Do you remember playing “Hide and Seek” when you were young? Do you remember the adrenalin rush when the person who was “It” closed his/her eyes and began counting? Do you remember running to look for a safe hiding place… finding and rejecting several different ones… always conscious that time was running out? Then, suddenly, you would hear “Ready or not, here I come!” With your heart pounding loudly in your chest… so loudly that you thought everyone could hear it… you ducked out of sight… held your breath… and waited to be “found.” Hiding… waiting… I sometimes wonder if the disciples felt that way after Jesus’ death. They were hiding from the Romans and the Jews… waiting for something… feeling like they were not quite ready, but knowing that the time had come. It was time for their Risen Lord to appear!
There are two passages that precede our text today… both of them resurrection stories. One is the story of Mary Magdalene on Easter morning. Do you remember it? Mary Magdalene went to the tomb alone. She found the tomb empty and saw the angels. Then, she saw Jesus, but she thought he was the gardener. Strange, isn’t it? Didn’t she know Jesus’ face? Didn’t she recognize his voice? She had been with him for several years, but she did not recognize him. She expected to find a closed tomb… and a cold… dead body. Instead, she found an empty tomb and a living Savior. But her mind could not quite grasp it. Why was it so hard for her to believe? Why didn’t she believe until she heard him call her by name… touched his feet?
After the story of Mary in the garden, the next story is the story of the disciples… of Jesus’ followers. The word that is used here is not specific to just the twelve apostles, but it is a more generic term that applied to all of Jesus’ followers. The gospel of John tells us that Mary told the disciples what she had seen and what Jesus had said to her. It does not say how they received the news. But the gospels of Matthew and Luke both tell us that the men did not believe what the women told them. Later that night, Jesus came to them and stood among them. He showed them his hands and his feet. Then… the text says… they believed and rejoiced. Why was it so difficult for them to believe Mary or the other women? After all, Jesus had told them that he would die and that in three days he would be raised. And the women brought the news from the angels that it was true… and yet, the disciples did not believe until they saw him for themselves.
I remember that, early in the week before graduation at the seminary, a good friend… a young man who had lived next door to me in the dormitory and with whom I shared most of my classes… received a telephone call from the Dean’s office. It seemed he was six credits short of graduating… just one course… even though he had taken the time to go to the Registrar in person in December to check his total hours. He would not be able to graduate. I could only begin to imagine his pain. He had plans to go to Egypt as a missionary… the application had already been accepted by the church. He had people waiting for him… a young Christian woman, in particular. Unfortunately, the only courses offered at the seminary during the summer months were courses that he had already taken… meaning that he would have to wait until fall. December graduation was a long way away.
I am happy to be able to tell you that, after several days, the issue was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. But when do you think that young man believed that he was actually going to graduate from seminary? You’re right. He did not believe it until he held his diploma in his own hands. Are we so different from those disciples of long ago?
Why are we so hard on Thomas? Did he do anything that was really different from what Mary had done… or the other disciples who saw Jesus before him? He was absent that night… the night Jesus appeared to the disciples… so they told him about it later and Thomas was skeptical. Do you blame him? Did his skepticism mean that he did not want Jesus to be alive? No. Like the other disciples, he probably wanted to believe their stories, but he was afraid that it would all prove to be a lie. After all, it was preposterous to think that Jesus would be alive! Too many people had seen him die… had seen the dead body. They had all spent hours in mourning… grieving his death… telling and retelling the story of his trials and his crucifixion. How could he be alive now?
Have you ever wanted something so badly that, even when you were told that you were going to get it, you were afraid to believe it? We have all had disappointments in our lives… so many things that did not live up to our expectations… that, sometimes, I’m convinced it is just easier to be skeptical than to have our hopes dashed again.
So, Jesus returned to be with the disciples again and this time, he came over to Thomas. “Touch me,” he said. “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.” The gospel does not say that Thomas did any of those things. He did, however, offer the greatest confession in the gospel of John: “My Lord and my God!”
Christ is risen! [He is risen indeed!] Our Savior lives! Do you believe it? Do you believe that our Lord lives? Do you really believe it? Or would you like to see him and touch him… as Mary did… as the disciples did… and as even Thomas did? What would it take for you to really believe?
In the opening scene of the movie “Mission Impossible 2,” Tom Cruise is doing some difficult rock climbing up a steep, vertical cliff that looks too smooth for anyone to find places to put their hands or their feet. Yet, he does it seemingly with ease… even jumping across a chasm to narrow ledge. A little later, he hangs by his fingertips from an overhang. Then, he climbs to the top and stands alone on a pinnacle. Believable? Not to me. But then, I am one of those who does not relish heights or narrow ledges. I would never do what he was doing in that film… nor have I ever watched anyone else do it. So, no, it is not believable to me. Actors can make even flying helicopters into tunnels… as Tom Cruise did in the first “Mission Impossible” movie… look easy. That doesn’t mean that it can be done… or that anyone could do it and live to tell the tale.
Does Jesus truly live? Well, there are many who did not… and many who do not… believe that he lives. Do you remember Saul in the book of Acts? Saul was right there when Stephen told the Jews the good news of Christ’s resurrection and he was stoned to death for his belief. Saul, who heard the story and saw him die, didn’t believe and continued to persecute the Christians… that is until Jesus Christ himself confronted Saul on the road to Damascus. It took a personal encounter with the Divine to convince Saul that Jesus lived. What does it take to convince us that Jesus lives?
That night, when Jesus revealed himself to the disciples and to Thomas, he said to Thomas… loudly enough, I believe, to benefit of all the disciples who were present and listening… “Have you believed… and do you now believe… because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
I know that there are several who are here today who came to what we call “a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ” through a powerful personal experience of God’s presence in their lives. I am one of those. But I also know that there are several here who have not had a personal encounter with God and, yet, they have a deep and unshakable faith. When I read this passage from John and ponder its application in the church today, I believe that these are the people that Jesus is talking about in his conversation with Thomas. He is talking about those who have heard the stories, and who, without their own “Damascus Road experience,” have a deep and rich faith in God. While we who have been… hit over the head with a 2 X 4 are blessed by that experience… there is a special blessing for those whose faith exists without such an experience. God has blessed them because they have not seen and yet, they believe. It is on this faith that the church of Jesus Christ has survived through the ages.
I really think that, if Jesus Christ has not knocked Saul down on the road to Damascus that day, Saul would have continued to persecute the Christians until his dying day. I know that, if God had not come into my life in a real and visible way, I would still be outside the church and searching for meaning in my life. Yet there are thousands of Christians who have never seen or experienced the presence of the Divine in their lives and yet, they believe and they serve the Risen Christ. These are the ones who are truly blessed.
What can we learn from them? What can we learn from those who have faith without the fireworks… those who trust… without the appearance of angels or a crucified Lord? There is story from the gospel of Mark that tells us what we can learn. It is the story of Jesus welcoming the children to his knee when the disciples wanted to keep them away. "Let the little children come to me,” Jesus said. “Do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." After he said this to the disciples, Jesus took the children in his arms and blessed them. Can we have faith like those children? Can we have a simple faith that trusts God even when we cannot see God? What will it take for us to believe like they believe?
That is my prayer for you… and for me today… that we can somehow get beyond Mary in the garden… beyond the disciples in a locked room… beyond even Thomas... that we can discover a faith that believes that our Lord lives today even if we cannot see him. That we can believe, like little children, in a God who loves us… and in a Savior who lives and reigns in the world today! Then, perhaps, our hearts won’t pound so hard when we hear the words, “Ready or not, here I come!” Amen.
John 20:19-31; 1 John 1:1 – 2:2