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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from the gospel reading, especially the statement or question that Thomas had and how Jesus handles it. There are many things that we’re not good at. But one of the things that we’re not real good at is preventative maintenance.
Now, unless something breaks or wears out or something completely turns tumultuous, we will always assume that everything is fine and there’s no need to practice preventative maintenance because the only need to do something to adjust is when something gets out of whack. And it’s only out of whack when you and I realize it, that it’s askew. Now, we do this with our cars. You think about it; we just get in the car and turn on the key and go. No. We don’t check the tires. We don’t know if the oil has leaked out. We don’t know if the radiator fluid is gone. But we don’t just do it with mechanical things. We do it with things that really do have important meaning in this life.
We do it with relationships. Relationships between ourselves and someone else. The queen of all of our relationships that we don’t always practice preventative maintenance is marriage. And the cause for why we don’t is a combination of laziness, because it takes a lot of effort to keep reinvigorating a marriage. It takes a lot of energy and creativity and discussion and talking to re-stimulate a relationship. So it’s not just laziness; it’s also pride. Because as long as nothing seems to be broken… We love to look at our marriage and compare it with somebody else’s who’s in the dumps. So, between these two—laziness and pride—we don’t always practice preventative maintenance.
Then, when we see something happen within either our automobile or our relationship with someone else or especially our marriage, we’re shocked, like, “How did this happen?” As if we haven’t been practicing preventative maintenance. Hmm. And we almost look at it with disbelief, and we’re incensed that this could really happen to me or to us. We’re different than everybody else, aren’t we? No.
So if we have practiced laziness and pride in our relationships and in our marriages, then the other area of our life in which we’ve practiced laziness and pride is our relationship and marriage to him, our God, Jesus. Jesus. See, unless the devil is plaguing us, we think everything is going along swimmingly in our relationship with our Lord. And unless sin is gnawing at us and we sense its presence and the guilt that accompanies it, we are in pleasing sight with our God, and there’s no need to practice preventative maintenance on that relationship or that marriage with the bridegroom Jesus.
But our Jesus, our bridegroom, puts up with our folly. He loves us in spite of our laziness and in spite of our pride. And he comes to engage us when we are disengaged from him because we think everything is going so well. He engages us to himself by forcing us to be engaged with one another, which is not always pleasant because when we’re engaged with another sinner… there’s going to be sin involved and feelings are going to get hurt. But that’s how God keeps us from being lazy and proud.
In this interaction with other people in our life—these relationships—God thrusts us and engages us in that so that we not only see our neighbor’s sin and their laziness and their pride and its effect on us, but we see our own laziness and our own pride and its effect on them. Just like in a marriage, isn’t it? Just like in a marriage.
And our bridegroom, when he engages us and pushes us, moves us to confess that he is the way. He’s not one who’s pointing us to the way or showing us the way. He moves us to confess he is the way so that we make it very clear in our confession of faith there’s only one husband, no one bridegroom to us, his bride, the church. And as we are engaged with our sinful flesh and our neighbor’s sinful flesh, he moves us to confess that he’s not only the way, but the truth and the life.
He’s not pointing to the truth. He’s not showing us the truth. He’s not giving us or showing us life. He is life. So that we know there is no other. Now, it’s interesting, in our text, Jesus says he is the way, the truth, and the life after Thomas makes the seemingly obvious, unusual question of Jesus.
Let’s get the context; very important in the text. Jesus starts out this way, “‘Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s mansions there are many rooms. And if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself.'” That’s a bridegroom talking to his bride. That you may be where I am and will no longer be separated by sin, by time, and by space. And you know the way to where I’m going.
Now, after having heard that, what does Thomas fixate upon? What does Thomas zero in on? He doesn’t zero in on “don’t be afraid, let not your hearts be troubled.” He doesn’t believe or even give a mind to when Jesus says, inviting him, “Believe in me.” He doesn’t even get “I’m going to take you to myself.” What does he fixate upon? Which is a lot like you and me. He fixates upon, “I don’t know where you’re going, so where are you going?”
Isn’t that like you and me? God proclaims to us such great promises of comfort and solace, and we believe. Because of our own laziness and pride, we fixate on something that doesn’t make sense and not on the things that are sure and certain. Jesus made it very clear at the beginning of that text, the end is going to be okay. I’m going to come again. I’m going to take you to be with myself. And where I am, there you’ll be. Clear as crystal. But like us, Thomas goes, “What about right now? What’s going to happen in the next six hours, 12 hours, six weeks, 10 years? What’s going to happen then?”
Isn’t that like you and me? Do we not fixate upon this temporal time and forget the crystal-clear revelation that our God has proclaimed to us? Our Lord willed that this question by Thomas was recorded for our sake, that we would see Thomas’ faith is like our faith. Thomas has faith. Get that very clear. Thomas has faith, but his faith is a struggling faith, a discouraged faith, a faith that looks a lot like yours and a faith that looks a lot like mine.
The gift of faith, as you saw with your very own eyes in Otilia’s baptism, that’s a miracle. And the work of that faith in her heart is a miracle of God. It is just like this carving here of the seed in the sower. The seed fell on good soil and it grew. It grew. Because the opposite of that is the seed to fall on the path and the birds eat it. Satan takes it away and nothing happens with it. You saw it take root. That’s a miracle.
Your faith is the same. But another miracle of this faith is not that you have it, but that you remain in it, steadfast to the end of your days. Hence, preventative maintenance. To get married is easy. You just basically get the marriage license and say the words and voila, you’re married. But to remain married, that’s hard work, isn’t it? Because you have to be engaged in that relationship for it to thrive and not suffocate.
This miracle that God has done is the same miracle that in the seed in the sower, some seed fell among thorns and fell among shallow soil. It grew naturally. But it didn’t persevere because of the shallow soil or because of the thorns. The miracle that perseveres is the one that fell on good soil and produced a crop. Such a miraculous work of persevering is God’s work in you.
You see, we’re always thinking in terms of what we can do. And isn’t it interesting? We don’t start to do anything until we first realize that there’s something wrong. We don’t think in terms of preventative maintenance, where we practice the application of these promises before there’s a need to apply these promises. Jesus, knowing full well that Thomas was going to ask that question, gave him the promise, but Thomas didn’t know how to apply it until later. And that’s like you and me.
We hear the word of God; fears or anxiousness or anything else within us clouds our eyes from seeing the clear and pure promise that God gives and instead fixates on the things that God doesn’t reveal to us. “Let not your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says very clearly. The verses in this text, those three verses that follow that first opening line, have deep meaning because they remind us and show us that the answer to our blindness, when all of a sudden we’re confronted with our blindness, is realizing, “Gosh, I didn’t realize that preventative maintenance is a part of this service.” Remaining steadfast in the faith.
So God does it whether you realize it or not. He engages you and engages you in a relationship with another human being, whether it’s marriage or whether it’s just a relationship. We are not islands unto ourselves. And in engaging us with another human being, there will be sparks because of the flint-like attitude of our heart and the flint-like attitude of our neighbor’s heart. And God comes in there with steel to sharpen each of us.
In that conflict that arises out of being engaged by God, where he could wash his hands of us and let us float along fat, happy, and dumb on our way to hell in a handbasket, he chooses not to. And he chooses to engage you with one another for the sake of his relationship with you. That he keeps you steadfast and immovable. That he keeps you practicing the art of applying this to yourself when it doesn’t make sense and when Satan and your own fears and my fears wish us to focus on something else.
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. And I’m going to come again and take you to be with myself, that you may be where I am,” as only a bridegroom can say to his bride. That’s our hope and our certainty.
And in the meantime, in the meantime, we live and walk by faith, applying these words to us every time we gather here, where he joins himself to you, holds you close, and coddles you. That we may then go forth and be engaged as he strengthens us in this faith. God be praised for such a faithful groom to us, his flirty and fickle bride. God be praised that he engages us in spite of ourselves and always keeps us steadfast and immovable.
In the name of him who is faithful unto our death, as he was faithful unto his own death and resurrection. Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
