Return to Sermon Page

April 3, 2005; The Second Sunday of Easter, Year A
    The Rev. Harold "Skip" Comer, Rector

Thomas said, “Unless I see . . . I will not believe.”  Today, the Sunday after Easter, is also known as Thomas Sunday, because we always hear of the doubt he expressed upon being told by the other disciples that Jesus had risen from the dead.  Does Thomas really deserve this title?  Was his reaction that different from the reaction of the others?

In the Gospel of John, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early on that first Easter morning and discovered that Jesus was gone.  She doubted his resurrection, because she told Peter and John that someone had stolen Jesus’ body.  Doubting Mary, Peter and John go to the tomb for themselves.  John, the Gospel writer, indicates that Peter and John did not believed that Jesus had risen from the dead at this point when he says, “they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.”  Mary Magdalene, who had gone back to the tomb, was weeping outside, when Jesus appears to her she thinks it is the gardener.  Finally, after speaking her name, Mary realizes that it is Jesus, and then goes and tells the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.”  And that is where our Gospel reading picks up the story this morning, with Mary having told the disciples she’s been with the risen Lord.  Yet we do not hear of any sudden burst of faith on the part of the disciples.  As a matter-in-fact, in Mark’s Gospel it says they did not believe her.[i]  Mark goes on to say that Jesus then appeared to two of his followers as they were walking into the country.   They went and told the disciples, and the disciples did not believe them.[ii]

What I am suggesting, is that when we compare the initial reactions of the other disciples with that of Thomas’ reaction, Thomas doesn’t look so bad.   And, if we read on in Mark’s Gospel we discover that when Jesus appears to the eleven disciples sitting in the upper room he scolds them for not believing in the witness of Mary Magdalene and the two followers who had told them that they had seen the risen Lord.

Returning to John’s account of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples on the evening of the resurrection, we find Jesus entering the room and saying “Peace be with you.”  And then he shows them his hands and his side.  It is only after doing this that the disciples “rejoiced when the saw the Lord.”  They saw the marks of the crucifixion, and then they believed.  It makes me wonder why Thomas is the only one who was labeled a doubter.

I can identify with Thomas in the incident we heard in the Gospel reading from John, because I have been in similar situations myself.  Maybe you have too.  You meet someone who has had some kind of spiritual experience.  It gives them a real high.  They seem to have experienced something that gives them inner peace as well as an overpowering sense of the presence of God.  They decide that now everyone should have the same experience and feelings.  If you don’t, you are somehow lacking in faith.  Have you ever met someone like that?

That is what happened when Thomas went back to the upper room after Jesus had appeared to the other disciples.  Rather than believing that the disciples had actually seen the risen Jesus, Thomas says, “Unless I see . . . I will not believe.”

Doubt is not necessarily a bad word.  Alfred Lord Tennyson once said, “There is often more faith in honest doubt than in the unthinking acceptance of a conventional creed.”  And so it was with Thomas.  He was honest enough to voice the struggle he was having in believing that Jesus had risen from the dead.  “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”   Thomas’ statement of defiance sets the stage for his powerful response upon seeing Jesus.  “My Lord and my God!”

For me, this incident gives us permission to take our doubts and lay them on the table before God.  It is like the father of the son who was possessed by evil spirits.  The disciples had tried to heal the boy but were unsuccessful.  The father brings his son to Jesus and begs him if Jesus is able to, to heal the boy.  Jesus challenges his doubt, to which the father replies, “Lord I believe; help my unbelief.”   It’s not that Thomas didn’t want to believe, he was struggling with the unbelievableness that Jesus was actually alive.   So it is, I believe with us.  We want to believe yet questions and doubts arise, and we are ashamed or embarrassed to voice them.  It is at these moments that our prayer should be “Lord I believe; help my unbelief.”

A couple of years ago the mediation in the Forward Day by Day [iii] for the Sunday after Easter said, “faith is not demonstrable.”  I am not so sure about that statement.  Thomas, who responds, “My Lord and my God!” is a sure demonstration of the belief and faith he had in the risen Lord Jesus Christ.  But we do not have the same advantage that Thomas and the other disciples had.  The risen Lord Jesus Christ, the object of our faith, has not physically appeared to us.

The meditation goes on to say, “Faith is an individual response to the presence of God in Christ in his or her life.  We may share our faith, we may speak of it to others, but we cannot create it in another human being.  And yet, when we sense, when we experience, feel, the faith of another human being we are strengthened, uplifted, emboldened to make our response to the presence of the Risen Christ everywhere around us.”[iv]

That is why we come to church.  To be among those who share the same faith in the risen Jesus Christ as we do.  Sometimes we are so bold as to share our faith, what it means to us and how it has changed our lives.  But most often we would just rather keep it to ourselves, afraid, I believe that others might question the depth and authenticity of our faith.  We have no proof that Jesus was raised from the dead.  We only have the testimony of his closest followers, who even scripture admits, first doubted his resurrection.

In the midst of the Easter celebration, as we hear the stories of the appearances of the risen Christ to his disciples and others, we may long to have that same experience – to see for ourselves so that our faith might be confirmed.  But that is not to be the case.  Instead, we join the millions who are blessed – because even though we were not there – even though we did not see the risen Lord – we believe.

Lord I believe!  Help me during those times of struggle and unbelief!  

Return to Sermon Page