Knowing For Sure

By

Reverend Litton Logan

April 15, 2007

Scriptures:

¹⁹When 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 and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” ²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Jesus and Thomas

²⁴But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “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.”

²⁶A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” ²⁸Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

The Purpose of This Book

³⁰Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. John 20:19--31 (NRSVA)

Sermon:

The opening words of John’s Gospel describe Jesus as the incarnation of the Logos, a term borrowed from the Stoic philosophers. The Stoics understood God to be the underlying and eternal reason, wisdom, or designing fire that structures and imposes order on matter according to God’s eternal plan. For the Stoics, as for the author of John, God does not shape and direct the world according to some divine plan from outside the world but rather as an integral power and presence in nature and history.  John, however, understands this integral presence of God—the Logos--in history and nature as having become incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. 

John writes to a church that is faced with opposition and hostility from certain elements in Judaism, jealousy and hostility from a sect that claimed John the Baptist as its head, and from a group of Christians who were given to a form of religious and philosophical speculation known generally as Gnosticism. These Christian Gnostics denied the humanity of Jesus in favor of his divinity. Therefore, John mounts a defense of Jesus as truly human and truly divine within the context of competing religious and philosophical worldviews as well as open hostilities towards his community of faith.  He does so by reinterpreting and spoiling various prevailing religious and philosophical paradigms to depict the Logo’s, divine, historical presence in Jesus of Nazareth. For John, coming to know the incarnation of the Logos is not the results of scientific, archeological, or logical proofs.

Many people today want and need earthly evidence or proofs for the Bible and their Christian faith. 

What comes to my mind are those folks that got all worked up over the Shroud of Turin, the ossuary[1] of James the brother of Jesus, and the recent rediscovery of a 1980 discovery of nine ossuaries in Jerusalem with the names of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus etched on three of them.  Furthermore, I think about those people that believe Noah’s Ark has been found buried in a glacier on Mt. Ararat in Turkey.

I find it amazing how many folks have pinned their faith in or lost their faith in the Bible because of so-called archeological proofs or disproof’s of various Old Testament stories. In addition, for many people the Bible being historically and scientifically accurate and factual is a large part of their faith in God’s saving presence in Jesus the Christ. However, John’s Gospel, in particular, the story of Thomas, my personal hero of faith, when rightly understood contradicts such childish notions of “factuals” and “actuals.”

The Shroud of Turin has been proven a fake, although millions will not believe it.  The ossuary of James the brother of Jesus is a fake; the ossuaries of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus are irrelevant.  According to tradition, Joseph was buried in Nazareth not Jerusalem. The earliest traditions place Mary’s burial also in Nazareth. Among 895 ossuaries that have been discovered dating from the time of Jesus, 19 depict the name of Joseph, 20 Marya or Mary, and 11 Yeshua/Jesus in one form or another in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, or Latin.[2] Oh, by the way, we haven’t found Noah’s ark.

Since Albert Schweitzer’s 1910 publication of The Quest for the Historical Jesus, wave after wave of writers, TV and movie producers, have churned out “new evidence” to prove, disprove, or discredit some aspect of the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth or the Bible. The Gospel of Christ and the power of Christianity have with stood all comers.  The Gospel of Christ and Christianity have with stood all onslaughts because Christianity is based upon, grounded in, something more powerful and more enduring than historical “actuals” and “factuals.”

I would submit to you that the Apostle Thomas holds the key to understanding the enduring success of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and its relevant power in our lives.

The reason Thomas is a hero of mine is that as Jesus and the disciples were entering Jerusalem under the dread of uncertainty Thomas was the only disciple prepared to die with Jesus. However, not too much is made of that.  Furthermore, Thomas was not willing to buy into a bunch of histrionic mumbo-jumbo about Jesus’ resurrection even if it was coming for a group of men this time. No sir, he wasn’t about to suspend his common sense and invalidate the laws of nature to validate the histrionic guilt of those who had denied and betrayed Jesus. Lastly, Thomas is a giant of faith—contrary to what you may have heard.

A week after the resurrected Jesus’ first appearance to the disciples, Jesus again appears to the disciples only this time Thomas is present. Please, listen again, carefully, to Thomas’ reaction to the resurrected Jesus. In verse 28, we find the insight to the enduring power of Christianity and its ability to survive against all attackers and distracters.

²⁷Then he [Jesus] said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” ²⁸Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

Did you notice that Thomas didn’t touch Jesus?  Most biblical scholars interpret Thomas’ outburst of faith as saying, [I paraphrase], “My Lord, Jesus, and my God.” ”My Lord and my God!”  Did you catch Thomas’ quantum leap from doubt to belief in a resurrected Jesus without a touch, to a personal statement of faith in God?

Thomas’ outburst is the recapitulation of the opening words of John’s Gospel wherein the Logos becomes flesh in Jesus. Thomas looks at Jesus and sees more than a resurrected dead man. In a statement of faith—not fact; he doesn’t touch Jesus--Thomas and Thomas alone acknowledges God’s incarnate presence in Jesus.  Peter didn’t acknowledge God’s presence in Jesus when Jesus first appeared to him and the other disciples and they had received the Holy Spirit.  After having received the Holy Spirit in John’s Gospel, none of the disciples makes the statement of faith that Thomas makes--a statement that has shaped the course of human existence since. 

²⁹Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those [you and me] who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

When we hear that Jesus the Christ was sent from the very heart of God to proclaim the Good News of God’s eternal, saving love, we experience a divine truth.  In this truth, we know and understand Jesus as Thomas in John’s Gospel understood him.  However, because we have not seen Jesus our faith is superior to—more blessed if you will—than Thomas’ faith.

Please note that Jesus didn’t condemn Thomas for his all-to-human need for evidence or factual proof.  However, I will tell you this: no matter what we discovery or do not discovery to prove or disprove the stories or facts of Scripture such things will not bring us to Thomas’ point of faith nor undermine the faith of Thomas.  Upon hearing the Good News of Jesus the Christ, its truth resonates with a need, a longing, and an intuitive awareness that lies deep in the human psyche and spirit.  It is a need, a longing to be grounded in the Creator and Sustainer of our being and to find the peace of salvation from the awareness of some fundamental alienation from Creator, creature, and creation.

Furthermore, when we act upon our innate trust of the truth of the Gospel, it begins to prove itself as holy and good not because it produces scientific or judicial evidence, but rather because of what it does in the mental and spiritual dimensions of the life of the believer. It is true because it works to give us life and it more abundantly in the here and now and grants us a peace in the face of death that surpasses all understandings.

Friends, our profession of faith in God’s saving presence in Jesus Christ is not known or felt to be true for our life because we have facts or evidence to validate Scripture.  Our joy in life and our peace as we face life’s uncertainties and death comes to us because in a moment of encounter with the divine truth in the Gospel of Jesus the Christ—like Thomas—we affirm the truth of John 3:16.  (Ask the congregation to recite by repeating after me)

¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone [repeat 3 times] who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. John 3:16 (NRSVA)

Do you believe these scriptures?  Has the truth of these scriptures changed your life and given you peace in the face of life’s uncertainties and death? If you answered “Yes,” then that is what is called “knowing for sure.”  In the living Christ, Know for Sure. Amen.