Doubting Thomas
Notes
Transcript
Faith Beyond Sight: The Blessing of Believing Without Seeing
Faith Beyond Sight: The Blessing of Believing Without Seeing
This is week 4 of the series where we are looking at the encounters Jesus had with people between the resurrection and the ascension. The first week we saw Jesus meeting with Mary at the Garden Tomb the morning of his resurrection. In this encounter we saw Jesus offering us hope in the middle of our pain and grief but talked about the only way we can hear his direction and voice is when we have a personal relationship with him. In week 2 , we looked as Cleopas and his companion were travelling to Emmaus and met Jesus along the road. The great thing in this encounter is we see how important it is for us to be a part of a community. A place where we can come together with Jesus as our center and build true lasting community. These are the places where our eyes are opened and we can build true revelations. We explained how important it is for us to start our days in the scripture so we can understand where Jesus is calling us to go and we won’t miss it because we have preconceived ideas of the way he is working in our lives.
Last week, we looked as Jesus met with the disciples and Cleopas in the upper room and saw Jesus preparing to send his people on mission into the world, and how he has done the same for us, he has given us the Holy spirit to go into the world and share the Gospel with those around us. We should take our example from Cleopas and his companion and we should run into the world.
Today, we are looking at a story that is really unfortunate, and I say this because from just a few seconds of his life we have come to affectionately know a man by a weak moment in his life, as we call him Doubting Thomas. It reminds me of the man my dad worked with for 30 years, of course I wasn’t there, but I had heard the story from my dad. This guy had started a few weeks before thanksgiving and all of the guys at dads work asked him if he had gotten his free Turkey. They told him HR was giving out turkeys to all the employees for Thanksgiving. Well, he didn’t want to be outdone, so he walked down to HR and asked about his turkey. Of course he was told they weren’t giving out turkey and they had no idea what he was talking about. So, completely upset with his coworkers he walked back mad, and they started, I bet they told you they didn’t give turkey’s out. You gotta go back up there, its just because you’re new and they don’t want you to have it. So they fired him up and he went back to HR, cursing and mad that they wouldn’t give him his turkey. And when they finally convinced him they weren’t handing them out, and luckily didn’t fire him, he goes back to his, can I say amazing, coworkers, and they are all laughing at him. And you know what that guys name was? Me either, because they called him turkey for over thirty years and thats the only name my dad ever called him.
24 Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came.
And so really last week when we told the story of the upper room, we should have pointed this out, Thomas wasn’t there when Jesus had made his appearance to them all. So, now from the story we see he has returned from wherever he had gone, and everyone is telling him Thomas we have seen the Lord, but look at his response to them.
25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”
Let’s be honest, this isn’t that hard of a view for us to accept, most of us would have felt the exact same way if we were Thomas. There isn’t a single one of us who would have been thinking from the very start we agreed with what is going on there, because one thing most of us understand is death is final. Its the end of all of it, that is why it is so hard for us to walk through when we lose someone, because we know that is it, until Heaven we get no more interactions. So, it isn’t terribly hard for us to understand the way Thomas is feeling here.
So what has really happened here is because Thomas is no longer seeing the promises of Jesus in his life his faith has started to falter a little. We have to ask ourselves how often this exact thing happens to us. How often do we allow our faith to slip when we don’t see God coming through in the way we expected him.
You know, he has promised good things to us so we can’t see how all this bad stuff is happening, and what we do is we allow our experiences to speak to our faith, instead of allowing our faith to speak to our experiences. Let me say that one more time, we let our experiences speak to our faith, instead of allowing our faith to speak to our experiences. This is exactly what Thomas is doing here, his experience says Jesus is dead, its final, its over, so it is diminishing his faith. Instead of allowing what he believed to speak to what he is seeing. You and I do the same. Explain.
So, Thomas is like, look I know what you’re trying to tell me, and I hear it, but there is no way I am going to believe he was actually here unless I see it for myself; I want to be able to touch the holes in his hands and his side, then I can really believe. There are a couple of points that need to be made here:
Doubt is not opposed to faith
One of the things talked about in Christian Circles too often is we cannot have any doubt when it comes to our faith, if we have doubts we make that out to be a scarlet letter; it shows how little faith we have, but our doubts can be a gateway to deeper understanding when we give them to God.
Look at how David expressed some of his doubts in Psalm 77:7-9
7 “Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable?
8 Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time?
9 Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” Selah
But David didn’t stay there, he gave it to God and we know what happened in the life of David. The second thing I want us to learn in this moment from Thomas not being with his brothers/friends, is
2. There is skepticism in solitude during our grief and pain
Chances are Thomas hadn’t returned to the group because he was in too much pain and grief. I am sure much like all the others he was confused, Jesus was gone, he didn’t know what to do, his pain was so unbearable he just needed to be alone with his thoughts and heartaches. So, he left the life he knew and was dealing with everything on his own. And he didn’t go to the community he knew who did life together, who held each other accountable, who beared each others burdens, and because of that he missed out on the healing Jesus was there to give them.
Perhaps it was his doubts about Jesus that left him ashamed to go back to the group of people he had been doing life with. Maybe he felt like they were all still holding strong and he was left alone in his doubt and he didn’t want to go and bother them with his doubts in the moment. This is the same thing a lot of us do, stuff happens in our life, we lose a loved one, we have a relationship that breaks up, and because of those things we start to doubt the goodness of God, whether he still hears our prayers, whether he cares about us at all. The last thing we want to do is go to church and be around a bunch of people who have never had God not show up or had God let them down. So we pull ourselves out of the mix, we stay home and we don’t allow anyone else to speak into our lives. This is exactly where Thomas has been, and when he comes back they are telling him how great Jesus is and all this amazing things they have seen and his response was whatever unless I see it myself I can’t believe. And this is what happens to us when we run to ourselves, we distance ourselves from the faith and when we come back and people are talking about the goodness of God we almost have the exact same attitude, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Look what happens next.
26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
It is really awesome to see here that Thomas has now found himself back with his community again. He’s back where he should be with the friends he has done life with for the past few years. They are together and it is not on the day of the sabbath, it is not on the Sunday where we are now celebrating the resurrection, this is now a Monday and they are together again, and it just shows the importance of not having our community just on Sundays, or on the the day we come to worship together, but how important it is for us to have that community as much as we can.
And in the middle of it, Jesus comes, although the doors were locked, right in. This is information John wants us to know, he could have left this point out, but he wanted us to know it, so he tells us, he got inside without having to open the door. When I was working in youth ministry the kids used to love to joke bout having bodies that could walk through walls, because teenage boys, you know. However, I think John wants us to see while he is not yet a ghost, there is something different going on here because Jesus moved in the way they would only think a spirit could. But as Jesus comes in, look at the first words he says, he says the same thing he said just 8 days before., Peace be with you.
And his next words are so good,
27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.”
And while we make these verses about Doubting Thomas, I think what we can see here is truly these verse are truly about the grace of Jesus in our lives. You see, in his unbelief Jesus didn’t come to Thomas and say, you dummy, how have you not figured it out yet? How is it you have strayed so far from the truth already. This is a pretty good example of how Jesus isn’t like us, because most of us would have rolled our eyes and been annoyed, but Jesus is gracious. Instead of judgment his goal here is to reaffirm his faith; to deepen it.
And I should say this is what we should try to emulate… we should be emulating Jesus and his tenderness and compassion in this way when we deal with people.
We spoke about this last week, but Jesus is speaking directly into Thomas doubt and giving him reassurance of the faith he has built. We see it is not a sin to have doubt, and Jesus speaking directly to it, he wants our faith to grow as well.
And there are many questions about whether Thomas actually reached out to touch Jesus scars, or whether he didn’t because we aren’t told specifically he did. So, for me it is safe to say to John at least that wasn’t an important detail of the story, if so we probably would have heard about it, but this interaction with Jesus gets a response from Thomas.
28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”
And in that moment, Thomas declares him as Lord and God, his disbelief has been spoken to, and his faith has been reaffirmed. I have read a lot of different views on how this happened, I heard one pastor say it was because Jesus spoke so immediately all the doubt fell away, but I find that hard to believe because we have seen many cases where Jesus has spoke one time and the people encountering him had to be reassured. I wonder if it is because of Jesus graciousness in trying to show the answer to his question in a way like only Jesus had been able to do, but we can never be sure, but what we know for sure is seeingJesus restored his faith. Look at what Jesus says to him.
29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
And this is a statement directly to Thomas, but it has implications for you and I today as well. He is telling Thomas, look, I know you are believing because you have seen it with your own eyes, but those who are truly blessed are those who won’t see and have believed. I think he is clearly talking about people like us, but I also think he is telling Thomas you are about to share this message with people who aren’t going to have the same opportunities as you. You are going to want people to believe who haven’t seen, and it goes back to what we talked about earlier we have to let our faith speak to our experiences, and not let our experiences speak to our faith.
If you are here this morning and you have never given your life to Jesus, this is a message for you, he is our only hope… change that today.
Also, this is a message for those of us in this room who call ourselves christ followers just like Thomas. We cannot allow our experiences to speak to our faith and diminish it. I understand you are going through a tough time and things seem bleak, but do you not trust in all the promises of God? We cannot allow the things we are going through to make our perception of him different. Instead, knowing Jesus allow it to change your perception about your circumstances. Im not saying Jesus is going to fix everything the way you want today. You may not get that healing in this lifetime you are asking for, you may not have those relationships mended you are looking for, but in the skew of eternity all of those things are pretty small. And I know that sounds easy coming out of my mouth, it is really easy to say, but I am speaking to myself as well this morning. Its time to put all of your faith in work in Jesus.
