SCARS - See My Scars and Believe (Easter Sunday)
April 21, 2019
John 20:24-30 (p. 757)
Introduction:
One of my favorite movie scenes is from the movie Jaws…you remember the one where Brody, Quint and Hooper go out to try and kill this gigantic white shark who’s been terrorizing the town of Amity…
On one of the evenings Quinn and Hooper have a little too much to drink and start exchanging stories about scars.
SHOW JAWS MOVIE CLIP (3:41)
By the way, Hooper gets quiet when Quint talks about the USS Indianapolis because after it was sunk, half of it’s crew were taken by sharks…
Quint’s USS Indianapolis scar wins!!!
I have to be honest…I’ve never been all that excited about showing people my scars…and I promise you I’m gonna give anybody a run for their money in one of those contests…maybe even Quint…
I’ve been around hundreds of people who have had surgeries or injuries…and it doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while I’ll come across someone (almost always a guy) who says: “Do you want to see my scar? Do you want to see where they cut me? Hey, let me show you my incision!”
By the way…I have no desire in any way, shape or form to see your scar…but if you need to show me it…I’ll admire it. My wife loves that stuff…she could watch a medical procedure on TV about brain surgery while eating spaghetti…but I’m not like that. You can’t unsee what you’ve seen…so, I’d prefer you keep it to yourself.
Scars tell a story about something painful that’s happened in our lives…they shout out a message about past surgeries, car wrecks, injuries and abuses. It usually takes some trust and intimacy to reveal your scars to someone.
Sometimes people show their scars so people can really believe their past pain…
It’s what Jesus does for Thomas in our test:
Listen to the story:
JOHN 20:24-30 (p. 757)
Folks, here’s a true statement…
I. IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE IF YOU’RE NOT THERE WHEN JESUS SHOWS UP
Listen, I don’t know if Thomas saw Jesus’ body after the crucifixion…there’s no Biblical record that says if he did or didn’t…
John the beloved did…he was there with Mary, Jesus’ mother and Mary Magdalene and others…There were eyewitnesses to the scars He bore through the scourges and the thorns…They were right there when the sword penetrated His heart and water and blood rushes out…
John even writes about what he personally witnessed.
JOHN 19:25-35 (p. 756)
John was there…He’s the man who saw it and gave testimony to it…
And we know without a doubt the first people he shared this eyewitness account with were the other disciples…including Thomas…also called Didymus (He was a twin).
I’d bet Thomas had witnessed other crucifixions…The place of the skull, Calvary, is well known…The Romans skillfully used this horrific form of capital punishment to strike fear into law breakers. Thomas knew what it and they were like…So, as John describes what had happened to Jesus in detail, Thomas and the others continue to hide from the authorities…They grieve, they mourn…there must have been a deep sense of hopelessness after 3 years of following Jesus…He’s dead…He’s been buried.
Luke in his gospel writes this right after the crucifixion… “When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. But all those who knew Him, including the women who had followed Him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.” (Luke 23:48-49)
“All those who knew Him”…Did that include Thomas and the others? Watching from a distance? We don’t know. But we do know many from the inner core witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion…Nicodemus and Joseph from Arimathea quickly took His body down and prepared it for burial…and then they laid it in “a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid.” (Luke 23:53)
[I’ll never forget March 2, 2004…I watched my dad take his last breath while his whole family was gathered around him…I remember the folks from Milward’s coming to get his body and wheeling it out the front porch, covered in a maroon blanket on a gurney…Many of you have been at this place with someone you love deeply…After their death, after they’re gone…you feel “numb”…then heartbroken, you hug and need to be hugged…Death is hard…even for those of us who believe…For me, I knew I’d never hear “Son, what are you doing it that way for?” Again…the man who had taught me more about being a man was gone…and even at 44 I felt really alone and afraid without him.]
And I believe this is what the now eleven closest followers of Jesus felt after His death…including Thomas.
And if you’d shown up at my house 3 days later telling me my dad was alive again…I’d have thought you were crazy…maybe even a little cruel.
I think Thomas gets a bad rap for his doubts…we know that on Easter Sunday Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene…she comes to the disciples with the news he’s resurrected. “I have seen the Lord!”
And then that evening something amazing happens. Listen:
JOHN 20:19-23 (p. 756)
Thomas isn’t there when this happens…and the other disciples tell him…“We’ve seen the Lord.”
His response is…Unless I see the scars in His hands and feet and put my hand in His side, I will not believe.”
I think it’s unique that Thomas will only believe when he sees and touches Jesus’ scars. It’s the scars that will prove to him that Jesus is now alive. It’s hard to believe in a risen Savior when you’re not there when He appears.
But my favorite part of the resurrection story is:
II. WHEN JESUS SHOWS UP HE MEETS US WHERE WE ARE
A week later the disciples are together again in the same house…man, I wonder what that week was like for Thomas. The things he must have wrestled with in his heart and mind…This time Thomas is there with the others…behind locked doors…and Jesus shows up and stood among them…with the guilty. “Peace be with you.” It’s the most common greeting in Jewish society…like “Hey, how you doing?” for us.
And the first person Jesus addresses in the room is Thomas…“Touch the scars Thomas…stop doubting and believe.” I don’t get a real sense there’s a reprimand…It’s just that Jesus knows what Thomas needs to believe…the result…
Thomas says to Him…“My Lord and my God.”
It’s important for us to remember this all happened before Jesus ascends back into heaven…This appearance happened before the powerful gift Jesus gives to the disciples in the Holy Spirit…at Pentecost. Thomas needed this…Jesus provides it…and Thomas is prepared for his future ministry to tell the world Jesus is risen…by the way, He would die for this testimony. Tradition says he was killed with a spear by idolatrous priests and then his body was burned in an oven.
How did the others die? Peter was crucified upside down…Andrew was scourged and then being on an X shaped cross for 2 days, James was beheaded, Philip was crucified, Bartholomew was skinned alive, Matthew killed with an ax, James (son of Alphaeus) thrown from the temple, Jude (Thaddaeus) crucified, Simon the Zealot, crucified, Matthias who took Judas’ place…stoned and beheaded, The Apostle Paul…beheaded…John the beloved lived to be an old man and was the only one to die of natural causes…He preached the resurrection until the day he died at almost 90.
Lee Strobel is, by trade, a lawyer and investigative journalist, according to him, two of the most skeptical career fields around. As a devout atheist, he set out to disprove his fiancee’s Christian faith, i.e., the evidence that Christ actually rose from the dead. In his research, he ended up becoming a devout believer, proclaiming, “It would take more faith for me to remain an atheist than to believe.” He wrote a book which has just recently become a movie “The Case for Christ.” In it he talks about how people no doubt will lie, but people will not give their life for a lie, yet each of these disciples went to their death proclaiming Jesus has risen.
This is exactly why a risen Savior gave Thomas exactly what he needed…but Jesus also says…
“Thomas, because you have seen me you believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
He’s talking about me and you and everyone who would hear about Him through Thomas and the others’ testimony.
The amazing part of this statement is that Jesus will still meet each of us where we are through His Holy Spirit and give us just what we need to believe! He told these disciples…“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” After He tells them this He ascends back to heaven.
I’ve never seen Jesus’ scars…but I’ve experienced His Spirit meeting me right where I was…lost and hopeless…sinful and rebellious…I had heard the gospel…and the Holy Spirit cut open my heart. The Apostles’ testimony reached down through history…and Jesus showed up through His Spirit and not only convicted me of my sin, but showed me a new life through His resurrection…I repented…I was baptized and on January 17, 1978 I was born again…I believe in the power of Easter. I believe the scars of Jesus tell me all I need to know about how much He loves me and what He’s done to save me.
[At my dad’s funeral, our family got to come in and see his body before everyone else…It was private…and I remember looking at my dad’s hands folded on top of his chest…They had purposefully put his unscarred good hand on top to cover the burned scarred hand…and I went and got the funeral director…I showed him the burned scarred hand covered up and said, “You know how he got those scars…He got them saving my life…could you please put that hand on top…and he did…because I wanted the world to see how much he loved me…those scars were the proof.]
I understand why Thomas wanted to see those scars…why when he saw them he believed.
