Fear To Faith

John 20:19-31

Welcome to ‘Low Sunday,’ the first Sunday of the fifty days of Eastertide. After all the jubilation, misery, and rejoicing of last week, nothing can hold a candle to Holy Week. If you take a few seconds, you can figure out why it is called ‘Low Sunday.’

This Sunday is also called ‘Divine Mercy Sunday.’ By the end of this sermon, you can probably figure out why.

Today’s gospel reading is one of the best-known Eastertide gospels – that of ‘Doubting Thomas.’ No matter how nonreligious, most people have heard about ‘Doubting Thomas.’ We seldom hear the name of this disciple without the label of ‘Doubting.’

You may be interested to know that in the first three gospels, we are told nothing at all about Thomas. He is just a name in a list of the disciples (Mark 3:18, Matthew 10:3, Luke 6:15), a faceless man among the twelve. In John’s Gospel, he emerges as a distinct personality, but even then, there are only 155 words about him. In his book, The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic, Bishop John Shelby Spong states that the writer of John created Thomas as a metaphor with a unique personality of ‘doubting.’ His story has entered the world’s vocabulary and in everyday conversation. People who doubt or question the status quo are called ‘Doubting Thomases.’

Let’s set the stage.

Your best friend just got murdered - executed. You could have helped Him escape, but you ran away instead. You’re angry and disappointed, not only with yourself but with your friend. He said He could handle it and was big enough to avoid it. He said He was the Son of God. Or at least, that’s what you heard.

People know who you are. You were inseparable for years. You witnessed His “crimes,” and you know you were an accomplice. And you are scared. You are thinking, “How will I get out of this? How am I going to get out of town?” Dashed hopes and a once bright future are dark.

Can you picture the scene? The doors are locked; the room is dim. There is a low murmur of voices in the background as you sit in a corner and review the contradictions, injustices, and your role in the horrible death of your best friend.

My imagination has quite a lot to work with as I envision that room that evening. The disciples discovered that not only was their Master dead, but His body was gone. I am pretty confident we all have been in that spot, in that room, at some point in our life. We have all let ourselves down, failed our friends, and betrayed with much wickedness. We see our sins, know our hearts, and become very good at beating up on ourselves.

Here were the disciples of Jesus sitting in failure, betrayal, confusion, disappointment, shame, and guilt. The disciples misunderstood Jesus’ teachings, misinterpreted his miracles, and even were misdirected by their culture as they followed Jesus. No wonder they were afraid.

But I wonder, “What do you see in that room? What do you see after betrayal, disappointment, sin? What do you see “after”?

I’ll tell you what I see. I immediately see “Fear.” It is pronounced and natural – the disciples fear the temple authorities and lock the doors. After disappointment and betrayal, there is fear.

Where does FEAR come from? It is self-generated, based on our interpretations of what we see. A simple acrostic for fear is this:

False

Evidence

Appearing

Real.

Fear is something that we all have to deal with. It was Dave Barry, that great humorist, who said, “All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears - of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, or speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words “Some Assembly Required.”

When I was a child, my sisters and I thought it fun to scare each other. One of us would be screaming hysterically in fear, and the others would be howling in laughter.

But real fear is not at all funny. “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear,” said H.P. Lovecraft, and fear makes you do things you would typically not do.

Fear was understandable for the disciples, and it is fundamental for us. Most of the time, it comes because we do not understand what we see. The disciples were human; they did not understand. They were afraid of being locked up and crucified. They were fearful of the Jewish temple authorities.

The notion that a dead man was alive again was not exactly something you easily absorbed. Thomas speculated aloud what it might take for him to believe. As he talked, his rhetoric got more and more exaggerated.

“My friends, I’d have to see the nail holes in his hands with my own eyes.