This is a sermon that I preached on Sunday, 4/28/19, at Berkeley Friends Church. The scripture readings for this sermon were: Acts 5:27-32, Revelation 1:4-8, John 20:19-31. You can listen to the audio, or keeping scrolling to read my manuscript. (The spoken sermon differs from the written text – and the first minute or so of the sermon is not recorded.)
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Jesus is risen! Hallelujah! Jesus – the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, the ruler of the kings of the earth – he’s alive. He has taken his seat at the right hand of God.
Jesus who loves us, who has freed us from our sins by his blood.
Jesus, who made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father. He is risen and present this morning. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen?
Jesus has emerged from the realm of the dead. He has freed the prisoners from the grave. He has overcome the power of death and triumphed over the works of the devil.
They nailed him to a cross. They pierced his feet, hands, and side. They laid him in a tomb, like seed being sown in the ground. But on Easter morning, the body was gone. It had sprouted. As Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, the body of Jesus was sown as something perishable, but it was raised imperishable.
His life was sown in weakness, but now he is raised in power. He was sown in dishonor, but now his he raised in glory.
As the old hymn says:
Up from the grave he arose;
with a mighty triumph o’er his foes;
he arose a victor from the dark domain,
and he lives forever, with his saints to reign.
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!
Jesus is risen! Hallelujah!
And we are witnesses. We are gathered here today because – along with the first apostle, Mary, and the other disciples of that first generation – we have seen the Lord.
We are here to declare, as John declared, “what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life.” That life is revealed in Jesus. “We have seen it and testify to it.” We have seen the Lord.
We have seen the Lord. But of course, not all of us have seen. Jesus has shown up in miraculous ways for some of us. He’s given us a strong sense of his presence. We have seen him, felt him, sensed him. We’ve heard his voice calling us. For those who have had this experience, it is an amazing blessing.
But God speaks to each of us differently, in the particular details and circumstances of our lives. Jesus speaks to us in loud ways and quiet ways. In ways obvious and subtle. The Holy Spirit ministers to our hearts. God meets us where we are at.
This morning we read one of John’s stories about how Jesus appeared to the disciples in the days immediately following the resurrection. And here’s what John says about his stories. He says, “these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
John says that Jesus did a lot of things that John didn’t write down. John says that, “if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” This makes sense. Jesus can’t be contained in a book. Jesus is seated in power at the right hand of the Father. Jesus is the eternal Word of God, through whom everything that exists was made.
Jesus is present to us in all of creation. In the morning breeze and birdsong. In the blades of grass and swaying trees. Jesus appears in all sorts of ways, at many times, to various individuals and communities. Jesus doesn’t have to perform miraculous signs and wonders to be present to us. Sometimes he is like an old friend, who doesn’t need to say or do anything. He’s just here.
So some of us might feel like we haven’t seen the Lord. We might feel like nothing out of the ordinary has happened in our lives. Nothing that can prove the existence of God or Jesus. And yet, we believe.
We believe because we have been told. We believe because we have heard the story and it resonates with what our deepest heart knows to be true. We believe because, in spite of all the darkness and horror of this world, we have seen the light that John tells us about. We have seen the reality of love at work in the world. We have seen it in the lives of the saints, the people sitting in this room, who have chosen to follow Jesus. Even when we’re not certain. Even when we doubt. Even when we have no proof to back up our faith.
Because let’s be real – we can’t prove any of this stuff we’re talking about. You can’t prove that life has meaning. That children are miraculous. That each human being is a unique and precious soul, worthy of love and respect. We can’t prove these things. They’re not scientifically demonstrable.
Yet we know they are true. We know love is real. This is “what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life.”
That doesn’t mean that we don’t have any doubt. We’re limited human beings living in a broken world. Of course we have doubt. We need to be reminded of the truth that our hearts declare. That’s why we have this community. To help us remember. To stay rooted in the things we know, but can’t prove. To ground ourselves in the things that really matter. To grow in the resurrection and become like Jesus.
And yet sometimes, sometimes God shows up in ways that truly are miraculous. And it’s one of these miraculous appearances that we read about today. It’s an encounter that John witnessed on the evening of that first Easter Sunday. The day that Jesus rose from the dead.
John says that the disciples are gathered together in a house, and they are afraid. And I mean, that makes sense. Let’s think about what has happened in the last 72 hours: Their friend and teacher was taken into police custody while all of them ran away and abandoned him. Jesus was put on trial by the chief priests and religious leaders. They found him guilty of blasphemy for claiming to be the messiah.
The religious leaders took Jesus to Pilate, the Roman governor, and convinced him to put Jesus to death as a threat to the Roman state. Jesus was beaten, tortured, and executed in the most painful and humiliating way.
So it’s not surprising the disciples were hiding out in their mom’s basement. They didn’t want to end up nailed to a tree like Jesus! But then, that morning, things got even crazier. When the women disciples went to anoint Jesus’ body, they found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance to the tomb. The body was gone, and two angels in white robes were sitting in the tomb where Jesus’ body should have been!
The women disciples went to tell the men disciples. And the men disciples show up, look around, and then run back home. And then Mary sees Jesus. Jesus shows up and tells Mary, “go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Jesus sends Mary as an apostle to the men who would be called the Twelve Apostles.
It’s not totally clear from the text, but it seems to me that the men didn’t believe Mary. Because John writes that later that evening, after she had announced the good news of the resurrection to her male companions, they are still cowering behind locked doors. They’re scared of the authorities. They don’t understand what’s going on, or why Jesus’ body has disappeared, but they know they don’t dare to go outside, because someone. Might. See. Them.
So these guys are living in fear. The resurrection just happened. Mary told them what she saw. And still, they’re hiding behind locked doors.
Jesus saw this coming. He knew the twelve disciples better than anyone, and he must have known that they would react this way. So Jesus sends Mary, but he knows that he’ll need to make a personal visit to help the men get the picture.
And so it says that Jesus comes and stands among the disciples. The doors are locked, but Jesus just appears in their midst, saying, “peace be with you.”
Can you imagine? I wonder if they jumped. I mean, this must have been freaky. But once they get over their fear, the disciples are going crazy with joy. Here he is! Jesus is alive!
And John says that, at this point, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on the disciples and says, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Jesus says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Jesus gives the disciples power and authority. He appoints them to continue his mission to the world.
What an amazing experience this must have been. All that fear and doubt – gone. Suddenly, the disciples aren’t worried about what the authorities might do to them. They aren’t scared of the cross. They see the resurrection power of Jesus. They hear his voice. They are given power to live as apostles, “sent ones” – children of light in a world of darkness.
But there’s a little wrinkle in this story. Because you see, not everyone is there when Jesus shows up. Thomas Didymus – the twin – is out picking up pizza or something – so he misses Jesus’ visit. And when he gets back from the store, he finds all the other disciples going wild, talking about how they just saw Jesus.
It’s hard to know what Thomas is actually feeling at this point. The text doesn’t tell us. But I imagine he’s angry. I mean, I would be. How could it be that everyone else got to see Jesus, and I just happened not to be there? Maybe they’re telling the truth. Maybe they’re making it all up. But I’m not believing it either way. Because to believe it would mean accepting that all my friends were chosen to see Jesus, but I wasn’t important enough. And maybe that means Jesus doesn’t love me. At least not as much as the other disciples.
So maybe Thomas is angry. Maybe something else is going on. But his response to his friends’ story is adamant: There’s no way I’m believing this. I’m not just taking your word for something this huge. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
And so it was that, about a week later, Jesus shows up again. This time Thomas is around. And again, Jesus says to the disciples, “Peace be with you.”
Then Jesus turns to Thomas and says, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Jesus is fully present for Thomas, in just the way Thomas demanded. Jesus is ready to let Thomas touch the wounds in his hands and side. Jesus is really there – not a ghost, but a resurrected man, full of grace and truth.
All of Thomas’ resistance breaks down immediately. There’s nothing he can do but cry out, “My Lord and my God!” Seeing really is believing for Thomas.
And Jesus says to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.
Is that you? Have you not seen Jesus, and yet have come to believe? Or are you more like Thomas, demanding that personal experience of the resurrection, and not budging until you get it?
Either way you’re blessed. You have experienced the power of Christ in you, the hope of glory. Whether it’s the miraculous appearance of the risen savior in your life, or whether you’ve received the power to believe without seeing – that’s Jesus. He’s present. Risen from the dead and living in you. You are blessed.
It’s this blessing that filled the apostles with life and power. It’s this blessing that transformed them from scaredy cats hiding behind locked doors, into bold preachers who stood in public and faced jail time for their ministry.
It’s this blessing that can transform us here, today, from timid pew-sitters into mighty women and men of God – saints, set apart by God for a special purpose. Apostles, sent by God just like Mary, Peter, James, and John.
This is the blessing that conquers the world – our faith. When we come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we may have life in his name.
We don’t need proof, we need life. We don’t need miracles, we need power. We don’t need to touch the wounded hands and pierced side of Jesus. We need Jesus living within us, so that we can touch the wounded hands and side of a world that is aching for God’s love.
But if you need to see, if you need to touch, if you need to hear Jesus’ voice – ask him. He is faithful. He will show up. He hears you.
But blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.