CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?
John 20:19-31
Good morning. My name is Thomas. You may call me Didymus, all my friends do. Where I come from Didymus means “twin”
I am very pleased to be with you as you celebrate Easter. Already, it has been quite a celebration. And from what I’ve heard, you all have had quite a week of anticipation and celebration. Your good Friday service must have been powerful, as you remembered the amazing death of Jesus. And last Sunday sounds like it was quite a day. Apparently there was wonderful music, and singing from the little ones, even dancing. I sure wish I could have been with you last Sunday.
I wish I was with you last Sunday. Hmmm. There’s a phrase that brings back some memories. There was a time in my life when that statement – “I wish I was with you last Sunday”- was extremely significant. And it has to do with Easter as well – the first Easter, I guess you’d say. Let me tell you about it.
I don’t know if I can adequately convey to you what it was like when Jesus died. The twelve of us who were with him, literally following him around for 3 years, had seen and experienced some incredible things. Jesus wasn’t like anybody else we had ever met, or followed. To hear him teach, talk about the kingdom of God was indeed like hearing from God himself. And the miracles – blind people, deaf people, lame, sick, all healed. And those in bondage set free. Multiplying food, calming storms, walking on water – I could go on and on. It was all so glorious.
Slowly, over those three years, the 12 of us came to realize, to believe that Jesus was in fact Messiah – the promised, sent one from God. He was undoubtedly the one who would restore Israel. What all our ancestors had longed for, hoped for, was taking place right before our eyes. We were witnessing the decisive moment in the history of Israel and of the world!
But suddenly it went all wrong. That last weekend when we all went to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration, we honestly thought, “This is it! Jesus is going to establish the kingdom!” But before we knew it, Jesus was arrested, set up and betrayed by, by one of us – Judas. They came for him, with swords in their hands and blood in their eyes. And the rest of us ran. We ran for our lives and left him.
And they killed him. Well, you know the story – crucified on a Roman cross. It’s funny how some people say he didn’t really die. Apparently you have people these days who say that too. You’ve got some crazy magazines here. I picked a couple of them up. This one says that Jesus didn’t really die at all – he just fainted. If you were there, you wouldn’t say that. No one survives a crucifixion. Even Jesus’ enemies certified that he was dead – the centurion who oversaw the crucifixion detail, even old Pilate himself declared him dead, and released his corpse to Joseph, who tightly, suffocatingly wrapped him and put him in a tomb, sealed and guarded by an entire garrison of Roman soldiers.
I didn’t really know what to do after that. I felt discouraged, disillusioned, and guilty. I knew the rest of the guys were meeting together, but I just couldn’t face them. To be honest, I don’t even remember where I was or what I did that weekend.
But I remember that Monday. That’s when they found me, and all the craziness began. They were all smiling, joyful, even laughing. I thought they were drunk, or worse. “We have seen the Lord!” they kept saying over and over. Their story about what had happened to them on that Sunday night seemed crazy to me.
They said that they were meeting in the house, the doors locked, keeping a low profile. We knew that it might not be long before the crowd came looking for us too. They were mulling over the reports given by a few that Jesus’ tomb was empty. Some of the women, a couple of guys from Emmaus, even Peter, thought they had seen Jesus. So they are sitting around talking about all this when supposedly, all of a sudden, Jesus was standing among them, wishing them peace. They were scared out of their wits, thinking they had seen a ghost. Luke, in his book, says they just wouldn’t believe it. But finally, we knew it was Jesus, they said, because he showed us his hands, with the holes in them, from the nails on the cross. And supposedly Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. As the father has sent me, so I send you.”
I was incredulous. I didn’t think these guys would fall for that stuff. They kept pestering me – “We’ve seen him, Thomas, we’ve seen him!” Finally I had enough. “I won’t believe it until I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side!”
You’re probably familiar with my other nickname – “Doubting Thomas.” Honestly, though, I was more than doubtful. John, bless his heart, got it right when he wrote, “I would not believe it.” I refused to believe this crazy story without incontrovertible evidence. I guess I was as tough a skeptic as there could be.
Well, that made for a difficult week. They seemed so joyful, so sure about having seen Jesus. They went on and on about how Jesus had commissioned them. “Where has he sent us?” they asked. I was in agony, unable, unwilling to believe it. How many times I cried out, “I wish I had been with you last Sunday. I wish I had been with you.” Maybe then I would believe it, but I just couldn’t now. Not only was Jesus dead, but now I seemed so far from my closest friends. I was alone.
That was the longest week of my life. But then something happened. It was Sunday night again, and we were meeting together – yeah I was with them that time, sitting in a corner, by myself. The doors were bolted shut; we were still afraid the Jewish leaders would swoop down on us. Suddenly, just like they had described it, there was Jesus! He’d come right through the doors!
The first thing he says is, “Peace be with you.” That was good, because let me tell you I was not peaceful at that moment. But then he turns right to me, looks me in the eye, holds out his hands and says, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Put your hand in the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!”
How did he know? How could I doubt? My skepticism, my fear vanished. I fell down and shouted, “My Lord and my God!” It all poured out of me in that moment – all my fear, doubt, pain, disillusionment, guilt – absorbed and overwhelmed by the love and power of a living, personal, resurrected Lord. And you know, its funny, somehow, standing there before him, I no longer felt the need to touch his hands or his side. I never did do that.
My personal encounter with the risen Lord Jesus changed everything! And not just me, this is true for all of us who were there. Our personal encounter with the risen Christ changed our whole lives. We were able to fulfill Jesus’ commission, his sending of us. We were able to use the gift of the Holy Spirit he gave us.
We realized that his resurrection meant we were free from the bondage of sin and death. He had the power over life and death. We would never fear again. His resurrection put all of history and life into focus, and we were empowered to take this message to the world. This allowed us to endure tremendous obstacles, hardship, and suffering. You know, everyone of us would suffer and die a matyr’s death, killed because of the proclamation of our faith in a risen Lord. But we knew they could kill us but could never hurt us.
You have to admit, that’s quite a change from a group who deserted and denied Jesus and hid cowering behind locked doors. Quite a reversal to go from a group who left the burial with a deep sense of loss, facing the collapse of what we hoped would be the decisive event in Israel’s history, to a group (as Luke wrote) who were willing to risk their lives for the name of Jesus, and who proceeded to turn the world upside down.
You have to pose some plausible hypothesis to account for this transformation. Only one exists: that we had a personal encounter with the risen Christ. What else would empower us to not flinch from torture?
Well the reason I wanted to tell you this story was to encourage you. You can have a present, personal encounter with the risen Christ. He is just as alive today as he was then. He is still risen! In fact, throughout history, in these times, in fact in this very room there are those who have similarly encountered the risen Jesus, and it has changed everything for them. Imagine not having to fear death. Imagine the ability to go where he has sent you, full of the Holy Spirit.
To get there, to have this personal encounter, you must have faith. Jesus told me to stop being faithless, stop doubting, and believe. It’s the same for each of you. It requires faith – not abstract, wishful faith, but solid faith that Jesus is both Messiah, or Christ, the one sent by God to save his people, and the Son of God, the divine one able to remove your sin and give you new life.
I know what some of you are thinking: “That’s easy for you to say, Thomas, you saw him. It’s harder for me.” In a sense, you’re right. The last thing Jesus said to me that Sunday night the week after his resurrection was, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who haven’t seen me and believe anyway.”
We had a tremendous privilege of being eyewitnesses of the risen Jesus. Our faith was based on what we saw. For you, it’s different. Your faith is based on what you read and hear. After writing my story in his book, John wrote these words:
“Jesus’ disciples saw him do many other miraculous signs besides the ones recorded in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life. John 20:31 (NLT)
Your faith is primarily built on the historical record of these events, the facts, accounts, evidence recorded by people like John, Matthew, Luke, Mark, Peter, and Paul. Accounts of people like myself, who were eyewitnesses. Thus the emphasis, what it all comes down to, is whether or not this testimony is credible. Are the witnesses credible? Can they be believed?
You see, the issue is not whether you like what we say, or agree with it, or if it is meaningful to you. The issue is whether or not what we have written is reliable, credible, and accurate. If Jesus Christ rose from the dead, it has profound implications for you and everyone on this planet.
Looking back, that was one of my mistakes. I had faithful, trustworthy friends, whose testimony I rejected. I had seen Jesus do miracles, even heard his prophecies about his death, and heard about the empty tomb. I simply shut my mind to this evidence. I decided ahead that I would not believe certain facts. If I couldn’t see it for myself, then it couldn’t have happened. How foolish!
These magazines and books you have now days are full of this stuff. You’ve got people who are supposedly really smart saying things like, the tomb was empty because his body had already been devoured by wild dogs. That’s from John Dominic Crossan at DePaul University. Gerd Ludemann, from Vanderbilt University says that the body of Jesus rotted away in the tomb. Others say the body was stolen by us. Have you ever seen a garrison of Roman soldiers? I appreciate the compliment, but there’s no way a bunch of fisherman could have done that. This all comes from people who decide ahead of time what they will believe, and who shut their minds to the evidence and the testimony of the eyewitnesses.
You too probably know reliable people, people you can trust who are convinced of Jesus’ resurrection. The fact is that people are still having personal encounters with the risen Christ. He is risen today!
What else explains the profound transformation of his little band of followers? What else explains the radical change of a hardened skeptic like myself?
Nothing but a personal encounter with a risen Christ.
Can you believe it?
