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Christ is risen. Hallelujah. We continue to celebrate the resurrection. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The words, “let not your hearts be troubled,” unless you and I are going through a tribulation or trial, those words do not have the deep meaning as when we are going through a difficult time. Like those who are going through the big flood right now in the Mississippi Valley. Their lives are turned upside down, and many of the things for which they had worked a long time, they’re seeing completely, literally dissolved before their very eyes. Like those in the midst of a job change, who have to move and uproot their family and themselves all over. Like those who are dealing with health issues, from healthiness to not so healthy. From having a long thought of terms of life ahead of you, to months or weeks or even shorter. Just like children who have gone through watching their mother and father walk away from the other spouse and never come back and grow up with only one daddy or one mommy in the house and not with a mommy and daddy together.
Those words, “let not your hearts be troubled,” have a different meaning with someone who is grieving for a loved one’s death, whether it’s been ten years or two years. Let not your hearts be troubled. It means nothing until the water is up to our eyeballs or to our nose, and we feel like we’re treading water. Then it takes on a deeper meaning.
The interesting context of this verse, literally, the words that Jesus spoke, as John recorded it, right before, “let not your hearts be troubled,” are these: Peter, you will deny me three times before the cock crows. Let not your hearts be troubled. Consider that. Peter, you will deny me three times before the cock crows. Let not your hearts be troubled. That is in essence saying to you and to me, brothers and sisters, you’re going to be crawling back on your hands and knees to me after you have been beat up by the sin within you or the sin of this world. Let not your hearts be troubled when you return to me. That’s an invitation, a loving, fatherly invitation to children whom the Father knows very well.
And think about the juxtaposition from this Gospel reading to the first reading from the book of Acts. The disciples, remember, were fearful after Christ’s resurrection, and it was Christ who found them in the closed room. Not just one Sunday, but two Sundays in a row when they gathered together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews. Now, in a few weeks, we’ll look at the text where Jesus says, “Stay in the city until you are clothed from on high with the power of God,” meaning the Holy Spirit. Then after that, ten days later on Pentecost, the disciples and the apostles see some amazing things. And all of that is recorded in the first chapters of the book of Acts.
And then along comes this text, juxtaposed with this reading. Here we go. Where the first disciple is murdered because he merely believes in Jesus. Martyr. From that point on, Stephen’s death becomes, sadly, the standard for many hundreds of years until the Roman Empire embraces Christianity. In fact, part and parcel of being a disciple of Christ, as a believer, a baptized believer, as you and I, if we lived in that time, it would be always understood for several hundred years, this is the life that we have. We will be killed, probably. We will continue to serve. We will continue to proclaim. We will continue to love and forgive. But we will probably die for the sake of our faith.
How interesting that Jesus then says, “let not your hearts be troubled,” right after he has already warned Peter of Peter’s impending sin. This is God’s way of encouraging you and me, believe. In fact, he says it twice. “Believe in God, believe also in me,” meaning, we’re one and the same. Trust. And he doesn’t just say those words and expect you to conjure up this faith. He bestows that Holy Spirit upon you, that gives you the strength and the miraculous ability to believe in spite of everything else around you, including the water up to your eyeballs or your nose that says, I’m drowning.
He then goes on in this text to remind you, as he reminded Peter, as he was reminded to all of the apostles and disciples who would face death for their faith, I’m going to prepare a place for you. Not some abstract spiritual nirvana, but a literal place with a corporal body, just as my body will be raised from the dead in a corporal body, and we will dwell there forever, you and me. And everything that clings to you and to me in this world that is filled with sin and sorrow and shame will be completely expunged. No more tears. That’s your destiny.
Because as Peter said, you are a chosen people. You are a people who now has God as their God. A people who now has received mercy. Thomas’ question, though, to Jesus, after Jesus has given them this beautiful statement, and remember, Thomas was the one who earlier in John’s Gospel said, “I’m ready to die. Let’s go. Let’s go all die with Jesus.” He asks the question that the other apostles didn’t have the courage to ask. And really, you have to admit, he asks the question that we have asked already, but don’t want to always admit that we have asked, and that is, we don’t know and we have no idea.
“How can we know?” Now, the going part is important, but look at the questions. We don’t know where you’re going. How can we know where you are going? Just consider those first two phrases, we don’t know and how can we know? When God led Peter and told him that he would deny Christ three times, he’s telling him, this is the life of being joined to me. So when Thomas is asking, “How can we know where you’re leading me?” it is like you and me. He leads you and me, and we have no idea where he leads us.
We think we have an idea of where he leads us. We have a hunch down the path he wishes to take us, but deep down we really do not know. And Thomas is asking the obvious. At times you and I, when the water is up to our nose, we’re wondering, where are you taking me? How can I know where you are taking me? And Thomas is trying to discern God and God’s will all according to his experience.
One of Satan’s great temptations is to get us to derive any knowledge of God, any attribute of God, any point about God’s existence and His love toward us. All were gathering this information and tempted, mind you, daily, to gather that and inculcate that information from our experience. Don’t go there, brothers and sisters. You will be woefully disappointed. If we judge God by our experience, how will we ever know He is loving and gracious? If only things go smoothly for us, if only every time we pray it immediately happens. Is that the only way we’re going to know? That’s the temptation. But that’s your and my question as sinful human beings, to ask.
Jesus then answers it very carefully. And you can almost say His answer is this statement. This is the art of the Christian faith. Notice the word art, not science. If it was the science of the Christian faith, we could reproduce the same results with the same conditions and the same elements added to the equation each time. That’s science. And that’s not how God works. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace, and mercy would no longer be mercy. It would be merit and award.
God does things in your and my life which is not to make sense to you and to me. God does not allow us to understand Him, grasp Him, believe in Him according to our experience. He allows us to go through many troubles and tribulations. He leads us down paths of which we do not know the ending. It seems, although we do, He already told us, “I go to prepare a place for you,” your home. Not here, but when we’re so used to judging life, one another, and everything else about our existence according to our experience, we will always be tempted to judge God the same way.
That’s why Jesus made it very clear after Thomas’ question, He said, “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” There are no other ways. No matter how logical or illogical it may seem, there is no other way. That’s why you and I do ask questions. Well, what about the little child in South Africa who’s never heard of him? Or what about the villager in the heart of the Amazon forest who’s never heard of him? We ask those kinds of questions really because we’re saying, I don’t get it. How can you be that way, Lord? It doesn’t make sense to me. Praise and thanks God that it doesn’t make sense to you or to me, because if it did, we would be God.
It doesn’t make sense to us because we are sinful human beings, very confined and boxed in on our ability to grasp anything of God, which is why the miracle of faith is indeed a very big miracle. Last week, Jesus called himself the gate. It’s the same thing he’s saying here. I’m the only way through which you will enter the Father’s realm, the flock, the home in heaven. I’m the only way. And he’s reminding them very clearly, just as he reminded them earlier, you do know him, don’t you? You do know him, don’t you? Even though your mind and your experiences shout and cry otherwise, you do know him and believe in him.
Just as someone who has watched his mother and father walk out of the house and never come back still does believe in him, even though every part of his body says, I don’t understand. Even if we see a loved one die who should not die at that age or by that means, we still believe, in spite of every fiber of our human being, completely yelling the other.
Philip then adds the extra question. Well, if Thomas questioned, we don’t know and how can we know? And Jesus’ response is just saying, I’m the only way. Believe in me. Then there’s got to be something. So Philip asks the obvious question that you and I ask as well. Show me. Show me. And then I’ll believe. Ironically, isn’t it, that Philip asks that question and Thomas is the one who’s going to end up asking the same question when he comes in their midst and has to put his hand here and here. Philip asks the same exact question. Isn’t it interesting? But we don’t call him Doubting Philip. He doesn’t have that rap like Thomas does.
“Show us. Lord, You’re leading me. You’re moving me. You’re pulling me. You’re shaping me. You’re sifting me. Show us.” This is the art of the Christian faith. And it’s an art. The art meaning is that we step out and we live out our faith, and at times it doesn’t seem as if this works in the equation. And at other times it seems to work in the equation. And by virtue of us trying to figure out whether it works or doesn’t work according to an equation is all still judging God and understanding God according to our experience.
Sometimes, you know, if God was to do all the things that he was to do in our lives, it would sure be a lot easier if he did them all to us when we were little. We sometimes as adults look at children and think, oh, that poor child having gone through that traumatic experience. Yes, indeed. But sometimes children have a much more pliable person than we as adults as we get so used to judging God and understanding God according to our experience. A child doesn’t have the history of experience that we as grown adults do. And we allow ourselves as grown adults to get into a rut and a furrow that we ought not to.
And so it does sometimes take God completely upending our world in order for us to see this is an art of faith. And He is the artist, par excellence, who does His work in us even if we are unable to understand the dimension of any of his work in our lives. Think about when Jesus is speaking these words. The other important context. This is immediately after he washed his disciples’ feet and literally hours before he is betrayed into the hands of the chief priests and is murdered and put to death. He’s telling them all this right before the other shoe drops.
Look at it in the context of John’s Gospel. So you really do then take a note in Peter’s words to the people that Peter wrote to in his epistle reading. Once you were not a people, but now you are a people. Once you had not received mercy, now you have received mercy. That’s abstract, brothers and sisters, because you and I are going, okay… When did we become God’s people? Where was this great big sign in the sky that says we become God’s people? Show me. How can we know, oh God?
And this whole concept of mercy. When did we not have mercy and now we have it? Why do we need it? Is it necessary? And where is it found? The art of the Christian faith that God begins these disciples on before he leaves their presence in the very physical manner that he is with them right now is just like you and me. Except He didn’t leave them alone, did He?
So many things are all grasped only by faith. Everything else that we are trying to understand cannot be understood by experience. The masks that God gives to reveal Himself to you and to me are these words. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people, where I made you my son and my daughter, claimed you without ever you living a day to prove yourself to me. Once you had not received mercy, and now you have, even though, like Peter, you have denied me and have doubted me like Thomas and Philip, you have received mercy.
Well, now that raises the question of what Jesus is getting at after laying all this upon his apostles. Amen. He reminds them that they’re going to do greater works than the ones that Jesus has already done. Now you and I have to scratch our heads and think, a greater work? All of you have seen the greater work, but because you and I are so bent toward judging God by experience, we allow sometimes, often, the things that God has done miraculously before our very eyes to pale.
Is it not a miracle that given the parents you were given that you are a believer? Lest you think your parents were cut from a different bolt of fabric than mine or someone else’s. And is it not a miracle as parents that your children are believers, given the fact that you’re their parent? And is it not a miracle every time you see a child baptized here before you? And every time you walk up to this altar and kneel with someone else and receive the very blessings of forgiveness—a miracle greater than the one who actually did it? That’s marvelous!
And truly, it fits the definition of the term, AWESOME! It strikes awe. It ought to. And it does. Just as Thomas and Philip believed in spite of the words that flowed from their lips, you and I believe in spite of the many words that have flowed from our lips. And just as the words that flowed from Peter’s lips were forgiven by God, so all the words that have flowed from your and my lips in all kinds of anguish and sorrow have been forgiven by the same God in Christ Jesus.
These are miracles indeed, brothers and sisters. Every time you and I sit in the pew with one another and look around us and see faces of people we know, you’re witnessing a miracle again. This is the miracle house of God. Not according to human experience, the definition of miracle, but according to God’s definition of miracle. Sins are forgiven. Sins are forgiven. That which no man can do except God through us as His people.
In the name of the one who has said, “let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me,” Jesus. Amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
