John 20:19-31 “Is
There a Doubt in the House?
Poor Thomas. He’s got such a bad reputation among the 12
apostles. Of course, Judas does
too.
But Thomas even has an
adjective permanently attached to his name.
After that scene behind the locked doors of the house, it was never
again Thomas the apostle. It was always
“Doubting Thomas.” He’s even listed in
the dictionary. Go ahead - try looking up doubting Thomas.
There was definitely a doubt
in this house. Even Jesus says to
Thomas, “Do not doubt but believe.” But we need to step into that house, take a
closer look, to see that something else was going on too. There was more than just doubt in that
house. There was fear. The opposite of faith is not doubt - it’s
fear. There’s a lot about Thomas I can
relate to.
Listen to the beginning of
the first verse we heard today. “When it
was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house
where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and
stood among them . . .”
Can you feel the fear? Can you imagine this scene inside that room
in the house where they’re staying?
It’s getting late. Shadows are falling. Someone lights a lamp. But it doesn’t lift
the darkness from their hearts.
There’s 10 of them gathered
inside, behind locked doors. Judas,
well, he’s gone. Gone for good. But he
had never really been with them. Of all the apostles, he had the hardest time
understanding just what kind of power
Jesus had come to bring. And Thomas,
where was he? He was always
searching. Never at peace. What was he looking
for? What were his questions really about?
Was it just a way to keep his distance?
And where was he now, now that all their hopes and dreams had died with
Jesus?
The 10 of them had everything
to be afraid of. Everyone in town knew
that they had been followers of Jesus.
And he had been crucified,
put to death as an insurrectionist. A blasphemer. A troublemaker. And then there was the personal matter of
their betrayal of Jesus. Great waves of
shame must have washed over them in that house
behind those locked doors as
they remembered the scenes where they had been with Jesus, and then ran away in
fear and confusion. And then Jesus
comes. He is suddenly in their midst, bringing them peace. And this peace is no small gift, for he has
come back to the very friends who betrayed him, offering his reassuring peace.
If we consider that this
group of 10 quaking, quivering disciples locked behind closed doors was the
foundation for Christianity today it’s a wonder any church ever came to be.
Today, the church is 2 billion strong.
And it all started with these apostles. Ordinary, nothing special, weak and fearful
even. In the simplest terms, Jesus
changed their lives. And Jesus has been
changing lives ever since. Giving us new
beginnings.
That’s going to be the focus of our scriptures and
sermons for the next 6 weeks.
There are clues here, clues
that also give us a glimpse of how it
happened. There was something going on
in this house besides doubt and fear. Listen. Even as they fight their fears,
he stands among them with the gift of
peace.
“Peace be with you” he says -
3 times he says it in this passage. And
then he breathes upon them another gift - the power of the Holy Spirit.
Karl Barth, a 20th
century theologian, once said, it is not as important to begin, as to learn how
to begin again.
With the gift of Jesus’ peace
and power, it was time for these disciples to leave the doubt & fear behind
and begin again. With that peace and
power, this tiny little group of people who had followed Jesus were given the
ability to go out to all the ends of the earth, making disciples.
Several weeks ago, Pam Callon
and I attended a workshop here in town about making disciples -- you
know, evangelism. Except the author who
led the workshop doesn’t call it that.
She calls it the E-word. Because
evangelism has gotten such a bad name.
What do you think of when someone says the word evangelism? People knocking on your door with tracts to
hand out? Someone grabbing you by the
collar and asking you if you’ve been saved?
A TV evangelist shouting through the screen at you in your living room?
Well, this author, whose name
is Martha Grace Reese, says that the E-word is simply telling others what difference being a Christian has made in your
life. She goes on to say that the
purpose of evangelism is not
to bring more members into
our churches or to get more young people.
The purpose of evangelism is to
help people begin a lifetime relationship with God. The church is here to help us grow that
relationship with God. Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism, By
Martha Grace Reese, (
When we are willing to tell people
how Jesus has changed our lives, it can change theirs too. As Jesus stood among his disciples, he said
“peace be with you.” He breathed God’s power on them. And then he said, “Blessed are those who have
not seen, but have come to believe. We
often hear this as a condemnation of poor doubting Thomas.
This week I have heard this
differently. I have heard this as an affirmation of the power of testimony.
That’s what we live on – the
testimony of others that “we have seen the Lord.” The truth is that none of us
have seen the Lord the way these apostles did.
But we still have encountered Christ.
Our lives have been changed by Jesus.
Others of us want that too. We’re
longing for that change to happen. We want the peace and the power that are
gifts of this relationship with Jesus.
This testimony, these
stories, are compelling. The reason they
are compelling is because we live in a world
where people are hungry for
something real, deep, and important.
Something besides shallow places and hollow concerns. For the next several weeks we’re going to be
hearing from some of the people in this congregation who have encountered
Christ in some way. And how that has
created a new beginning in their lives.
Who knows – one of them might even be you. If you have a story to share about what
difference being a Christian has made in your life, come and tell me about it.
But today I’m going to tell
you where I’ve encountered Christ. What difference it’s made in my life to be a
Christian.
I have been a Christian all
my life. But my conversion has been
happening over many, many years. I was
raised Catholic, grew up in the church, even took turns playing the organ for
daily mass in my Catholic grade school.
By the time I was 16, I knew
deep down I wasn’t really a Catholic. I
started searching and during college I attended dozens of different churches –
everything from Methodist to Quaker to Lutheran and more. It wasn’t until I was about to get married
that I was introduced to the Disciples.
Dave had been raised in a Disciple church,
and when we talked to the
minister who eventually did our wedding, I finally felt like I had found my
home.
Right away, I was one of
those people in church who are the doers.
Dave and I were sponsors for the middle school group at the Disciple
church in
I remember one of my
neighbors, Julene, who had such a strong faith.
She talked about her relationship with God.
I remember thinking at the
time “I want that.” All this time, I kept looking for something. I attended Sunday School, took Bible
studies. It was never enough. Every
time I took a Bible study or class, no matter if it was four weeks or 34 weeks,
I remember being hungry for more. There was one study in particular during
1996/97–
a year-long study called
Disciple Bible study. By the time I
finished that, I understood something that I had never understood before. I
realized that God not only was good and gracious and relentlessly faithful,
but that God’s grace was for
ME! You’ve heard about the book and the
DVD called The Secret?
It’s been on the talk shows
and it’s all about your controlling your
life’s outcomes. That’s not the
secret. The real secret is God’s grace. I wanted to share God’s grace with other
people. I got very involved with
Christian education and teaching Bible study.
In 1999, I remember praying
for God to guide me into what I was to do next. In my journal, I wrote “God, show me where
you want me to serve.” At first, I
thought it was a big Christian education project that I was leading at Atlanta
First – a complete renovation of their Sunday School for children. I can only describe it as a “with God all
things are possible” project.
But in the spring of 2000, something
happened that is still hard to put into words. I knew that my relationship with God was
the most empowering, life-giving relationship I had known. And I had done many jobs in the church
to try to share God with
other people. I started to wonder how I
might have even more impact.
And then this huge thought
hit me. Seminary! I could go to seminary
and become a minister!
You may not realize just how
big of a thought that was for me – a woman, who grew up Catholic. As I look back, it felt in some ways that God
had probably been shouting this call to me for years, but I just had not heard
it.
Maybe all the other voices -
the Catholic voices, male and female voices, family voices - just kind of
drowned out God’s call. But that spring, I knew without a doubt that this was
God’s call. I couldn’t not do it. There
was nothing that could stop me.
Well, seminary is hard. It had been some time since I’d been in
school and I felt like there wasn’t a single strand of brain matter that was
still connected in my head. Dave, my
husband, the college professor, encouraged me.
Give it a couple of
months. Your brain will get in
shape. Kind of like exercise.
Now, understand that none of
this came naturally to me. My first
career was as a writer, a journalist, in non-profit public relations. My second career was as a mother. A Betty Crocker mother. I wasn’t a public speaker – had in fact
avoided jobs that required public speaking.
The first time I was told
that I had to preach a sermon to the residents at Campbell Stone Apartments as
part of the class requirements, I argued with the instructor. No, I’m not going to need that. I’m not going to preach. But God had something else in mind. God’s ways are not our ways. God sees things
we don’t.
I started at Candler School
of Theology in 2000, managed to graduate on time in 2003, while working part
time at church, and being a wife and mother. As I began ministry full time, it
felt like I had finally found my purpose.
I had been doing good and
meaningful things for years. But answering this call felt like a new beginning,
one that I had been preparing
for my whole life.
Last year, 2006, was a tough
year at my former church. They lost a
minister under difficult circumstances.
They asked me to step in for
a while as the pastor, which I did. The
first sermon I preached as their acting senior minister was based on a
scripture that had been picked out weeks before: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give
thanks in all circumstances.” I learned
to do that in 2006. I have also learned
during the last 7 years
that God’s spirit gives us
power to do things we never thought we could.
That when we’re willing to walk straight into fear, God could turn it
into faith. And there is a great deal of
peace that results from that.
Maybe that’s why I can relate
to Thomas and those other disciples hiding in that locked house. In order to begin again, they had to face
their fears.
So what difference has it
made in my life to be a Christian? All
the difference, because that’s the only place where I have found power and
peace. I can put into one word what
this power and peace looks like in my life -
it’s the word
accompanied. Now I always sense that I
am accompanied. God is always with
me. Sure, I forget that sometimes. But is the foundation of my life.
This week I have really
struggled with this message. It’s hard to share your story. Harder than preaching!
But I decided to do it anyway
because I wanted you to know how God has worked in my life. It’s not about me. It’s about God. Jesus comes to us, bringing us peace and
power. My hope is that my story will
help you believe that Jesus has this peace and power for you. I want you to have it too. May the peace and power of Christ be with all
of you. Amen.