Our Sermons

Bible Passage: John 20:19-31
Pastor: Pastor Nathan Berg
Sermon Date:  April 7, 2024

Many years ago, there was an East Coast pastor, Pastor Wright, who paid a visit to a small, Midwestern religious college. He stayed at the home of the college president, who also served as a professor of physics and chemistry. After dinner, during the small talk that ensued, Pastor Wright declared that the end of the world must be near because just about everything about nature had been discovered and all inventions conceived. The young college president politely disagreed and said he felt there would be many more discoveries. Pastor Wright challenged the president to name just one such invention. The president replied that within fifty years men would be able to fly. “Nonsense!” sputtered the outraged Pastor Wright. “Only angels are intended to fly.” Pastor Wright certainly didn’t think men would be able to fly, but he did have a couple of young boys at home named Orville and Wilbur who obviously had a lot more vision for the future than did their father. What if the Wright brothers had shared their father’s belief that man could not fly? What if Orville and Wilbur had been skeptics?

Perhaps Pastor Wright reminds us of another skeptic, the main character in our Gospel account today. Thomas is what we could call a later bloomer, I guess. Like Peter and James and John, he was a fisherman. He grew up around the Sea of Galilee. When Jesus came a calling at Capernaum, Thomas followed him. For three years, Thomas followed. But already during those three years, we see signs of Thomas’ character. Thomas is a pessimist. Rather than seeing the glass half-full, Thomas sees it half-empty. It was Thomas, who when Jesus told them they were going to Jerusalem, to the center of Jesus’ opposition, to heal Lazarus, almost sarcastically said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” It was the very same Thomas who again spoke up as Jesus spoke of his departure from this world: “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

It wasn’t a new character trait for Thomas. It seems that doubts and pessimism had followed him most of his life. The events of Holy Week didn’t help any. Soon, his whole world is falling apart. Thomas sees Jesus arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. With the rest of the apostles, he flees for his life. On Good Friday, he watches from a distance as they nail Jesus to the cross at Golgotha. As Jesus’ life drains away, so does Thomas’ hope. Holy Saturday is a blur, so great is his shock. Some people, when confronted with the loss of a loved one, want to be with other people. Misery loves company, they say. But others want to be alone. They don’t want to talk to anyone. They don’t want to see anyone. Our friend Thomas seems to fall into that latter category. He’s so disillusioned on Sunday, Easter Sunday, he doesn’t even get together with the other apostles for the evening meal. On Monday morning, his friends find him and tell him what happened. “Thomas, we were in the upper room, where we’ve been meeting. The doors were locked. But suddenly Jesus was there! Shalom! Peace! He says. He showed us his hands and side. We saw the nail holes. Thomas, he’s risen! He’s alive!”

“I don’t believe it!” Thomas barks. “I won’t believe it, not a word of it! You’re seeing what  you want to see. Jesus is dead. I saw him die and part of me died with him. He’s dead! And the sooner you accept that fact, the better off you’ll be.”  You can imagine the disciples pleading with their friend, urging him to believe what they know to be true. And you can hear the hurt, the bitterness, the doubt dripping in Thomas’ reply: “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, and put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will never believe.”” 

Perhaps you can relate to Thomas. Perhaps you too have a hard time seeing the glass half-full. Perhaps you also have doubts about how God operates. Perhaps you wonder why some suffer while others don’t; why some prosper while others fail. Perhaps your life is full of questions that you can’t seem to find the answers. Maybe, instead of turning to your fellow believers for help, for comfort, for reassurance, like Thomas you try and go it alone. May the words of this poem express exactly how you feel: 

Let me meet you on the mountain, Lord. Just once. You wouldn’t have to burn a whole bush. Just a few smoking branches and I would surely be your Moses. Let me meet you on the water, Lord. Just once. It wouldn’t have to be on the lake. Just on a puddle after the rain. And I would surely be your Peter. Let me meet you on the road, Lord. Just once. You wouldn’t have to blind me on the highway. Just a few bright lights on the way to church. And I would surely be your Paul. Let me meet you, Lord. Just once. Anywhere. Anytime. Just meeting you in the Word is so hard sometimes. Must I always be your Thomas? 

And here’s the hard thing, folks. Even if we don’t feel exactly like Thomas, we can relate. Because we’ve all had doubts. Our world will tell us that doubts are good. It’s good to question things, to not accept everything as truth. And while that may be true about the things of this world, that’s not true when it comes to God. Doubt is unbelief. When we doubt what God says to us, when we doubt God’s promises, we don’t believe them. And we’re all guilty of it, every single one of us, including me. We’re all guilty of doubting something about God and his Word. From one doubting Thomas to another, this is exactly why Easter is so important. Because of Easter, because of what Jesus did for you, your risen Savior has taken away the guilt of your sin and my sins of unbelief. By his death, Jesus brought peace between God and man. Every last sin was paid for; every last bit of punishment was endured. His resurrection–his return to life–is God’s not-guilty verdict to the world. 

And now the risen Jesus has brought that not-guilty verdict to his disciples–and to you. In the risen Christ, all of our doubts have been paid for; every last bit of unbelief has been atoned for. You and I are free–free from the guilt of our sins, the guilt of our doubt. We are free to “call a spade a spade” as it were. We are free to point out the folly of our doubt and give it the proper name it deserves when we talk about it. There’s no longer any need to sugarcoat our doubt or cover it up. We are free–not to keep living in our doubts, but to let Jesus remove every last doubt from our lives. 

Jesus removed Thomas’ doubt just one week later. “After eight days, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them. “Peace be with you,” he said. Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and look at my hands. Take your hand and put it into my side. Do not continue to doubt, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”” It doesn’t seem fair, does it? Thomas sins by doubting what his brothers in faith told him. Thomas demands that he won’t believe Jesus is alive unless he has proof, unless he can touch Jesus’ wounds. Thomas demands and Jesus gives him exactly what he asked for. Sure, it would be easy for Thomas to stop doubting, to believe in Jesus since he was standing right there in front of him. So why can’t Jesus do the same for us? Why do we always have to be the Thomas? 

From one doubting Thomas to another, those questions will enter our minds from time to time. We long greatly for proof, for something we can hold onto, something we can grasp. We’ll look high and low. Maybe we’ll gravitate to archeological evidence of chariots found in the Red Sea? Maybe we’ll flock to a 4-year-old boy’s story about seeing Jesus. If someone would just come back from the dead and tell us, then we could know like Thomas. But my dear friends, from one doubting Thomas to another, I caution you. When we go looking for evidence in those places, we might find it. I can’t say that the chariot wheels found in the Red Sea aren’t from the time of Moses. It turns out that young 4 year-old Colton was coached to say he saw a vision of heaven. Nevertheless, I remember a story that Jesus told about a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus. That poor man, who was suffering greatly in hell, wanted Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his five brothers. And Abraham’s words were pretty clear. He said, “They have Moses and the Prophets. If they won’t listen to them, they won’t listen even if someone rises from the dead.”

We have something even greater than Moses and the Prophets. We have the entire revealed Word of God. We have God’s inspired Word which tells us everything we need to know . Just look at the last verse! “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” Jesus has given us what we need! He’s given us himself in his Word. We can touch him and feel him and taste and see that the Lord is good as we partake of his holy Supper. This is how God wanted it to be! In fact, that’s how he wants people to believe, how he prefers they believe. It’s how you and I believe. We believe by hearing Jesus’ words. That, after all, is what faith is. Faith is believing something even though you don’t see it. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Paul told us: “We walk by faith, not by sight.” But faith always has to be faith in something. Faith has to be built on something. Faith has to have an object. Faith is only as good as what you believe in. Our faith is built on Jesus’ Word: “Jesus, in the presence of his disciples, did many other miraculous signs that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” 

We believe by hearing Jesus’ words. It is his words that make the Sacraments what they are. Martin Luther, in his small catechism, posed the question, “How can water do such great things?” and he answered, “It is certainly not the water which does such things, but God’s Word, which is in  and with the water…” Luther posed a similar question about the Lord’s Supper: “How can eating and drinking do such great things?” And again he answered: “It is certainly not the eating and drinking which does such things, but the words, ‘Given and poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.’ These words are the main thing in the sacrament, along with the eating and drinking. And whoever believes these worlds has what they plainly say, the forgiveness of sins.” Jesus’ words are what made believers out of you and me. And so from one doubting Thomas to another, Jesus says, “Come back to my words. Keep hearing my words. My words will take away your doubts. My words will change your minds. My words will keep you believing. My words will lead you to say, “My Lord and My God.” Even though today is not Easter, today and every day are days when we can hear Jesus’ words. Every time we worship we are convinced again from the Word  that the impossible has happened–one man came back from death and it means that all will come back from death. Thomas believed by seeing Jesus’ wounds. We have no wounds to see. We have words to hear. Let’s hear them, let’s keep hearing them, let’s not get bored with hearing them, and let’s keep on hearing them so that we believe them. From one doubting Thomas to another, as Jesus said: “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.” Amen.