Proverbs
23:23
Buy
the truth,
and do not sell it.
John
20:26-29
A week later (Jesus’)
disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though
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; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop
doubting and believe.”
Thomas
said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Then Jesus told him,
“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who
have not seen and yet have believed.”
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Jesus Walks on the Sea
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Issues
Etc. frequently plays a sound clip of President Obama
describing a person’s faith as “What one chooses to
believe.” This is a politician’s way of describing religion, but
it is a strange way of describing one’s faith.
What
is it that you believe? There are only two categories of things that
you can believe: Truth or Lies. Which do you believe?
Let’s
first assume that you believe the truth. I trust that is a good
assumption, but do you have to decide to believe
the truth?: “Hmmmm, Am I going to believe the truth... or a lie?”
If you have to decide to believe the truth then you are
doing it wrong, and it is most likely an accident that you chose the
truth. If you have to decide to believe the truth then sooner or
later you will be seduced by the lie. It will happen. The devil works
hard to make the lies seem more attractive than the truth, so if you
have to decide to believe the truth, then eventually you will find
the lie much more appealing and lose the truth for a lie.
Now,
if you decide to believe a lie, then you are just a fool. Little more
needs to be said about that except to note that this is different
than people who mistakenly believe a lie. Sometimes people who don’t
know the difference between the truth and a lie will believe the
truth once they learn the truth, but people who choose
to believe a lie will find it
difficult to choose the
truth.
It
is hard to get through to people who choose to believe a lie because
one can’t easily reason with them. They have rationalized and
justified their choice, and they feel they must embrace the lies out
of fear that the truth is somehow worse (though it never is). One can
try to help people like this, but they don’t want to be helped and
they resent the effort.
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The Risen Christ appears to two men on the road
to Emmaeus.
Window from Zion Lutheran Church, Columbus, Ohio
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Christ’s
apostle, Thomas, knew the truth.
At the time of Christ’s resurrection he had been a Disciple of
Jesus for about three years. Thomas had heard Jesus teaching. He had
seen many miracles such as: Jesus walking on the water; Jesus feeding
5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two small fish; and Jesus
raising Lazarus from the dead.
Thomas
had heard Jesus say plainly, “We are going up to Jerusalem … and
the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of
the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the
Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him.
Three days later he will rise.” (Mk. 10:33-34)
When
all this came to pass, the other ten apostles came to Thomas and told
him, “We have seen the Lord!” Yet, Thomas did not believe.
It
wasn’t that Thomas doubted. He willfully refused to
believe. He said, “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.” This was not doubt. This was stubborn
unbelief.
Thomas
thought he knew what life was and what death was, and this didn’t
fit. He thought: You live – you die – then … No, that is all.
That is what experience taught him. You have surely had the same
experience. You may have heard some people claim to have come back
from the dead in the hospital, but those people weren’t really
dead. They were nearly dead. There is a big difference between nearly
dead and dead. Nearly dead – you might be revived. Dead – and you
cannot be revived.
Jesus
was dead. Pontius Pilate’s soldiers made sure of that. After Jesus
died they stuck a spear in His side to make sure that He really was
dead. If Jesus had shown signs of life, then they would have broken
His legs as they did to the other two. The spear pierced His lungs
and water poured out, then it pierced His heart and blood poured out.
He was dead. He was mutilated. He wasn’t coming back. At least,
that is what Thomas thought. He was wrong.
When
Jesus is involved – Life and Death don’t work as we expect them
to, and honestly, when is Jesus NOT involved? Jesus is the Lord of
Life and the Conqueror of death. Jesus didn’t have to appear to
Thomas. He had appeared to the ten Apostles, and others. But Jesus
had important work for Thomas to do and He didn’t want Him to have
any doubts, nor to be a stubborn unbeliever.
Jesus
knew that others would have the same concerns as Thomas: “How can I
believe Jesus is raised from the dead when I haven’t seen Him?”
Jesus would send Thomas into the world to preach the Gospel with
authority, and ultimately, Jesus would ask Thomas to give his life in
witness to the truth of the Gospel. So Jesus appeared to Thomas as He
had with the other Apostles.
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| Jesus turns water into wine. Window from Zion Lutheran Church, Columbus, Ohio |
You
should note that Jesus didn’t appear to Thomas right away. Remember
that in His glorified state, Jesus – even in His physical body –
is omnipresent (present everywhere). When Thomas was telling the Ten,
“... unless I
see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails
were …” Jesus could have tapped him on the shoulder then and
said, “Thomas, see my hands and side. Stop doubting and believe.”
But Jesus made Thomas wait one whole week. This gave the other
Apostles time to try to convince him that they had seen Jesus alive.
Though the Scriptures do not tell us all the conversations that went on between the Apostles, I
don’t doubt that the phrase, “Doubting Thomas” was first used
by the other apostles to tease Thomas about his stubborn unbelief.
Jesus didn’t tease Thomas.
He just appeared in the locked room, as before, and said to Thomas,
“Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it
into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Then Thomas believed and
said to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!”
Then Jesus told him,
“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who
have not seen and yet have believed.”
Why did Jesus appear to
Doubting Thomas? First it was out of love for Thomas. Jesus wanted
Thomas to be certain that he trusted in a living savior – a flesh
and blood savior who is also God! Second, Jesus appeared to the
Apostles so that you also may believe through the eyewitness
testimony of many people.
Jesus sent the Apostles to
testify to the truth of Jesus’ resurrection and the forgiveness
which He won for us on the cross. The Apostles, and many others, got
to see Jesus alive, but we have to wait a little while before we see
Him as they did. We have their eyewitness testimony written in the
Holy Scriptures to know that Jesus is alive, and Jesus calls us
blessed for believing before we have seen Him with our own eyes.
We
also have pastors and teachers to teach us the Truth of God’s Word
that we might receive the blessings of Christ’s forgiveness and
salvation through faith. Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, I
am sending you.” In his letter to the Romans (10:13-15) St. Paul
tells us how and why Jesus has sent us men like these Apostles:
“‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And
how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how
can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they
preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are
the feet of those who bring good news!’”
What
is the message the Apostles were sent to give? Jesus tells us in John
20:23, “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you
do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” We call this the
Office of the Keys. It is not that the church (or the pastor)
forgives anyone they want to, but that they forgive according to
Christ’s command. Faithful pastors forgive the sins of penitent sinners, and withhold forgiveness from sinners who do not repent.
Like
Thomas, not everyone believes the message. Unlike Thomas,
some wish to hold on to their sins, but we must not forgive them
until they repent, lest they remain in their sins and perish through
them. But to all who trust in Jesus for the forgiveness
of their sins they are completely forgiven, and shall receive eternal
life — even as Jesus has risen from the dead to everlasting life.
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| Window from Zion Lutheran Church, Columbus, Ohio |
The
Apostle, Thomas, did not choose to be one of Christ’s disciples.
Jesus chose him to be a disciple. It is possible that you believe
that you chose to be a Christian, but that is not correct. Jesus
chose you, too. Jesus said, “You
did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear
fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the
Father in my name, he may give it to you.”
(John 15:16)
There
is great comfort in not having to choose what to believe, but in
simply believing the truth. If we had to choose, then we could choose
the lie; or we could choose the truth, but do it in the wrong way; or
we could choose the truth and later change our mind and choose
something else. The comfort of Christ doing it all for you is that
there is no doubt. Christ has done all that is needed for your
salvation, and simply asks you to believe the truth. “(Jesus) is
the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)
There
are times when we all may doubt, or even be an unbeliever like Thomas
was. Take comfort. The Christian faith is not a blind faith.
Thomas saw Jesus alive after His death and touched Him, as did John
and many more people. We have their eyewitness testimony. More than
that, we have the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures. We
also have the testimony of Jesus Himself who gives His body and blood
to us in the Sacrament of The Lord’s Supper. As Martin Luther
taught, “(Jesus’) words, ‘Given and shed for you’ require all
hearts to believe.” Blessed are you who have not seen, and yet
believe.
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