Saint Thomas Believes in God / John 20:19–31 / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday April 7th 2024 / Season Of Easter / Mount Olive Lutheran Church

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday April 7th 2024: Season of Easter / John 20:19–31 “Saint Thomas Believes in God”

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 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.”

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.” 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.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends. How many times do you have to hear something before it sinks in? Apparently the average person needs to hear a message about seven times before it sinks in; before they start to take action on what they’ve heard. Before the events of Holy Week with His crucifixion and death Jesus had repeatedly told His disciples that He would “suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”[1] The Gospel’s of Saint Matthew,[2] Saint Mark[3] and Saint Luke[4] all recount one of the first times Jesus taught this to the disciples and Saint Peter’s objection to this, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.,” to which Jesus says to Saint Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan!” Saint Thomas was right there with Peter when Jesus taught about these—at the time—future events.

Again Saint Thomas was with the rest of the disciples when Jesus a second time said, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day.” These words of our Lord where again recorded in the Gospel of Saint Matthew,[5] Saint Mark[6] and Saint Luke.[7] In the Gospel of Saint Luke Jesus even goes so far as to say, “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.” To be fair Saint Mark and Saint Luke also tells us that “they did not understand [what Jesus was saying regarding these things], and [that] it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it. And [on top of that] they were afraid to ask [Jesus more about what He was] saying.”[8] 

In these three Gospel you have yet a third time Jesus teaching these things to His disciples.[9] And this time around Jesus gives them additional details; like that he’d be mocked, spat on and flogged before His death before again teaching them that He’d “be raised on the third day.” In this part of the Gospel of Saint Luke we are told that even after Jesus had taught them this at least three times “they [still] understood none of these things. This saying [Saint Luke says] was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.”[10] Are you starting to see a pattern here?

In the Gospel of Saint John after Jesus had risen Lazarus from the dead, very near the city of Jerusalem, Lazarus’ sister Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with some expensive perfume and Judas, who would soon betray Jesus, complained about her doing this suggesting that the costly ointment should have sold to take care of the poor; that’s when Jesus says something somewhat unusual considering that He’d just raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus said to Judas, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of My burial. For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have Me.”[11] This rather ominous statement from Jesus was said to all of them and Saint Thomas would have been right there to hear it.

Then, only days later, during Holy Week, on the Thursday we call Maundy Thursday after Jesus had washed His disciple’s feet the very night in which He gave them Holy Communion for the first time Jesus spoke of His coming betrayal and says “Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek Me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’”[12] As the evening progressed Jesus also says to them, “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”[13]

These are just some of the instances in which Jesus was talking about His coming death at the Good Friday cross of His crucifixion.  Jesus talked about His death[14] and He talked about His resurrection and ascension.[15] Everything Jesus was doing was intentional. Leading up to Christmas we sing about this intentional work of Christ on our behalf when we sing Saint Ambrose’s ancient hymn Saviour of the Nations, Come and in stanza 5 we find these words that reflect that intentional nature of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension, “God the Father was His source, back to God He ran His course. Into hell His road went down, back then to His throne and crown.”[16] Yes, God loved the world in this way, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.[17] God the eternal Father gave us His eternal Son Jesus and now in our Gospel reading Jesus the eternal Son makes good on His promises and gives to the disciples the promised Helper the eternal Holy Spirit. He taught these things publicly and He taught them directly to His disciples including our dear Saint Thomas.

And Thomas for his part was a sincere disciple and follower of the Lord. He is often referred to as doubting Thomas because of what we read in our Gospel today but Saint Thomas is more than that. In the days leading up to that first Holy Week, when they’d heard news of Lazarus’ death and Thomas realized that Jesus was defiantly going to go to back so near to Jerusalem where men had recently sought to have Jesus murdered, they’d picked up stones to stone Jesus,[18] there Thomas bravely said, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.”[19] Saint Thomas knew the dangers of going so close to the hornets’ nest while at the same time Thomas along with the rest clearly hadn’t grasped what the final outcome for Jesus would be. He thought there was a good chance that they’d all die together with Jesus so I suppose at that point you could call him not doubting Thomas but Saint Thomas the courageous… when only Jesus died, as Jesus said He would Thomas would have been just as devastated as the rest of them. Where was Thomas’ courage then? The Scriptures tells us that they were all afraid.[20]

The odd things is that Thomas and the rest of them, even Judas, had witnessed Jesus cast out demons, heal the sick, and raise the dead and yet when Jesus died upon the cross and He was buried in the tomb they fell into a deep despair and were filled with grief and fear and couldn’t see what would happen next, couldn’t see the path forward, even though Jesus had said to them that it would all happen and that He’d “be raised on the third day.” They showed a profound lack of understanding about the nature of who this Jesus was. Is it not amazing that one could be so near to Jesus and not believe? That a person could hear the voice of Jesus and yet not understand? What hope do we have if men like Saint Thomas, with all the experiences he’d shared with his fellow disciples wavered into disbelief? Where is our hope?

We confess these words to be true, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers.”[21] You, me Thomas we don’t come to faith by our own reason or strength; We like he require grace. As we heard in our Gospel reading Thomas counted certain things to be real and when word of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead began to come to him from the lips of men like Saint Peter and Saint John and all the saintly women who had laid their eyes on the risen Lord Jesus and even touched Him Thomas was unyielding, unbending, unwavering as he said, “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.” Think back on what Jesus said to one of the men who would later help burry His sacred body,[22] Jesus said to Nicodemus while they were talking about the nature of faith and baptism “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”[23] In our Gospel reading we see where that winds blows and who sets the course of that wind when Jesus stands there on that first Easter and says to all His disciples, but the dead Judas and the absent Thomas, these words “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.” And [Saint John tells us] when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

Eight days later Thomas becomes an object lesson for those men of where and how that wind blows; Thomas sees Jesus with his own eyes risen from the dead just as his fellow disciples had said and Thomas hears Jesus’ voice say, “Peace be with you.” Then Jesus says 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 just like that all is forgiven, the Holy Spirit does His work and Thomas answered Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” 

In a sermon a while back I’d mentioned how the devil, even though in the incarnation Jesus was right under his nose, didn’t 100% know Jesus was Jesus because the devil couldn’t read Jesus’ mind, his ability to rationally know something was hampered by the limitations of perception. Taking that a bit farther Jesus’ mother, the Virgin Mary, while presented with extraordinary circumstances was nevertheless called to trust the word of God as delivered to her by angels. The rest of Jesus’ family, the apostles and all His followers likewise didn’t understand who Jesus was even though He stood before them in the flesh and spoke to them with His own voice. So if the Father doesn’t give you Jesus and Jesus doesn’t sacrificially give Himself and the Holy Spirit doesn’t blow that faith into your heart like a wind upon the Word of God than you would be in the dark. After the resurrection by the grace of God the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit the light starts to come on for men like Saint Thomas. And so Jesus says to him, “Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” And now you see yourself. You are one of the blessed who now believe even though you have not seen. You may want to see in Jesus’ hands the mark of the nails, and place your finger into the mark of the nails, and place your hand into His side, but that is not for you this day. You may know people who would make the same demands as Thomas, who would just as emphatically, just as forcefully say, “I will never believe [unless I can do those things].” How will they come to faith? Will they come to faith by tracing the markings of the spear and nail with their fingers or by the Word of Christ enlightened by the Holy Spirit?[24] Saint John answers that question, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.”

So do you need to have some sort of special revelation different from everyone else? Do you need to have a special dream? Do you need to have Jesus stand at the foot of your bed? Do you need to have these kinds of things happen to you? Do you need these things in order to believe … or … what does it say, “These are written [in this book] that you may believe.” The Word of God is how you believe, the Word of God shared to you, read to you, spoken to you, proclaimed to you, preached to you. And how will others believe? Ah, if you share the Word of God with them, if you bring them to where they can hear the Word of God proclaimed to them, read to them. This is how they will believe. How many times will they need to hear it to believe? I don’t know. On average the egg heads say seven times. But here’s something to keep in mind; the number seven in the Bible is always a number that denotes what? The answer is perfection. They need to hear it the perfect number of times. And who knows what the perfect number of times is? The answer is The Holy Spirit. Trust in Him, He’s the One who brings faith to men like Saint Thomas and to you and me and all who believe.        

Let us pray:

Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Matthew 16:21
[2] Matthew 16:21–23
[3] Mark 8:31–38
[4] Luke 9:21–22
[5] Matthew 17:22–23
[6] Mark 9:30–32
[7] Luke 9:43–45
[8] Luke 9:45; Mark 9:32
[9] Matthew 20:17–19; Mark 10:32–34; Luke 18:31–34
[10] Luke 18: 34
[11] John 12:7–8
[12] John 13:33
[13] John 14:25–26
[14] John 8:12-30; 12:27-36
[15] John 1:51
[16] Savior of the Nations, Come, Lutheran Service Book, Concordia Publishing House 2006, #332.
[17] John 3:16
[18] John 10:31
[19] John 11:16
[20] John 20:19
[21] Explanation of the Third Article of the Creed, Luther’s Small Catechism, Concordia Publishing House 2017, Page 24.
[22] John 19:39
[23] John 3:7–8
[24] Romans 10:17

Photo Credit: Main photo detail of The Disbelief of Saint Thomas (Incredulité de Saint Thomas) by James Tissot from brooklynmuseum.