Easter Sunday

Incredibly blessed this week to have an amazing Maundy Thursday service with Church of the Resurrection.

We had a Good Friday service here where we reflected on the meaning of the cross.

Last night some of us were out until the early hours of the morning celebrating the Easter Vigil,

a great tradition in the church and in our church.

And it all culminates here, the celebration at Easter Sunday, the high point of the Christian year.

And so what a blessing to be together.

I want to take a few minutes now as we open the Word to look at a man named Thomas.

Frankly, I think Thomas has gotten a bad rap.

I think history has been very unfair to Thomas.

And maybe this is because I'm named after him, but I'm sympathetic to Thomas.

Of all that Thomas was and all that Thomas did, history has immortalized him as the doubting Thomas,

which is always said with a kind of negative connotation.

And I think that's unfair for a lot of reasons.

I think it's unfair because, in fact, what we'll see in this passage is Thomas comes to faith in the resurrection.

And then he makes one of the most powerful declarations of faith in Jesus that we have anywhere recorded in Scripture,

when he calls Jesus, my Lord and my God.

It's a clear recognition of Jesus' lordship and his divinity.

It comes from Thomas.

And then church history and tradition tells us that after this, Thomas became one of the church's first missionaries.

And that he took the gospel all the way down into the subcontinent of India, where he was eventually martyred.

So I'm not sure that it's fair to just call him a doubting Thomas.

You know, I'm kind of sympathetic.

Maybe it's the name thing, or maybe it's the fact that I've also always struggled with doubt.

And so what I want to do now is to vindicate Thomas.

And I want to do that by vindicating doubt.

Because I think, like Thomas, doubt has gotten a bad rap in church history.

And so hopefully we're going to change that by looking at John chapter 20, verses 19 to 31.

John 20:19–31

We're going to see three things about doubt.

Doubt is inevitable.

It's unavoidable. It's inevitable.

Two, doubt can be valuable.

And then three, knowing those two things, how do we deal with doubt?

What role can it play in the life of a believing person?

Those are our points. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word.

But honestly, Lord, apart from your resurrection, your word would be nothing.

That we don't believe in your resurrection because of your word.

We believe in your word because of the resurrection.

Our entire faith hinges on this great truth.

And so as we open your word, we pray that because you are living, Lord,

because you are alive and because you are present,

that you would illuminate your word through your Holy Spirit

and enable us to see you for who you really are in the flesh,

our Lord and our God, Jesus Christ.

And it's in your name that we pray. Amen.

So let's get into the story.

The first thing I want to consider is the fact that doubt is inevitable.

If you were following along a moment ago when we read the gospel,

the disciples are assembled together and the door is shut and locked.

And this is after the resurrection.

And to their great surprise and awe, the resurrected Jesus appears in their midst.

And he shows them his hands and he shows them his side.

And he then blesses them and pronounces peace to them.

And then he breathes on them and fills them with the Holy Spirit.

And then he says, as the Father sent me, so I am sending you.

He is commissioning them to go from being disciples to being apostles,

which literally means the sent ones.

I'm sending you out now to be my witnesses.

I'm giving you authority to lead and to oversee the church in my name.

This is what's happening.

But one person is conspicuously absent.

Thomas is not there.

We don't know why.

We can read into it, but it would be all speculation.

And so the disciples all come to Thomas and they say,

I can't believe you weren't there.

Jesus appeared.

We have seen the Lord.

And what does Thomas very famously say?

Well, lest I see the wounds, lest I touch them, lest I put my hand into his side,

I will never believe.

So then eight days later, the disciples are together again.

The door is locked again.

And nevertheless, Jesus appears in their midst.

And immediately, Jesus turns to Thomas and says,

Here, touch my wounds.

Put your hand in my side.

And then he says to Thomas those very famous words,

Do not disbelieve, but believe.

Do not disbelieve, but believe.

Now, I want to be clear on the wording.

The reason is this.

Often we read this and we read it in our minds as Jesus saying,

Don't doubt, but believe.

Don't have doubt, but believe.

And I think that we read it that way because maybe some of us grew up in families or churches

where that was the message when it came to doubt.

Or maybe we grew up in families and churches because we've misread the text.

I'm not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg.

But in any case, I know that some of us grew up in a believing culture where doubt was a negative.

If you doubt, it is evidence that you are of weak faith or of weak character or of weak commitment.

And if you asked questions, that was seen as a negative.

And you were expected to believe what you were taught and don't ask questions.

No questions allowed.

Believe it.

Accept it.

Doubt is a negative thing.

Doubt is a negative thing.

And so it's easy to read this passage with that kind of lens on.

But I want to be clear on this.

That is not what Jesus is saying.

How do we know?

Well, there are four words in Koine Greek that can all be translated as doubt in the New Testament.

You know which word shows up here?

Not a single one of those words.

The word that is actually used by Jesus is a word that means an active rejection of the faith.

It's being unfaithful.

So what Jesus is actually literally saying is to Thomas, he's saying, don't become unfaithful.

Become faithful.

So Thomas is in a state of indecision.

The jury is still out.

And Jesus is making an appeal to him.

Don't decide to reject this.

Decide to accept it.

Make that choice.

Now, why is that important?

Well, when it concerns the topic of doubt, it's very important.

Because here's the reality of doubt.

Whether I choose to believe in something like the resurrection, or I choose not to believe in something like the resurrection,

regardless of what choice I make, doubt will be a part of that choice.

Because doubt is always there.

When you're dealing with something like the existence of God, or the resurrection of Jesus, that is not empirically verifiable,

ultimately you're making a decision that is a faith choice.

You can't prove it.

And so it takes an equal amount of faith to say it didn't happen, as it does to say it did happen.

But both are going to be laced with doubt.

And this is a very important thing for us to understand,

that those people in life who are believers, who have chosen to put their faith in Jesus Christ,

will always be haunted by doubt.

Because frankly, we live in a culture that undermines faith.

Right?

It undermines belief.

We live in a very materialistic culture, where a lot of people just take for granted,

they say there's no such thing as the supernatural, no such thing as God,

no such thing as resurrection, miracles don't happen.

And so faith, belief is constantly undermined.

But here's the thing that we don't often think about.

And maybe some of you are here, and you wouldn't consider yourself to be a believer,

and you can see whether or not this is true of you.

But just as believers are haunted by doubt, maybe this isn't true,

unbelievers are also haunted by doubt.

Maybe this is true.

Maybe it is true.

Maybe, just maybe, just maybe, there is a God.

Maybe, just maybe, I was created for a purpose.

Maybe, just maybe, there's a being out there who loves me.

And that possibility is terrifying to some people.

Maybe I've rejected a God who actually desires a relationship with me,

who actually has an opinion about the choices that I make.

Right, I love the quote from Thomas Nagel, who's an atheist philosopher at NYU,

who writes about being haunted by belief.

He says,

I want atheism to be true.

And it made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent

and well-informed people I know are religious believers.

Right, she says,

I want, I want there to be no God,

but then I look around and these are these people that I respect,

who are thoughtful and well-read,

and they believe.

And what if it's true?

Right, so either way you go, doubt is going to be a part of it.

Choose to believe, choose not to believe,

you're going to doubt either way.

Which leads to the second point.

Doubt is not only inevitable,

but doubt can be very, very valuable.

Very valuable.

Now before we talk about how doubt can be valuable,

we need to differentiate,

because there are different kinds of doubt.

Right?

Different kinds of doubt.

For instance,

we live in a culture,

the prevailing culture in D.C.

would consider cynicism to be a kind of fashionable characteristic.

You know, if you are a cynic,

if you're the kind of person who always sees through things,

you're always punching holes in things,

you're always deconstructing things,

you're never believing anything,

you're always questioning everything,

that is seen as a form of intellectual sophistication.

But in many cases,

it's a shortcut to the appearance of intellectual sophistication,

because it's not necessarily based on an enormous amount of thought,

reading, research, things like that.

We do it because we want other people to think that we're intelligent and not naive.

And so in our culture,

it is very prized to come across as cynical.

So you see, it's interesting.

Some people live in religious communities

where doubt,

any shred of doubt,

is seen as a bad thing.

Other people live in very cynical communities

where anything but doubt

is seen as a very negative thing.

Right?

But that isn't true doubt.

That's just trying to appear intellectually sophisticated.

You know, doubt makes me seem intelligent.

There's also a kind of doubt

that is not very valuable,

where doubt is used as a form of moral license.

The atheist Aldous Huxley,

in his book,

Ends and Means,

famously says this.

He says,

I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning

and consequently assumed that it had none.

For myself,

as no doubt for most of my friends,

the philosophy of meaninglessness

was essentially an instrument of liberation

from a certain system of morality.

Now, do you understand what he's saying?

He's being profoundly honest

in a way that probably most of us would not be.

He's saying,

as long as I don't believe anything,

I don't have to be accountable to anything.

You know,

as long as I believe that the world and life

and all of this is meaningless,

I can do what I want

and I don't ever have to justify,

explain,

or give an account for my choices.

And so,

it's doubt as a means to the end

of total moral license,

living an unaccountable life.

And I would strongly suggest

that's not a very helpful form of doubt.

It's not really an honest form of doubt.

And then what I want to suggest

is that Thomas is actually showing us

a very different kind of doubt,

a very valuable kind of doubt.

Can you think of the other references

that we have in Scripture to Thomas?

There's only a couple.

We don't know much.

You know,

you kind of try to build

a kind of profile of somebody biblically,

and you just kind of pull,

you have to pull in whatever you can

from what we know.

We don't have a lot on Thomas,

so most of it is speculation.

There's only two other references

to anything that Thomas says.

You know what one of them is, though?

It's earlier in John's Gospel.

Jesus is talking about the fact

that he is going to go to Jerusalem

and will likely die there.

And Thomas is the one

who speaks up and says,

well, I'm going to go with you.

And even if that means that I die,

I'm going.

So what you see in Thomas is this,

he's not this aloof,

distant, skeptic,

kind of jury still out

on what does he think about Jesus.

Thomas is a man who said,

if you're going to Jerusalem

and if you're going to die,

then I'm going to be right there with you,

even if it means that I die.

And what we see in Thomas

is this man who's profoundly

devoted to Jesus,

willing to put his life on the line

to continue to follow Jesus,

regardless of what it means.

So if that is true of Thomas,

then how do you imagine

the cross impacted him?

Right?

All of the hopes and the dreams

that they had penned on Jesus.

All of the hopes that Jesus

would finally be the king

to liberate the Israelites

from the Jews

from Roman occupation.

You know,

that Jesus would bring the kingdom of God

and it would be a new way of life

and he would make their nation great again.

All of the hopes that they had.

And then all of that dashed in an instant.

One minute they're sitting there

sharing a Passover meal together.

The next minute Jesus is being arrested

and dragged away

and tortured and executed.

Can you imagine the disillusionment

that set in?

Can you imagine how crushing

that would have been?

So now how do we understand Thomas' doubt?

God.

He says,

I don't think I can take that again.

You know,

I got my hopes.

My hopes were so high.

My hopes were up here.

And then seeing him executed on the cross,

that nearly killed me.

I think that's why he wasn't there the first time.

I think Thomas just,

you know,

and this is just my speculation,

I imagine that after that,

Thomas just probably said,

I need some time alone.

I don't know if I can keep doing this.

And so when they come and they say,

we've seen the Lord,

he's risen.

Thomas says,

don't do that to me.

I cannot take this.

I can't allow myself to be hopeful

only to be crushed again.

I don't think I'll survive it.

Now I know we're just speculating here,

but I think that that's what's going on in Thomas.

And so in a nutshell,

I think Thomas' doubt is this kind of doubt.

It's the kind of doubt that says,

I don't want to be gullible.

I don't want to be taken for a fool.

I don't want to believe something

just because I want to believe it,

because it would be nice to believe it,

but something that has no foundation to it.

And you know what I say to that?

I say,

good for Thomas.

Good for Thomas.

Because guess what?

There are far too many gullible Christians in the world.

There are.

Every time somebody sees a face of Jesus

and a piece of toast,

Christians freak out.

You know?

And that's not a good kind of faith.

That's not a good,

I mean,

hopefully I don't have to tell you that.

But that's not the kind of faith

we're called to have.

Right?

And Thomas is saying,

I don't want to be taken,

I was taken for a fool once,

I'm not going to let that happen again.

So this is really,

really,

really good.

It's very valuable.

And I would go so far as to say,

doubt is not only valuable,

it is essential for people who want to grow in their faith.

That doubt is essential.

There is a,

there's a man,

he passed away a few years ago,

but his name is Dr. James Fowler,

and he was at Emory University,

and he studies an interesting field.

He studies theology and human development.

And so if any teachers in the room

or anybody familiar with developmental theories,

like,

you know,

Erickson or Kohlberg or Piaget,

these sort of developmental stage theories

of moral and cognitive development.

Well,

Fowler came along and he said,

I want to develop a stage theory of faith,

of the developmental stages of faith.

And I don't agree with everything Fowler says about faith,

certainly not,

but there's one point that he makes in his theory

that I think is extremely important for us to meditate on.

He says that most people,

you know,

kids in the room are kind of on track for this,

that if you grow up in a believing home,

that most people by the time they reach early to middle adolescence

are in what he calls stage three faith.

And stage three faith is the kind of faith

where you look around and your parents believe it,

your friends believe it,

your friends' families believe it,

your church community believes it,

the people at your school believe it,

whatever it is,

but the community around you shares the same faith.

And so as a kid,

even as an adolescent,

you say,

well,

if they believe it,

it must be true.

And so I'm going to believe it too.

And it's also a way to belong in a community.

This is how to belong.

I believe,

right?

And Fowler says that many people,

many people can,

they get to that stage

and that's where they stay.

And they stay all the way up into adulthood

and all the way into old age.

They stay in stage three faith.

Well,

the people around me believe it,

so I'm going to believe it too.

And here's the thing that's interesting.

He says,

the next stage,

stage four,

is a stage that is marked by tremendous angst and doubt.

Normally,

this happens to people,

if you're tracking it chronologically,

around age 20,

25,

30,

35,

the age of a lot of people in this room.

Normally,

you know,

you sort of have a stage three faith

and then you go to university

and you have your religion 101 professor

whose personal mission

is to kind of,

you know,

deconstruct the faith of anybody

who actually believes anything in the room.

And they start punching holes in your faith

and you start looking around

and you start getting

extremely uncomfortable

and disoriented

and wondering,

well,

if that's not true,

is this true?

Is anything true?

What do I believe?

And you go into a tailspin.

And you say,

well,

I grew up with this faith,

but I've never really chosen this faith.

I never really,

I don't know if I believe this.

Do I just believe this

because my mom and dad believe it

or do I believe it

because I believe it?

That's stage four.

And it freaks people out

because it's tremendously destabilizing.

Who am I

if I don't believe this,

right?

But here's the thing,

here's the thing

that I think we need to,

we need to chew on.

He says,

for people who stay there,

in other words,

people who are willing

to lean into their doubt,

to ask the hard questions,

to do the investigative work,

to read,

to think,

to talk to other people

who believe,

to ask what they think,

for people who are willing

to really lean into

and embrace that.

People who come through it

reach what Fowler would call

stage five faith.

And that's people who believe

not just because the people

around them believe,

they believe because they believe.

Because somewhere in that wrestling,

they met God

face to face.

and it transformed their understanding

of their faith

and it became internal.

And it became the kind of faith

that regardless of the plausibility

structures within which they live,

regardless of the people

or the belief structures

around them,

they believe.

And they have a much deeper capacity,

Fowler says,

for uncertainty

and for paradox

and for mystery.

But here's the point.

If you don't embrace

and lean into

and push into doubt,

in other words,

if you're afraid of it,

if you run from it,

Fowler's point is

you will be stunted

in your faith.

If you're always running

from doubt,

you're not willing

to ask the hard questions,

Fowler would say,

you're not going to grow.

And I think that's the point

that we need to think about.

You know,

in my own life,

I think about

coming to faith

and I think about

my experience

and I would say

that doubt was something

that I sort of struggled with

and continue to struggle with

again and again and again.

And there's a part of you

that wants to run from it.

But this would say,

no, lean into it.

And I think this is what we,

this is part of what

we're meant to see

in this interaction

between Jesus and Thomas.

That's why it's here.

Right?

So doubt is,

is not only valuable,

it's essential for growth

in our faith

to come to a deeper place

of faith in Christ.

So that's the second point.

Now, so now,

if we're sort of thinking

about what we've said so far,

if doubt is inevitable

and if like Thomas,

doubt can actually

be valuable for us,

I don't want to be gullible.

I want to believe something

that has legs,

that has foundation to it.

Then how,

what does that look like?

How do we use doubt?

How do we deal with doubt

in our lives?

And I'll make three quick

suggestions from the text.

The first thing I want,

I want us to see is this.

Look at the tremendous grace

that Jesus has for doubters.

The tremendous grace

that,

that Jesus shows to doubters.

When the other disciples

tell Thomas

that they have seen Jesus,

he says,

well,

unless I see the wounds

and touch the wounds

for myself,

I will never believe.

And what we need to understand

is at that point,

Jesus is not there.

He's not there.

But then eight days later

when Jesus appears,

what's the first thing he does?

He appears,

says,

peace be with you.

And then he immediately

turns to Thomas

and essentially he says,

hey,

you know that thing you said

about seeing and touching my wounds?

Here you go.

Now what does that tell us?

Well,

a couple of things.

Number one,

it tells us that

even though Jesus

wasn't in the room physically,

when Thomas said what he did,

he was listening.

He heard him.

And the second thing it tells us

is look at how Jesus responds to that.

You know,

Thomas says,

unless I see it,

unless he proves it,

I'll never believe.

And Jesus doesn't appear and say,

how dare you?

All the things that I did for you,

all the things that I put up with,

how dare you doubt that I rose?

That's not what Jesus does at all.

Jesus says,

okay,

this is what you asked for.

Here you go.

Here,

touch me.

Look,

see.

I think this shows tremendous grace.

You know,

I think it's easy for us to think

that God is kind of sitting there

saying,

yeah,

that's not enough faith.

I don't like that doubt.

Can you,

you know,

get your attitude together?

Your motives aren't quite right.

Can you ask that question again

but mean it more?

You know,

I think that we can think of God

as being like that.

But would God really do

all that he has done

all through history

bring us all the way to this point

only to say,

hmm,

I don't like your attitude.

No,

God is such a tremendous God of grace

that any opening,

any opening,

God seizes on it.

And in fact,

where does the opening come from?

It comes from the fact

that God is already at work in us,

in rebellious hearts,

which is the most amazing thing about God.

You know,

I experienced this in my own life.

You know,

some of you know my story.

I was baptized at age 12

largely because my dad

wanted me to be baptized

and so I just kind of said

what I needed to say

to get baptized.

But very soon after that,

walked away from the faith.

By the time I got to college,

was calling myself an agnostic,

really didn't meaningfully consider

Christianity to be of any importance to me.

I thought when I left home

to go to college

that I also left that behind.

And so years later,

I started meeting,

at the end of my time in college,

I started meeting with a guy

and we started reading

the Gospel of John together.

But my motive

for meeting with this Christian

to read John

was to disprove his faith.

My goal was to show him

here's why this is ridiculous

and here's how it doesn't hold water.

And I had this,

you know,

I was profoundly ignorant

and profoundly arrogant,

which is a very dangerous,

lethal combination.

And I sort of had mastered ignorance

and arrogance

and was bringing them both

fully to bear

in these meetings

with this guy.

And yet my experience

was that God,

I had the worst motives.

I had the worst motives.

And yet God still met me

in those times.

I still gradually experienced

God softening

and then ultimately

opening my heart

to the truth of his son

in a way that I

did not expect.

I was disarmed,

frankly.

And that's what it's like

to deal with the God of grace

as a doubter.

You know,

you can have the worst motives

and God says,

I can use that.

I can use that.

And he does.

Right?

So the tremendous grace

that God has for doubters.

The second thing I want to see

is the eyewitness testimonies.

The disciples come to Thomas

and they say,

we've seen the Lord.

And they're essentially saying

to Thomas,

we are eyewitnesses

of the resurrection.

We've seen the risen Jesus.

And the thing that we need

to understand

is that the primary reason

that the Gospels

were written,

Matthew, Mark, Luke,

John,

and then Acts,

which is like Luke part two,

the primary reason

that these books were written

was to offer careful

eyewitness testimony

of all things concerning

Jesus and his disciples

turned apostles

so that we might come to faith.

And this is actually

what John says

in the end of this passage.

He says,

Jesus did many other signs

in the presence of his disciples

which are not written

in this book,

but these are written

so that you may believe

that Jesus is the Christ,

the Son of God,

and that by believing

you may have life in his name.

And by the way,

this is why we have

so many specific

and frankly,

wholly unnecessary details.

You know,

they bring in

a huge load of fish

and it's not like a myth

that says,

you know,

and there were many fish.

It says there were 153 fish.

You know,

and people over the years

have just gone nuts

with trying to make meaning

out of that.

You know,

what's the symbol

of 153?

You know,

what does that mean?

There's some,

is that a,

you know,

it doesn't mean anything.

What it means is

there were 153 fish.

That's what it means.

That's the deep meaning,

you know.

And it says,

well,

you know,

the disciple drew his sword

and cut off the servant's ear.

Parentheses,

the servant's name was Malchus.

Malchus,

is that symbolic?

Is there a deep

spiritual metaphor there?

No.

His name was Malchus.

And what it's saying is,

if you want to hear

more about this,

go into Jerusalem

and ask about

the servant named Malchus

who works with the temple guard

and he'll tell you.

Right?

These are meant to be

like footnotes.

You know,

if you want to look more

into this story,

his name was Cleopas.

His name was Malchus.

Go ask him.

And,

you know,

30,

40 years ago,

you know,

you ask people

and they would say,

oh,

well,

the scholarship clearly shows

that the gospel accounts

were all written

centuries after all of this happened.

you know,

Jesus died

and then in the centuries

that followed,

all of these myths and legends

were raised up about Jesus

and they got written down

and,

you know,

the Christians did this

in order to justify

their movement

and to gain power

and influence

and all of this stuff.

Well,

since that time,

the most recent body of work

and,

you know,

there's a very sizable body

of scholarship now

that says,

actually,

no,

we actually have a lot of evidence

to suggest

that the gospels

were written

within the lifetime,

within the first century

and within the lifetime

of the people

who are in these accounts

and that the reason

that we have all of these

specific details

is because these are being,

these accounts

are being written by people

who know

that they're writing about people

who are still alive,

that they're not written

in the form of myth,

that they're not written

in the form of legend,

that they're written

in very specific ways

by people who,

it's obvious,

are wanting

their audience

to do their homework.

And so,

when we have this body,

this eyewitness testimony,

you know,

we can sort of look at this

and say,

well,

you know,

well,

this is nice,

but I kind of wish

that Jesus would do

what he did to Thomas.

I kind of wish that,

you know,

I could have this

and that Jesus would appear

and I could see the wounds

and then I could have both,

you know.

And I think what we need

to understand is

what we said at the beginning,

Jesus appears to his disciples

for a specific reason.

He's commissioning them

to be apostles.

He breathes on them,

gives them the Holy Spirit,

says,

I'm giving you authority,

I'm going to send you

as I was once sent.

This is the language

of apostleship.

And his intention

is that Thomas be an apostle,

which he became an apostle.

The primary criteria

for an apostle,

you have to have seen Jesus

with your own eyes.

That's what makes you an apostle.

You have to have seen Jesus.

And so he wants Thomas

to be an apostle

and so he appears to him.

But then Jesus

and then John,

they make it very clear.

Jesus says,

oh, you believe

because you've seen me?

Well, blessed are those

who believe and yet

have not seen.

And then John goes on to say,

yeah, that's why

I wrote this book.

That God's intention

is that faith be transmitted

through eyewitnesses

from one generation

to the next,

to the next,

through the power

of the Holy Spirit.

And so I would encourage

those of you

for whom doubt

is a real issue,

read the eyewitness accounts,

read the carefully

recorded details,

begin to look into

and investigate

the research surrounding

the authorship

of the Gospels

and why they are reliable

and trustworthy,

that they're intended

to do exactly

what Jesus is saying,

to enable people like us

to believe

even if we haven't seen.

So we have

the eyewitness testimonies.

And then lastly,

thirdly,

Jesus has tremendous grace

for doubters.

We have the eyewitness testimonies.

And then third thing

that gives hope to doubters,

look at the wounds.

Look at the wounds.

You know,

big question,

why if you're Jesus

and you go through

this horrible torture

and death

and then you're raised

in your perfected,

glorified,

eternal body

that will never fade

or perish,

why still have the wounds?

You know,

if you're Jesus,

do you want to constantly

be reminded

of that awful day?

You know,

why have the wounds?

What's the point

of the wounds

in the resurrected Jesus?

Well,

I think if the eyewitness testimonies

offer head evidence,

the wounds are meant

to offer heart evidence.

They're meant

to offer heart evidence.

I think Jesus

doesn't just want

to convince Thomas

that the resurrection happened.

I think he wants

to convince Thomas

what it means.

What does the resurrection

actually mean?

What does it tell us

about God?

And see,

Christian faith

isn't just about believing

in this abstract idea

of resurrection.

Well,

I think it's scientifically

possible.

It's about believing

that there is a God

out there

who made us,

who loves us

so tremendously much

that he was willing

to die

in order to make

relationship with us

possible.

It's meant

to convince us

of the love

of God

as expressed

in the death

and resurrection

of Jesus.

The wounds

are meant

to convince us

of God's love.

Right?

There are so many

different religions

out there,

so many different religions

that teach

basically the same thing,

but there's only one

religion out there

that says,

God loves you so much

that he was willing

to suffer

and die for you.

Right?

On Good Friday,

I read a poem

and I'm going to read

one stanza

from that poem,

but it was a poem

from a guy named

Edward Shalito

who wrote a poem

called Jesus of the Scars

and he was a free church minister.

He survived the horrors

and atrocities

of World War I

in England

and then coming out

of that in 1919,

he wrote this poem

and I'll just read

the last stanza.

The other gods

were strong,

but you were weak.

They rode,

but you did stumble

to a throne.

But to our wounds

only God's wounds

can speak

and not a god

has wounds,

but you alone.

So I think this is

the meaning of the wounds.

They're meant to convince us

that God loves us,

that he shares

in our suffering

and that he did

everything necessary

to ensure that one day

we would never suffer again.

So if you're a doubter

and you're in this room,

you're in good company.

First of all,

we have a lot in common.

I've always been

a tooth and nail Christian myself

and there's good news

in here for doubters.

We can follow

the example of Thomas.

Look at the tremendous grace

that God shows to doubters.

Look at the eyewitness testimonies.

God means us to engage

with our full intellect

in our faith

and then finally look

at the wounds

in the resurrected body

of Jesus

and see the love of God

on display.

And here's why

all of this matters,

my final point.

If the resurrection

did not happen,

you know what Paul says

in 1 Corinthians 15,

our faith is in vain.

It's meaningless.

And he says,

we above all others

should be pitied.

So, as your pastor,

I will tell you this.

If the resurrection

didn't happen,

go choose another religion

because Christianity

is far too inconvenient.

It asks far too much of us.

If the resurrection

didn't happen,

it is not worth,

it is not worth it.

But,

if like Thomas

and me

and many people

in this room,

if you believe

that it did happen,

if the resurrection

is true,

then Jesus

is worth

everything.

Then we should be willing

to give him

everything.

The one option

that is not left open

to us

is to see him

as a benign

advice giver,

a happy,

nice,

good example

to follow.

It has to be

all or none.

That's how central

the resurrection is.

And so,

if the resurrection

is true,

I encourage you

and I invite you

to exclaim

as the doubting

Thomas once did,

my Lord

and my God.

Let's pray.