John 20:19-31
April 3, 2005
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
One week removed from Easter, we sense that Jesus is slipping away. Of course after an arousing Sunday worship last Sunday, we still believe in him, but yet more and more, we cannot see him.
On Palm Sunday two weeks ago, our bulletins showed a picture of Jesus on a donkey triumphantly coming into Jerusalem with people waving palm leaves. On Maundy Thursday, we saw Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper where Jesus blessed the bread and the cup. On Good Friday, the bulletin cover showed Jesus with his eyes closed. And last Sunday for our Easter worship, the bulletin revealed an empty radiant cross with words saying, “He is risen! Alleluia! But today, we are back to our plain, regular white paper bulletins with no images of Jesus at all.
It’s like when we lose a loved one. After some time has gone by and we have returned to the busyness of everyday life, we begin to realize how our memory fades to see the departed loved one’s face. That’s why we have pictures of our deceased loved ones at the funeral service. We want to keep that image as long as we can. We used to think about Jesus as concrete as caught fish and loaves of bread or sheep and stables. We now think about Jesus as a Monet painting of muted colors and faint haze. Slowly, slowly, Jesus is becoming indescribable.
On Easter Sunday, we know that Jesus met Mary at the tomb, he appeared with the disciples behind locked doors, he met the disciples on the road to Emmaus, he cooked breakfast for his disciples on the beach with the fish they had caught. Many people came and filled our sanctuary and at the recreation center next door because we wanted to hear that Jesus who was dead is risen. But today after Easter, our pews are filled only with the “hard-core” faithful. It’s usually people who are the regulars, the faithful ones who come on the Sunday after Easter who are also the people most like Thomas.
Thomas Doubting
The Gospel lesson for us today on the first Sunday after Easter is about Thomas, the patron saint of doubting. We wonder why Thomas wasn’t present with the other disciples when they gathered together that first time when Jesus appeared through the locked door. Maybe he had gone back to the job he had before he met Jesus. Maybe he withdrew from the fellowship of the disciples as some do today when tragedy, difficulties, sorrow or grief arises. Maybe he just missed the meeting like some of us do now and then.
We often describe Thomas as “Doubting Thomas” without giving him some credit for the fact that after all, he wanted to know. Maybe Thomas was just the kind of person who needs to see the nail marks on Jesus hands and to touch the wound on his side before he can believe. He would not accept a second-hand testimony of others. On this first Sunday after Easter, we find ourselves identifying with Thomas more than we are willing to admit. I pray that you are here this morning after all of the fanfare and crowds that we had last Sunday that like Thomas, after all, you really wanted to know.
Experienced Based Faith
Most of us based our beliefs on facts derived from experience that we had before. Let me explain for example. A doctor has seen many cases of chicken pox, and so when you present yourself to him covered with spots, he probably doesn’t use sequential reasoning to arrive at a diagnosis. You match the pattern his experience has taught him is chicken pox, and so he quickly label your ailment, and usually he’s right. This is called, “pattern-matching.”
When the other disciples told Thomas they had seen the risen Christ, Thomas refused to believe it. Their story didn’t fit into Thomas’ field of expertise, which was an experienced-based understanding of life and his “pattern-matching” approach to problems.
If he couldn’t see Jesus with his own eyes and touch the wounds on Jesus’ hands and side—that is, makes the claim that matches the pattern of reality with which Thomas was familiar—then the account of his companions could not be believed. Thomas had a blind spot. Until Jesus appeared to Thomas, he had been relying on his prior experience of life to tell him what was real.
But experience is also colored by what we bring to it, by our culture and training, by our upbringing, and so forth. One mother always used an instant mix whenever she made mashed potatoes, and her son grew up thinking that’s what everybody did. Then he got married, and the first time his wife fixed mashed potatoes, she peeled and cut up real potatoes. He looked at them cooking on the stove and said, “Why go to all that work? Just use instants.” But when he sat down to eat, he found the real mashed potatoes delicious and finally understood that there had been a gap in his culinary experience. If we only based reality on our experience, we would find limitations and gaps.
So Jesus gives Thomas a pattern-matching opportunity by holding out his hands and giving Thomas permission to touch them. Jesus prepares instant mashed potatoes.
By this point, Thomas is convinced. Like the other disciples, Thomas now believes because of the evidence in front of him. Thomas stops being “Doubting Thomas” anymore. But here lies the problem. We can better identify with Thomas before Jesus appeared to him. We are more like the Thomas who missed the meeting with the other disciples and who moped around for days saying that unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in his side, I will not believe.
Faith-based Life
Then Jesus gives us a new beatitude that shows that for the rest of us, he is calling for more than experienced-based discipleship. He says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Jesus is calling for a “faith-based model” in which all people will have the same opportunity as the apostles did to embrace him as Lord. But this time, it would not be based on empirical experience.
The point is that the first disciples experienced the risen Christ—a personal post-resurrection visit from Jesus—and therefore believed. The rest of us are invited to believe the risen Christ, and therefore and on account of this, experience him.
It is a faith-based approach rather than an empirical, experiential or pattern-matching approach to discipleship. Experience can point us toward faith and bolster faith’s decision afterward, but at some point, if we are to know the truth of the risen Christ, we’ve got to take that leap of faith at that gap that neither experience or reason covers. It’s discovering that mashed potatoes made from real potatoes that you peeled and boiled do taste better than instant. It is believing the truth of Jesus’ resurrection really exists outside of our pattern-matching experience.
Good Excuses
At Julia Lu’s memorial service that we had here last Tuesday, I mentioned that Julia at 99 years of age had good excuses to not come to church. Some of us who are in our 80s or 70s and perhaps even in our 60s are already using these excuses of age to stop coming to church. But Julia Lu taught us with her wise heart that we never stop being a child of God and we are always in need of a closer walk with Christ.
Thomas could have used the good excuse of missing the meeting when Jesus reconstituted his team. “I was willing to follow him, but since I missed that important organizational meeting, I guess I won’t have to bother with this anymore.” Missing the boat is an acceptable reason to politely excuse ourselves from responsibilities and following Jesus.
But Jesus came back to the disciples this second time after the resurrection to give the evidence that Thomas was seeking and Thomas realized that he had no more excuses left to not follow Jesus anymore. And then Jesus teaches all of us that there may not be another time when new disciples will be able to see the nail marks on his hands or to touch his side but they can still believe and follow him.
Like in the life of Julia Lu, we receive strength and God’s truth in regular worship. When our worship attendance is irregular, we may miss the continuous presence of God’s presence. We say the Lord’s Prayer together every Sunday. Although we print it in the bulletin, most of us closed our eyes and are able to recite the Lord’s Prayer from memory. We just keep saying it and soon after a lifetime of saying it, we come to believe. And when we are distracted about something else that may be happening in our lives and can’t seem to get it out of our heads when saying the Lord’s Prayer, we might lose our place. But as a community of disciples, we get you back in focus. In unison, we repeat each phrase and soon enough we are saying the Lord’s Prayer with the whole church again.
When we have difficulty in believing, you just keep on saying it. It will eventually come to you. Thomas proclaimed, “My Lord and my God.” Thomas, the man who had been filled with all the doubts, fears, and questions one could imagine, makes this bold confession of faith. Like Thomas who had the first disciples telling him to believe when he had trouble believing, we too have this church community who will help you to believe when you have trouble believing. This church is the solid ground on which we leap to faith.
Leap to Faith
The phrase, “leap of faith” is often credited to the Danish theologian Kierkegaard. It means that after we have exhausted all rational and empirical explanations, we come to a point in our lives that we take that “leap of faith” to cover the gap between our disbelief and belief. The emphasis here is that the action becomes the responsibility of the individual, the leaper to make.
But today I want to emphasize the point of a “leap to faith.” The leap to faith emphasizes the reliability of the ground on which the leaper lands.
Applying that understanding to Jesus’ comment, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to believe,” suggest that the blessedness is because those who commit themselves to Christ by faith discover that they have landed on solid ground, a terrain able to bear the weight of their commitment or the weight of their doubts. It’s a solid ground to stand.
In Hebrews 11:1, we read, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” We have this large cloud of witnesses who have made this ground of faith firm and stable. We have this particular church community known as the First Chinese Baptist Church that has been here for 125 years when even earthquakes and fire have not been able to stop us from preaching Jesus Christ. We have saints like Julia Lu who sat on that chair at the end of that row whom God blessed with 99 years of good life to testify, “My Lord and my God.”
We may not have the opportunity of putting our hand on the nail marks of Jesus’ hands or touching Jesus’ side. We were not there ourselves to see the stone rolled away or to eat the breakfast of freshly caught fish and bread on the beach. We may not have the experienced-based faith, that empirical evidence to see and touch for ourselves. But we can’t see electricity too but does that mean that it doesn’t exist?
Surely as the days go by, our memories of Jesus fade and he becomes somewhat indescribable. We are lucky to get a glimmer to see or a faint song to hear. And when some disturbing or troubling event happens to us, we might find ourselves identifying with Doubting Thomas more than we are willing to admit.
But I testify to you today just as Thomas testified in the presence of the risen Christ, “My Lord and my God,” that God is real. We may have missed out as Thomas did. We may have been born two thousand years too late. But who watches over you every night? It is your Lord and your God! Let us continue our leaps to faith as we serve Jesus Christ as our Lord and our God because we know Jesus lives.
In this suspicious and disbelieving world in which we live, Jesus blesses us with the resounding words, “Peace be with you!”
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, we have been surprised by your resurrection, caught off guard by your lively return to us, astounded by your power to defeat death. We have doubts. Do not reject us in our doubts. Come to us, heal us of our reservations, our unwillingness to believe that which the scriptures so boldly proclaim. Give us the courage and the trust to leap to faith in your glory and power. Christ is risen; he is risen indeed! Amen.