be strengthened in faith. As he gave the disciples the keys to the kingdom of heaven through the authority to remit and retain sins, he so too forgives us and calls on us to carry out the mission of the church to forgive the sins of others.
And yes, he tells us we are blessed, that we truly are receiving God’s favor because we have not seen, but yet we believe. May we ever hold fast to the one who removes our doubt and gives us the confidence of our salvation and eternal life through faith in him alone. Amen. Christ is risen.
Now the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
