TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?
JOHN 20:19-31.
We live in a sceptical world where human nature finds it difficult to believe in anything good.
In fact we find it easy to believe in something bad and prefer to believe in a white lie rather than believe in the truth.
We say, "its too good to be true."
But how rarely, if ever, do we hear the words, "its too bad to be true?"
For us, bad news is readily believable, but the good news is almost unbelievable.
Thomas reflects the same attitude in today's Gospel – human nature hasn’t changed a bit!
He was not present that first Easter Sunday when the risen Christ appeared to His apostles.
They told Thomas about it.
They tried to convince him of the reality of the resurrection, but he would not believe it.
Perhaps Thomas could not believe them because, in his scheme of thinking, such an event was simply too good to be true…. Doubting Thomas.
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Among the disciples, Thomas is known as the doubter, but he was a selective doubter.
When Jesus told His disciples that He was going to Jerusalem on that final fateful journey everyone was against it.
They reminded Jesus that the last time He was there an angry mob had threatened to stone Him to death.
It would be too dangerous to go back so they naturally did their best to talk Jesus out of it.
But when it became apparent that He was going anyway, Thomas said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us go along to die with Him."
A courageous statement, yet we don’t remember him for it, if we did perhaps we would call him “Courageous Thomas.”
Thomas’ doubt in the resurrection shows his human nature, belief that something bad could happen, the crucifixion, but he couldn't believe in a good event, the resurrection.
Thomas was sceptical as many are today.
3 students were walking through a French village one Good Friday afternoon and they noticed crowds of people going to the church to make their confession.
The students began to discuss this and about the survival of religion, which they described as superstition.
One of them was then given this challenge, ‘Will you go into this church and tell the priest what we have been discussing?’
‘Sure, I will,’ he said, and went in.
He said to the priest, ‘Father, I have come here merely to tell you that Christianity is a dying institution and that religion is nothing more than a superstition.’
The priest looked at the young man and said, ‘Why did you come here, my son, to tell me this?’
And the student told him of his conversation with his friends. The priest listened carefully and then said:
‘All right, I want you to do one thing for me before you go. You accepted the challenge of your friends and came here; now accept my challenge to you.
Walk up to the chancel and you will find there a large wooden cross and on it the figure of Jesus crucified.
I want you to stand before that cross and say these words: ‘Jesus died for me and I don’t care a damn’
The student looked defiant but, to save face, agreed.
He went up and stood before the cross and said: ‘Jesus died for me and I don’t care a damn.’
He came back to the priest and said, ‘I have done it.’
‘Do it once more,’ said the priest; ‘after all, it means nothing to you.’
The student went back and looked at the cross for some time and the figure on it, and then he stammered it out: ‘Jesus died for me and I don’t care a damn.’
He returned to the priest and said, ‘I have done it; I am going now. The priest stopped him.
‘Once more,’ he said, just once more and you can go.
The young man walked up to the chancel and looked at that cross again, and at the Crucified. He stood there for a long time.
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Thomas must have seen many crucifixions, but he had never witnessed a resurrection.
Perhaps most of us sometimes are sceptical and inclined to look to the future with a spirit of despair.
We expect the worst and have little or no faith in the best.
We speak of "the good old days." As if we believe that the best times are behind us.
If these are the bad times, the worst are yet to come.
That kind of attitude is unhealthy as it leads to apathy.
If things are only going to get worse and worse, and there is nothing that anyone can do about it, why should we even bother to try?
If war is inevitable, why work and pray for peace?
If crime and poverty are here to stay, and are sure to get worse, why work and pray for a more just society?
Any football team that has no hope of winning will soon cease to try.
If such is our belief, we are maintaining that Satan and evil will triumph, and that there will never be such a thing as a new heaven and new earth.
Our Christian faith tells us that our God is a God of purpose, a God with a plan.
God did not create our world, fill it with people, just to see what would happen.
He knew what would happen - He had a goal in mind and that goal has not changed, God is still moving towards it.
In the beginning, God created everything good.
Evil has entered into the world and its manifestation is very much in evidence today, but we need not despair.
God is in control and He is taking His world where He wants it to go.
Jesus said to Thomas, "Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe."
He was speaking to all of us who believe in His resurrection.
To believe in the resurrection is to believe that God is in charge, God is in control and that evil cannot triumph over good.
Those words of Jesus were words of hope.
They tell us that because of Christ's resurrection good has triumphed over evil and always will.
If we keep that in mind, we will face the future, not with despair and not with doubt, but with hope, because in God's world nothing is too good to be true.
