John 20:19-31 - Gain Confidence from Doubting Thomas - April 11, 2021

Do these words sound familiar to you? If not, they should. This same text serves as the Gospel lesson for the second Sunday of Easter in each year of our three year lectionary. And each year, the temptation is to turn this Sunday into a day to beat up on Thomas. He’s an easy target, isn’t he? He was an apostle who had spent three years with Jesus – and yet he didn’t believe. Even seeing wasn’t enough for him – he insisted on touching Jesus in order to believe in the resurrection. It’s tempting to kick poor Thomas while he’s down. Well, today, we’re not going to do that. Today we’re going to try to see Thomas as he really is so that we can see ourselves as Jesus sees us.

Over the centuries, the phrase “doubting Thomas” has become as common and ubiquitous as the phrase “social distancing” is today. But that’s giving Thomas credit he doesn’t deserve. Thomas wasn’t “doubting.” He wasn’t just on the fence about Jesus’ resurrection. He doesn’t say, “I doubt Jesus rose from the dead,” or “I’m not sold on the fact that he appeared to you last week.” No, Thomas says I will never believe. The original Greek is actually even stronger. It’s a double negative – a big no-no in English, but perfectly acceptable in Greek. “There ain’t no way I will believe that you have seen the risen Lord.”

Thomas isn’t a doubter. By his own admission, he’s an unbeliever. There’s a big difference between doubters and unbelievers. Doubters can still be members of the Church; unbelievers stand outside of it. Doubters litter the pages of Scripture. Moses doubted that he was capable to lead Israel (Exodus 3:11-4:17); Elijah doubted that there were any other believers left in Israel (1 Kings 19:9-18); Peter doubted that he could survive the wind and waves of the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 14:22-33). But Thomas had unbelief – and that placed him outside of the Church. The text confirms this: after eight days, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Thomas isn’t counted as one of Jesus’ disciples at this point. To seal this sad truth, Jesus didn’t literally say do not continue to doubt – he says, “do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

What’s more, his fellow disciples had been trying to convince him that [they had] seen the Lord for seven days now. How hardened an unbeliever do you have to be to reject the eye-witness testimony of your best friends for an entire week? They were telling Thomas that they had seen the holes in his hands and feet and side (Luke 24:39); that he had eaten food in front of them (Luke 24:43); that he had breathed the Holy Spirit onto them and gave them the authority to forgive or not forgive sins (John 20:22-23). But Thomas remained obstinate in his unbelief. He would not believe unless I see the nail marks in his hands, and put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into his side. Curious desires aside – I mean, who, other than a medical professional, wants to touch someone else’s scarred body – Thomas wasn’t just bold in his unbelief, he was militant in it.

Again, I’m not putting Thomas in this light just to kick him while he’s down from the safe distance of 2000 years. I just want you to have an accurate picture of him. He was not only an unbeliever, he was a militant evangelist of unbelief.

What makes this situation all the stranger is that if you page back just a few chapters in John’s Gospel, you see a very different portrait of Thomas. In John 11, when word came to Jesus that his friend Lazarus had died and Jesus decided to go back to Judea to help, the disciples urged him to reconsider: Rabbi, recently the Jews were trying to stone you. And you are going back there again? (John 11:8) The disciples were understandably worried; they were scared. But what about Thomas? He says let’s go too, so that we may die with him (John 11:16). That’s not doubt we see in Thomas there; that’s devotion; that’s bravery and loyalty.

There’s one more thing that makes Thomas’ case especially tragic. When Thomas bravely suggests that they should all go to die with Jesus, John mentions for the first time that Thomas was known as the Twin (John 11:16). Here’s the strange part: despite calling Thomas the Twin at least three times (John 11:16; 20:24; 21:2), John never identifies this twin. A few heretics in the early church suggested that Thomas was Jesus’ biological twin. But we know that can’t be true, because that would mean that Thomas was also God in human flesh. So what are we to make of this? I can’t prove this with a chapter and verse but it’s quite possible that this is Thomas’ nickname. Just as Jesus called Peter the rock (Matthew 16:17-18) and James and John the Sons of Thunder (Mark 3:17), so it’s definitely possible that the other disciples called Thomas the Twin because he was determined to go wherever Jesus went, even to death.

If you’re willing to grant that bit of speculation on my part, then here’s the picture we have: you’re as close as twins with Jesus; you’ve proven that you’re a brave man, you’ve sworn with the other disciples that you’d rather die than deny or abandon Jesus (Mark 14:31) – but when the rubber hit the road in Gethsemane, you ran away like a coward. You were too afraid to follow Jesus to the Temple courtroom like Peter and John did, and, unlike John, you couldn’t even bring yourself to stand by Jesus as he suffered and died on the cross. It’s been over a week since all this happened. This has been a miserable week for you. Guilt and shame and self-loathing smother you. You can’t stand yourself. And, to add insult to injury, all week long your fellow disciples can’t stop talking about how they’ve seen the risen Lord. But you haven’t seen him. And, you think, maybe that was on purpose. Maybe Jesus didn’t show himself to you because you abandoned him when he needed you the most. Maybe Jesus was trying to tell you that you’re beyond his love; barred from his forgiveness for your disloyalty. We all know what that’s like, don’t we? To imagine yourself beyond Jesus’ love? That’s why Thomas is one of God’s greatest gifts to us – because in Thomas not only are we looking in a mirror, but, more importantly, we see how Jesus sees him and us.

Let’s zoom out a bit to see how this event fits into the big picture. All of human history up to this point has been the story of God keeping his promise to Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:15), to stomp out the reign of sin, death, and the devil once and for all. And he did this on Good Friday by stomping down the foot of his justice on his only Son, Jesus.  

Because God so loved the world (John 3:16), he delivered his only-begotten Son into the world through the womb of the virgin Mary. God placed all of the requirements that he had placed on humanity – and that humanity had been utterly unable to obey – on him (Galatians 4:4). And then, after he had lived a perfect life under God’s Law, his Father put him to death without mercy on a cross. What all of our guilt, our shame, our self-loathing, our striving and trying and crying could never do – Jesus did by dying on the cross. And, because he did, because he paid for the sins of the world with his blood, God raised his perfect Son from the grave to life (Acts 2:24). One man died in place of the world. His resurrection proves that the sins of the world have been paid for in full. I want to be sure that you see the world-wide nature of this. The whole world could now be told that their sins had been wiped away and forgiven (1 John 2:2); that death and the devil had been defeated forever. And yet Jesus puts the entire world, the mission of his church on hold…for what, for who? For unbelieving Thomas.

Stick with me here. Remember last week? The angel told the women to tell his disciples: he is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you (Mark 16:7). Do you remember what happened there in Galilee? Jesus commissioned his disciples to go and gather disciples from all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and by teaching them to keep all of the instructions I have given you (Matthew 28:19-20). And yet, what do the disciples do? They stall, they delay for more than a week! Do the math. There are only 40 days between Easter and Jesus’ ascension into heaven. During this time Jesus taught his disciples everything they needed to know in order to carry out their mission to the world. And yet, Jesus gave up a week of his teaching time for the sake of one guy: Thomas.

It may seem strange at first, but this is a pretty familiar storyline, isn’t it? Books have been written, movies have been made, awards are given out every year to the teachers, the coaches, the mentors who single out the difficult child, who bear with their bad attitude, who make extra time for him – to reach him and prepare him for a successful life in this world.

Don’t forget, this is not “doubting” but “unbelieving” Thomas. He’s not just struggling, he’s as good as damned because of his unbelief. In today’s church, “outreach” is all the rage. Well, Thomas was beyond reach; his friends had tried and failed. But in that place where no man, no disciple, no friend could reach him – sunk in the depths of despair – Jesus did. Step by step Jesus gives into Thomas’ unbelieving demands. He invites him to push his finger into the nail holes that had streamed the blood which covered his sins; he welcomes him to press his hand into the wound in his side which poured out the water that forgives and the blood that nourishes. (Whether Thomas actually reached out and touched Jesus is immaterial, in the end.) And from the mouth of a formerly militant unbeliever, the church’s mission is advanced and her confession is solidified. Whereas the other disciples had only called Jesus Lord (John 20:20), Thomas confesses Jesus as [his] Lord and his God. With just his Word, Jesus saved Thomas from the depths of despair and unbelief and brought him to the joy and confidence of faith!

Gain confidence from Thomas today. Be confident that Jesus sees you and loves you just as much as he loved Thomas. Be confident that when you are struggling with sin and guilt and shame and doubt – even unbelief – that Jesus hasn’t abandoned you, that he still loves you. Be confident that Jesus is still willing to put the whole world on hold just for you. Be confident that Jesus can reach right through to the deepest depths of guilt, despair, unbelief, and doubt that you have fallen into even if no one else can. Above all, be confident that he uses his Word to do this. Be confident that these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Be confident that you don’t need to see Jesus’ hands and side – because Jesus put the world on hold and showed himself to you personally in Baptism; because Jesus was thinking about you when he commanded me to absolve you of your sins (John 20:22-23); because Jesus comes to you here on this altar with his true flesh and blood to assure you of your forgiveness, life and salvation. Be confident that no matter how far you’ve fallen, you haven’t fallen beyond Jesus love. Be confident that Jesus was talking about you when he told Thomas blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. See yourself in Thomas today – but even more than that, see how much Jesus loved him – and loves you!

Where would we be if Jesus didn’t come to us through these objective means day after day and week after week? We would have no lasting confidence, no lasting joy, no lasting certainty concerning his victory over our sins, death, or the devil. Like Thomas we would be locked up in a prison of our own guilt and shame and unbelief. Jesus knows that. Jesus sees you. And he loves and cares about you more than you could ever realize. That’s why he’s given us the means of grace. Don’t doubt, but be confident that Jesus has put the world on hold for you, too – to come to you in the Word of Absolution, the water of Baptism, the bread and wine of Communion. Doubt is not a virtue – and unbelief certainly is sin – but because Jesus appeared to dispel Thomas’ unbelief, we gain the confidence to say with conviction seven days after Easter: My Lord and my God, because unbelieving, doubting Thomas proves that Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! Amen.