Year C

John 20:19-31

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Faith that Keeps On Giving

What a party we had last Sunday on Easter Sunday celebrating the risen Lord. There were shouts of “alleluias” and kids running about looking for Easter eggs. There were plenty of goodies to eat and thankfully most of them were eaten. After everyone left, the parish hall looked as if a hurricane had hit it. It was such a joyful day. The party was fun and we wish we could keep it going forever but alas that is impossible. We have to go home. There is school or work the next day and life must return to the normal. In truth, the Easter “reality,” though exciting at the start, is no easy thing to keep up.  Here we are one week after the feast, and it feels more like a crash than a “come down.”

Yes, we must return to the reality of life here on earth but thankfully there is a Christian community, a remnant, where the new reality of Easter Sunday not only survives but thrives and the texts today each speak to a post-resurrection reality. They help us to grasp what it means to be “witnesses” of the resurrection. If we could sum up the theme for today it would be “The Difference that Easter Makes.” The Easter proclamation that “Christ is risen!” does not describe a passive event. News of the resurrection affected the earliest witnesses, and it still affects us, giving us faith to witness, persevere, serve, and give thanks for God’s abundant blessing. Throughout the Easter season we will witness the growth of disciple’s faith and the spread of the gospel.

Faith is a gift-not something we can muster or dredge up, but rather something that takes hold of us, leading us in directions we may never previously have imagined going. I’m certainly not on the road I would have imagined as a young girl. Faith is at heart, a gamble, a risk, a wager that against all odds God’s love prevails over hate and the life God offers is stronger than death. Yet, the reality is that even on this journey of faith there will be moments when we want proof of what it is we believe. The disciples have seen the power of Jesus. Heard his teachings, watched him heal the sick and even raise the dead. They have heard from the women about the empty tomb. Yet somehow, here they are still sitting huddled behind locked doors, frightened and feeling self-pity.

Into the locked room steps Jesus, whom the disciples had last seen dying. Those who had doubted God’s power and promises are given the living abiding presence and peace of God in the Holy Spirit. Thomas who was not with the disciples when Jesus made his appearance chooses not to believe the combined witness of his friends. He is unconvinced both by their words and their sudden transformation from defeat to joy. Thomas demands evidence.

I really think Thomas known as doubting Thomas has gotten a bad rap. He just asks for a chance to see Jesus in person like the other disciples; to know that word of his Lord’s resurrection is no cruel hoax. Thomas in my opinion is not so much a doubter as he is a “realist”. He watched as his Lord and friend was nailed to a cross, and he wants proof when he hears Jesus is alive. For Thomas, Jesus appears and calls him to believe in the presence of the risen Christ. I’m pretty certain that most of us have a bit of Thomas in us. John shares this story both to acknowledge how hard it is to believe at times and to encourage all of us in faith.

It is through Thomas’s story that we not only have someone we can relate to but we have the only visual description we ever receive of the risen Christ. All that we do know is that after the resurrection he still bore the marks of crucifixion. However, his appearance was changed in his risen form. Thomas recognizes him by the marks of the nails and the wound in his side and his affirmation of belief “My Lord and my God,” marks the climax of the entire gospel of John. John writes, “These are written so that you may come to believe….and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

The resurrection creates in the disciples the faith and courage to witness to those who have ears to hear and to those who oppose them. They risk their lives to share the message of God’s redeeming work in the world. Jesus was killed; but God did not allow death to have the final word. This was the God-given vision which Peter and the other disciples had been commissioned to share with the Christians and all the people now in harm’s way as Roman authority begins to turn ugly. In the reading from Acts today we hear the apostles being called on the carpet by the authorities for refusing to obey an order to cease and desist in their preaching and teaching activities. 

Peter sums up the matter when forced to choose, the people of Christ must be faithful to their Lord’s calling, come what may. We hear the command to trust in the testimonies of those ancestors in the faith; to embrace resurrection reality as God’s gift to us. God raised Jesus, Peter says, not to bring blood upon anyone but to offer the gifts of repentance and forgiveness to all; to offer us life through God’s Spirit. As John proclaims in the book of Revelation, we are God’s from beginning to end. Everything begins with God and everything ends with God, which means everything begins and ends with resurrection life.

When John wrote the words in our text today from Revelation it was a generation or two after Easter, the redeeming and triumphal power of Jesus’ death and resurrection were already set as the twin pillars upon which the Christian faith rested. By the light of these events the church interpreted the past, so that all history is moving toward the life giving, saving fact of Easter.  God loves us, God has freed us from our sin and God will come back, with the clouds, to finish the work of Easter. The party is never over. Our job as Peter and John remind us; is live our Easter faith boldly, because all the struggles of this present life are simply a prelude to “feasting at the heavenly banquet.     

Today our readings say a lot about faith: where it comes from and what makes it possible. Sometimes we will forget and doubt and sometimes we will remember and trust. Sometimes we will be able to speak with strength and conviction of all that God has done for us in Christ, and sometimes we panic and can’t seem to find the right words. That is why it’s important for us to remember that the real witness to the resurrection power of God is God. The Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Life-giver, the gift to us of God’s continuing presence with us, carries on the job of bearing witness to the crucified and risen Christ.

Yet, and we are not always sure why, God asks us to join in, to tell what we have seen and heard. The disciples testify because they must obey the Spirit, even when it puts their life in jeopardy. Thomas’ skepticism is swept away, and all he can do is confess Jesus not only as his Lord but also as his God. John writes to seven churches because he can do no other. It does seem that faith is more of a response by those who have been gripped by God than a choice or decision. I pray this dynamic and unpredictable faith will take hold of each one of us and lead us to witness, persevere, serve, and give thanks for God’s abundant love. Alleluia! Christ has risen!