Title: Seeing Is Believing?
Text: John 20:19-31
Thesis: God understands our need to know.
The Season of Easter Series: When Jesus Shows Up
During the Season of Easter we celebrate the resurrection of Christ as he shows up in unusual and unexpected ways.
Introduction
Mable Godfrey lived in a fifth floor apartment on West 130th Street in New York, City. Her cat, Blackie was a good cat, content to lounge around, only occasionally showing any interest in life outside apartment. On Tuesday Mable came home and discovered that Blackie had climbed up the fireplace flue. Mable called the city police, fire, health and building departments in an attempt to get help to rescue Blackie.
When she attempted to coax him down, he climbed on up the flue to where her fireplace flue joined the main chimney - where Blackie promptly fell down the chimney to the ground floor. That was on Thursday.
Shortly thereafter a plumber opened the rear wall back of the chimney and Blackie was taken out. They say, “Curiosity killed the cat.”
Generally when someone says, “Curiosity killed the cat,” they are attempting to stop someone from asking unwanted questions.
St. Augustine wrote in Confessions, AD 397, that, in the eons before creating heaven and earth, God “fashioned hell for the inquisitive.”
People are curious. Remember the old tabloid line, “Inquiring minds want to know?”
There are many mysteries begging to be solved. Why do they spell “lisp” with an “s?” Shouldn’t it be spelled “lithp?” And how do dead bugs get into enclosed light fixtures? And why do we keep the house warm in winter and complain about the heat in summer? And why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?
People are not only innately curious, we are also skeptical. We are not all that trusting. We are not easily taken in. If you don’t believe me, just put up a wet paint sign.
Whenever we talk about matters of faith it is not uncommon for people to have questions and some of our questions are rooted in doubt. When we have doubts we would like to receive answers that satisfy our questions. Generally we like to foster an environment where questions and doubts may be expressed with the hope that reasonable answers might be forthcoming.
Patricia Gillespie tells of a Sunday school teacher who once told her that it was wrong to ask questions and have doubts about the Christian faith. “So,” she said, “I asked another question, ‘Is God afraid of my questions and doubts?’” She later came to realized that it was not God who was afraid of her questions and doubts, it was her teacher. (Patricia Gillespie, “A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter, motherflash.com/sermons/range/easter12a5.html. Retrieved October 9, 2006)
In our text today we find the followers of Christ up to their ears in questions and doubt.
I. Seeing is believing
On the evening of the first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when the saw the Lord. John 20:19-20
Jesus was crucified, dead and buried… but that morning Mary and the other Mary had discovered his body was missing from the tomb. And the two Mary’s had hurried to tell the disciples that Jesus was risen from the dead. This morning, we find them holed up in a room with the doors locked for fear of the Jews.
Jesus suddenly appeared and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” And when he showed them his hands and his side… they experienced a gigantic mood swing from the depths of melancholy to the heights of being overjoyed.
Seeing is believing. However one of their number was not there when Jesus showed up… seemingly materializing out of thin air, passing ghostlike through locked doors. And when Thomas heard their story he didn’t buy it. Mary and the other Mary had seen Jesus. Now ten of the disciples had seen Jesus. But Thomas wasn’t buying it.
Thomas was doubtful.
II. Doubt is not believing without seeing.
So the other disciples told Thomas, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.” John 20:25
Thomas was not unwilling to believe. But he would not believe unless he saw exactly what the others had seen. His doubt was not unlike that of any person who will not believe without seeing for themselves.
On July 28, 2009 the Urban Dictionary Word of the Day was “birther.” According to the Urban Dictionary a birther is a conspiracy theorist who believes that Barack Obama is ineligible for the Presidency of the United States based on any number of claims related to the place of his birth and the existence of legitimate birth certificate. The Online Slang Dictionary simply states that a birther believes Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen of the United States and is ineligible to be President of the United States.
Thomas heard the testimony of Mary and the other Mary. He heard the witness of the other disciples who had seen Jesus on Easter night. But Thomas stated that he would not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead unless he saw him with his own two eyes and placed his finger in the nail holes in his hands. He was affirming the adage, “Seeing is believing.” If I see I will believe but otherwise, I will not.
BIrthers say they will not believe the President is a natural born citizen unless they see the long-form birth certificate… until they see it there is reason for doubt.
However when seeing does not result in believing and doubt persists despite the evidence then doubt becomes plain old disbelief. And disbelief dispels the idea that seeing is believing and asserts that seeing does not necessitate believing. For the unbeliever evidence is of no significance.
So for some, “seeing, is believing.” For others “seeing does not necessitate believing.
But ultimately “faith is believing without seeing.” (Hebrews 11:1 defines faith this way: “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”
III. Believing does not depend on seeing.
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:29
Our text says that the week following Jesus’ initial appearance to the disciples on the night of his resurrection, Jesus showed up again. Though the doors were locked Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” He then got Thomas’ attention and invited Thomas to stick his finger into the holes in his hands and to slip his hand into his wounded side. He said to Thomas, “Stop doubting and believe.” And then Thomas really believed saying, “My Lord and my God!”
I believe lots of things are and lots of things occur without me seeing them. When I was a boy I bought a new bicycle from the Western Auto Store in Winterset, Iowa. Every week after I had done my collections from my paper route and paid my bill to the Des Moines Register, I would ride my Western Flier bike down to the Western Auto Store where I made my weekly payment on the bike. Mr. Thomas would take my money, deduct the amount from the balance, give me a receipt and off I would peddle.
Today, I go online and pay my bills… most of which are set up as automatic withdrawals from our bank account. These transactions are all done in a world I know little of but trust implicitly.
I believe stars and planets are in place in the universe. I believe comets are hurtling through space that are invisible to the naked eye. I believe microscopic creatures visible only through the lens of a powerful microscope swim around in our water. I believe there are creatures in the depths of the ocean that no one has ever seen.
Of course I have reason to believe all of those things, largely based on my experience and the good word of others. But the point is, believing does not depend on seeing. You can believe something is without seeing it. And that is why Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.
The Christian does not just blindly believe anything and everything. We do base our beliefs on the authority of God’s Word.
IV. Believing depends on the reliability of Scripture.
But these things 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. John 20:31
With the exception of those who were living at the time of Christ resurrection who were themselves eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Christ… no one has seen Jesus face to face in the flesh. No one has had the opportunity to see the nail prints in his hands. No one has had the opportunity to place a finger into the nail holes. No one has had the opportunity to see the wound in his side.
None of us were there and consequently we either believe the evidence of his resurrection based on the testimony of those who did or we don’t. We either believe the Word of God is reliable, and by reliable I mean dependable, authentic, honest, trustworthy and credible or we don’t.
We believe, “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the person of god may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” II Timothy 3:15-16
Conclusion:
Most of us form judgments based on our personal experience. If your mother always used instant potato mixes to make mashed potatoes, you might grow up thinking that all mashed potatoes were made from instant mashed potato mixes.
Then one day when you’re all grown up and married you see your wife peeling potatoes. You see her cutting them up and boiling them. You see her mash them. She adds a little cream and a stick of butter. She salts and peppers the potatoes and whips them into a fluffy heap of mouthwatering delight. And when you sit down and eat those heavenly, real-deal mashed potatoes you realize there was a huge gap in your experience. There was a huge gap between what you believed about mashed potatoes and what was really true about mashed potatoes.
In matters of faith there is always a gap between what we know by experience and what we have yet to experience. That’s why, as the Apostle Paul put it, “We fix our eyes not on what is seen but, but on what is unseen. “For what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal.” II Corinthians 4:16-18
I like the way Jesus handled Thomas’ doubt and want to believe that Jesus is similarly gracious to us in the face of our doubts.
Jesus did not punish Thomas. Jesus did not shame him. Jesus did not blow him off as a lost cause. Jesus did not ridicule or belittle Thomas. Jesus did not push him away or pigeon-hole him as a doubter. Jesus reached out to him. Jesus wanted to do whatever he could to alleviate Thomas’ doubts. Jesus gave Thomas the help he needed.
Jesus understood there was a gap in Thomas’ experience and he gave Thomas the opportunity to bridge that gap so he could believe. I believe God will give anyone enough to believe.
But Jesus also said, “Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe.”
I think that Jesus was saying that reason and experience can bring you along so far, but sometimes there is a gap in your reason and your experience… sometimes we cannot see what we hope for but we take a leap and believe it anyway.
It’s called a leap of faith.
Jesus gives you enough reason to take the leap of faith and those who take that leap and commit themselves to become followers of Jesus Christ, find that they have landed on solid ground.
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
