Sermon: Sympathy for Thomas

Sermon by Matt Kennedy
texts: Hebrews 11:1 and John 20:24-31

The Author of Hebrews writes: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (11:1)

What do those words mean?
    
I once had dinner with a Mormon bishop. Mormons believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet who spoke with an Angel named Maroni, the guardian of buried golden plates written in a language called reformed Egyptian. The angel was once a man, the last survivor of a white Native American civilization descended from the Israelite patriarch Lehi, who crossed the Atlantic in 600 BC. All Native Americans are descendants of Lehi. After his resurrection Jesus visited them and preached a gospel that promised all men could, through righteous works, become gods of their own planets and populate them with children born of their many wives. But they sinned and the descendants of Lehi were cursed which is why, said Joseph Smith, they are dark skinned. All of this history was written on the golden plates which, when Joseph Smith translated them, would later become the Book of Mormon.

Now, here are some facts. There is no such thing as reformed Egyptian. There is no DNA connection between Native Americans the Hebrews. The once clearly taught revealed doctrine that Native Americans are darker skinned because they are cursed is so absurd that modern Mormons reject it. And the teachings of Mormonism are in clear conflict with the bible which they claim also to be the word of God.

I shared much of this with the Mormon bishop. It didn’t phase him. I believe, he said, because when I was told the Latter Day Saints gospel, I was passionately drawn to it. I felt moved. Faith, he said, needs no evidence or reason or consistency, I just believe what my heart tells me.
  
If that is the kind of faith scripture commends, then we’re in trouble. The Christian claim that Jesus is the Way and the Truth and the Life—if faith is following the heart—is no better than the statement: “There is only one God and Mohamed is his prophet.” People can make both claims, and do, with passionate sincerity and heartfelt commitment and if evidence, reason, past revelation are unnecessary standards then no ne has any grounds for saying any belief system anywhere is in any way wrong. The Haley Bob Heavens gate cultist, The Satanist, the Mormon, the Muslim, the Christian all stand on equal ground because all have sincerity and passion and zeal.
    
The bible never commends commends blind faith. After the author of Hebrews 11 defines faith as being certain of what we do not see he goes on to give example after example of what that looks like. God speaks, God calls, God promises, and men and women trust what God says—but they trust not only because their hearts have been moved, but also because God over and over again, provides reasons to believe that what he says is true. So Moses was drawn not just by his heart but by a bush on fire that did not burn up. And he came face to face with a God who did not say things in conflict with past revelation, but who recalled to Moses’ mind, promises made long ago. Moses was sent to Pharoah not simply with a call to his heart, but with signs, evidence, to compel belief, a staff that turns to a snake and a hand that withers with leprosy so that Pharoah would have all that is necessary to believe even though his heart and his present circumstances said otherwise. Biblical is trusting in the already established trustworthiness of God when present circumstances cast doubt on it. Blind faith is following the heart against all comers.
    
Blind faith is like wrapping a blindfold around your eyes and stepping out into rush hour traffic on 17 because you passionately believe you won’t be hit. Biblical faith is really being blind, needing to cross the highway, and resting on the arm of a friend who can see.
    
Scripture teaches that if we simply follow our hearts, we’ll inevitably be hit by the bus of life. But God has come to us in history as our friend—and offered his arm in the form of his word, his prophets, his apostles, his Son, his Spirit and provided evidence that he is trustworthy. He prophesies events, they come to pass. He performs miracles in history and leaves evidence verifiable by secular as well as religious people to support what he has done. He provides a book without error or contradiction. He does these things that we might rest on his arm and go where he leads even when we do not see a way forward or understand how his promise can come true when everything we have experienced in our lives up to that point tells us, screams to us that it cannot. 
    
Now, about Thomas. “Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” 
    
What kind of faith was Thomas called to? Before Thomas’ eyes, Jesus claimed to be God. He never contradicted one word of past revelation. He never sinned. He walked on the water. He raised the dead. He fed over 20K people with five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus spoke with authority and did things only God can do. Among Jesus’ words were these:
   
“We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.”
    
By the time Thomas returned to the room on Easter evening, Jesus had appeared to Mary Magdalene and the other women, the two men on the road to Emmaus, to Peter, and to all ten disciples together. Thomas had standing before him over 15 reliable witnesses of four different appearances in one day, all telling him that Jesus’ promise of resurrection had come true. They’d seen, touched, ate with and embraced Jesus in his body, alive. 
    
Thomas was not called on to step out into traffic blindfolded but to trust the Prophets, the eyewitness accounts of his fellow disciples, the promise of One who had never shown himself untrustworthy and the evidence of the empty tomb itself. He was not called to follow his heart, to look for the warm feeling, but Past revelation, eyewitness testimony, the promises of God, and the evidence.
    
“Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”
    
It’s so very safe not to believe. Maybe Thomas had taken Saturday to accept Jesus’ death as real and unalterable and had psyched himself up to go on anyway. And now all that work to get his mind straight, to get his heart and emotions stabilized is threatened by, of all things, hope. Some reject the gospel because they’ve trained themselves to be good stoics, to grit their teeth, bear life and get on with it and to consider the Christian claim means risking all of that.
Maybe Thomas had decided to go back home and try to put his life together, to go back to his old job and do what he had done before and just be normal. But if the resurrection is true, there would be no return to normalcy. Accepting the gospel as true means the external material circumstances your life are going to change dramatically and often for the worst.
    
I don’t know, no one does, what was going on in Thomas’ heart and mind, but he chose in the end not to trust the prophets, the apostles, the promise of Christ and the evidence. But he also made another choice and, I think, an important one.
    
“26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them.”

Thomas stuck around. He’s at odds with everyone.

Their going on rejoicing joyful, happy, all week…and he’s not. It must have been really annoying for him. But he stayed. I don’t want to shout where scripture is silent, but I’ve known a number of people who seemed unpersuaded, offended by the gospel, contemptuous, mocking even, but they come back Sunday after Sunday.  They don’t leave. Sometimes, people on the threshold of faith act that way because they are afraid of letting go of unbelief—which is why it is so important to be kind and loving and respectful even to seemingly bitter and angry and consdescending unbelievers. You don’t know what God is doing.
    
Thomas stayed the week. He listened, perhaps argued. He probably saw the empty tomb and the burial clothes. He heard the reports over and over again. He stayed. But ultimately what was, and is, impossible for the church to do, Jesus did.
    
Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
    
Thomas should have believed the prophets and apostles. He should have believed Jesus’ own promises. There was enough evidence to make Thomas’ unbelief irrational and inexcusable. Thomas did not deserve to have Jesus come to him personally and make himself known. And yet Jesus loved Thomas and knew exactly what he needed.
  
And out of the mouth of the most notorious doubter in all of scripture, God brings forth one of the most profound statements of faith ever uttered. 28 “My Lord and my God!”
    
This is grace.  This is my life. I was worse than Thomas because I was persuaded in my mind that Christianity is true but my heart was afraid and stubborn and hard. I never would’ve gotten on my knees and given my heart to Jesus on my own. I’ve been saying all along biblical faith is not following blindly the heart because our hearts are easily deceived. But neither is it a cold rational choice to follow revelation and the evidence because by nature, none of us want to. Faith comes from God who graciously, in love draws us to himself not apart from his word, but through it, not apart from the evidence but consistently with it, not apart from our hearts but in and through them. God gracioulsy comes to us personally and makes himself known. God stoops down and gives what we do not deserve but what we need and must have. He lets himself be seen and heard and touched by doubting, disbelieving, untrusting people so that they can live.
 
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Don’t take false pride in this. Jesus is not saying, you and I are better than Thomas because we believed when he did not. If that was his point, he would not say blessed. Blessed is something God does. We are blessed by God because he’s made himself known to us in a way that is far more profound and intimate than seeing with the eye.

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