The resurrection of Christ is Indeed the greatest of all celebration for us because it is the day that marks the total victory that Jesus gained for us from sin, sickness, bondage and death. He is risen (Cristos Aneste) – so we have a reason to live and a reason to celebrate. However, in order to celebrate the risen Christ, we must experience the ‘Power of His resurrection’. It is very dangerous if our faith is built on head knowledge. Unless we experience the power of His resurrection we may easy get disillusioned and dishearten and eventually lose our faith.
The Gospel of John was declaring to us: faith in the risen Savior is what makes us who we are. You cannot be a Christian if you DO NOT believe that God not only exists but that He sent His only begotten Son to die for your sins and He rose again from death on the third day.
That’s what Jesus said in John 11:25 “I am the resurrection and the life. He who BELIEVES in me will live, even though he dies”. Jesus is talking about the promise of eternal life for those who belief. We have a life and hope beyond the grave because Christ is risen.
John truly believed in Christ. He’d been with Jesus. Listened to Him teach. Watched Him perform miracles and heal the sick. And, he’d watched Him die, and seen Him raised from the grave. Faith is essential if you’re going to be a Christian.
The key word in the Gospel is the verb "believe" (Gr. pisteuo), which appears 98 times. This phenomenon shows that John wanted to stress the importance of active vital trust in Jesus.
Today we are going see a narrative about another disciple of Christ who totally contradicted to the emphasis that John was trying to make. The Apostle Thomas.
1. Thomas
Thomas was a lot like John. He’d been one of the Apostles. He had walked with Jesus too. He’d listened to Jesus’ teachings He’d loved Christ, and walked with Him wherever He went.
When Jesus said He was going to Jerusalem and it’s obvious that people there want to kill Him
“… Thomas...’said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him.’” John 11:16
And when Jesus tells His disciples that “In my Father’s house there are many rooms”… and I’m going to prepare a place for you. And Jesus concluded by saying “You know the way to the place where I am going." John 14:4
At that point – it’s Thomas that pipes up and says: "Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" John 14:5
And Jesus responds: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
In Thomas we have the picture of a committed follower of Christ. He loves Jesus. He walks with Jesus. He’s willing to suffer and even die for Jesus. But he had some questions. He has some doubts.
a. His faith was only theoretical and he lacked the experience part of it. That is why when Christ was crucified on the cross, Thomas left the other disciples. He could not accept what he saw. He could not accept what Judas, Peter and the rest of the disciples did. I belief Thomas was frustrated with the surrounding events (Triumphal entry to the cross); he was frustrated with fellow disciples-so he decided to isolate himself from the others. That is the reason why he missed the witnessing of Christ’s resurrection. He only expected the best and when the worst came along the way – he was not able to accept it. He became dishearten, disillusioned and frustrated – so he left. Our faith cannot be established on emotions and on people who surrounds us be it our own family or friends or even Church members, but it should be on the Lord alone. Thomas lacked that though he was with Christ for 3.5 years. His faith was determined by others action. That’s the dangerous when we build our faith and dedication based on human and NOT God.
Friends, today our faith can also waiver if it is based on emotions or base on others experience and testimony. We need to experience Christ personally. We need to experience the resurrection power of Jesus Christ in our life. We need to pray and ask of God to grant us such kind of powerful experiences and encounters with the Lord whenever we read the Bible. You and I may not have encounter experience of Thomas but we have the life giving and life changing Word of God with us. Pray and ask God to take us into deeper revelations as we read HIS Word and aspires to live accordingly.
Let us NOT build our faith on blessing and answers to prayer BUT truly truly in HIM and HIS everlasting Word. Hebrews 11:1 – Faith well defined.
b. Thomas was absent in the gathering of the believers (disciples) – in our context is Church gathering.
Thomas missed Church the other day thus he missed to experience the power of resurrection. Most of the time the power of resurrection is revealed at communal worships where fellowship of believers joins together to worship and adore God. Thomas personal, emotion problem separated him from the fellowship of believers and he missed it.
Friends, church gathering is such an important event in our faith journey. If you want to experience the resurrection power of Christ you must regularly come to church. Don’t be a Christmas or Easter Christian – you will miss it just like Thomas. Our church is not a perfect organization, our Pastors and members are not perfect people but when all these imperfect people comes together to worship our Perfect God – that is when HIS resurrected power is revealed amongst us – you will go through life transforming experiences if you are faithful in coming to church and listening to the Truth being preached to us week after week. So let us not blame others for being absent to church because end of the day we will be losing out just like Thomas.
Thank God Jesus was so gracious unto Thomas that He chose to meet Thomas again (vs.26). You know what Jesus did not go and meet Thomas in his home privately but met him the following week in the (church) – the same place he met them previously. I am making a point here, this particular experience of encountering Christ was given to Thomas when he came back to the church. When he came back into the fellowship of believers and yielded himself. Don’t miss Church! Week after week the Truth / The Gospel is being preached here. Make it your top priority in life. Teach your children from young that going to Church for communal worship is mandatory. Don’t compromise Church going with any other entertainment.
Vs.28 was the result of encounter with Christ. Thomas exclaimed "My Lord and my God!". At that point, he truly believed and had been truly transformed by the power of resurrection. No other disciples in the record of the Gospel have ever claimed Jesus as Thomas did here in vs. 28. The encounter/experience of Thomas took him a long way…the church history says that Thomas was the disciple of Christ of went to the furthest to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ – to India and even some says to China. The ones doubted Thomas now has become a powerful Evangelist who spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth and became a history maker.
Conclusion:-
Today as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the question that we must ask ourselves is, have we ever experienced the power of resurrection? Without the experience our faith journey will get into trouble. Looking back at the lives of the Disciples of Christ, all of them had the experienced the power. They were transformed – once they were cowards (Peter and the rest of them), but upon experiencing the power of resurrection they became bold and led many to Christ. In fact, the Church history records that all of them excluding John died as martyrs for Christ.
We too need to experience the power of the resurrection in our lives. We need to experience in every aspect of our lives, let it be overcoming of sin, overcoming sickness, breaking bondage and many other forms of miraculous encounters with the Lord. If we lack these experiences – let us ask God to show us or give us the grace that HE gave Thomas to experience HIS resurrection power. Today we have the living Word of God with us where we read about all these records of how God’s people experience the power of HIS resurrection. I believe that even by devoting ourselves to the reading and meditating of HIS word and regularly attending Church, miraculous experiences will happen in our life. There is so much power I mean life transforming power in the Word of God when it’s read and heard being preached to us.