Sermons from St Peters Bredhurst: Doubt

Meanwhile, poor old Thomas is getting a bad press. We call him Doubting Thomas. I’d prefer we call him Courageous Thomas. Peter, John and Mary have seen the empty grave. Mary has talked with Jesus face to face. Jesus has appeared to them all, given them his peace, breathed his spirit on them – and they’re locked up behind closed doors and the only person they tell about it is Thomas.

Thomas, dear soul, is out. The only one brave enough to face the world, to risk being identified as a friend of the crucified preacher, the one whose body has gone missing.

There is something strange about faith. When we have a faith that’s fixed, clear, buttoned up, you’d think that we would be free of anxiety; but it’s not like that. We actually lock the doors to our minds and our hearts in case any conflicting argument comes in. We get terrified when the Jehovah’s Witness calls.

But Thomas, doubting Thomas, takes the ultimate religious gamble – he says I DON’T BE-LIEVE IT! No locked doors here; this is in your face unbelief. –the first ever person to fail the Alpha course.

So God afflicts him with painful boils in the most unpleasant of places, wrecks his family and business and finally strikes him dead with a bolt of lightning.

Actually, God does the complete opposite. It is to Thomas that the most astonishing revelation of the whole Christian story is made. Thomas said to him “my Lord and my God!” In that moment the whole thing crystallises in Thomas’s mind and he knows Jesus for who he is; knows him in a way that none of the other disciples, the believers, knew him. And all because he doubted, he questioned.

We would never have admitted Thomas to communion.

And this is another take on the same story:

Doubting Thomas

John 20:19-31

Unbelief is what John shows throughout his gospel to be the root of sin. And in the first part of our gospel today he shows that forgiveness is the foundation of our work as Christians – as the Father sent me so I send you; and their first instruction, if you forgive.

Forgiveness is a constant theme of Jesus. It is the most important part of Jesus’ miracles of healing “your sins are forgiven – take up your bed and walk”. The giving and receiving of forgiveness is an integral part of his prayer – without forgiveness towards others and from God towards us there is no prayer.

Well let’s get on with forgiving each other shall we? If only it were so easy. Dig into our minds and you don’t have to go very deep to find a veritable well of bitterness over past wrongs and hurts. That lack of forgiveness destroys friendships, marriages, families, working relationships, communities and churches. It springs out stifling our appreciation of another’s actions; it throttles our ability to care for another; it causes us to slip and slide back to where we came from instead of walking confidently forward.

And the bucket that brings up this stinking water of unforgiveness? Unbelief. If we truly believed that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the father was indeed crucified for our sins, did indeed die and definitely did rise from the dead and that he will return then how much different our lives would be.

If sin is so awful that it requires the death of God himself to assuage the guilt then how can we continue in sin and so lightly dismiss the commandments of God?

If Christ was truly raised from the dead then so will we be. We proclaim that the risen Christ will return, but is that a cause for celebration? What about judgement? If there is no judgement then will we not share heaven with Hitler, or our new bogeymen, with paedophiles? With the Russian general who we heard this week celebrated his own daughter’s second birthday by kidnapping, torturing, raping and strangling a Czechen girl? With me, with all the bitterness I harbour? With you? Who will draw the line – Richard Littlejohn? Anne Robinson? No, if Christ is raised from the dead then we have to consider that we too will be raised to judgement by God. And the one thing that Jesus says God cannot do is forgive the unforgiving.

Let’s go back to our story. Jesus gives them their commission and then Late Again Thomas arrives. And Thomas sins – the sin of unbelief. Despite all that Jesus has told him, all that he knows and has experienced, he refuses to accept the truth.

What does Jesus do? He shouts at him, tells him he is the most worthless piece of scum that ever walked this earth and says he never wants to see his ugly face again.

No, he says ‘Peace’. And he turns to Thomas and shows him his wounds. He is able to forgive because of one thing and one thing only – he had been to the cross. He had laid down his very life for Thomas. He had given up every claim he had, every right as a man, every right as the creator of the universe. He had the wounds to show it. The crucified Christ forgave Thomas.

There are no threats, no angry confrontation. Is it significant that he left it a week? Does God himself need time to cool things down? Do not be hasty, but take your time, let the sun go down on your anger.

Then he tackles the real problem, not a side issue. This is endemic in churches – we are commanded to speak the truth in love but instead we speak lies in false love to avoid confrontation. Trust me, I’m great at it. But Jesus goes straight to the issue: Thomas, reach out, put your finger here.

Next he gives Thomas a way out – he leaves Thomas space to put right what was wrong. We, in contrast often prevent our adversary from righting the wrong; we prefer to keep it for the next time.

Jesus actually goes further than simply allowing Thomas to be restored to what he should have been – through his act of forgiveness he enables Thomas to discover something which had been hidden from him before – My Lord, yes he knew that before, but My God! Thomas is the first to fully grasp this truth about Jesus and it comes from Jesus’ forgiveness of the ultimate sin of unbelief.

Jesus forgave Thomas totally. He did so in peace, confronting the truth, giving Thomas a way to put things right and he restored Thomas to a deeper relationship after the reconciliation than before. Most of all he did so having given up every right, everything he was owed, his very life. That is real forgiveness.

Let’s try it – in our homes, our communities and, yes, in our church. Amen.

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