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| John #31 Resurrection: The Hallmark of Faith |
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Resurrection: The Hallmark of Faith
Reading: John 20:1-31
Introduction: For centuries, he has been known as “Doubting Thomas,” the disciple who skipped church that first week and missed seeing Jesus. Then he refused to believe the testimony of the other disciples that he had spent all those years with. They claimed that Jesus was no longer dead. He was alive and when they had church together behind closed doors the living Lord suddenly had appeared to them. Thomas said, “I don’t think so!” Real people don’t come into rooms without opening a door or a window first. I don’t think you saw a live Jesus; I think you just saw a ghost! I won’t believe it really was Jesus until I see for myself. Until I touch that hole in his side; until I see the scars on his hands for myself and touch the skin, I don’t believe you guys.”
It seems to me that "Doubting Thomas" should be known as Thoroughly Modern Thomas. After all, his basis for determining that something is real or not real, truth or falsehood, seems perfectly normal in our time, doesn’t it? Isn’t that how we live out our lives today? If a person today claimed that they were in a room with all of the windows and doors shut and another person suddenly appeared beside them, would you believe them? If they went on to tell you that the person who appeared in the room was killed and put in the ground three days earlier, would that make their testimony more credible or less?
We live in a cultural environment that is quite cynical of anything less than tangible evidence—scientific or sensory data that in our minds constitutes proof. What kind of evidence will be required for us to believe, for example, that Osama ben Laden is dead? Eye-witness testimony of some of his closest associates? Would we believe them? We’re going to want a body or at least DNA evidence, aren’t we? What about a letter from his friends telling us that he died in action? Written statements wouldn’t be worth the paper they were written on! Or think this week about the Chandra Levy case. What kind of evidence and proof is required to establish that the body found really was the body of Miss Levy? What kind of proof will be necessary to link her death to a particular suspect? The big sports news this week is the use of steroids in Baseball. What percentage of baseball players are on steroids? Do we want to accept the testimony of witnesses like Jose Canseco or Ken Caminiti, or do we want to wait for test results to decide? We like that tangible evidence, don’t we? Even if we lean toward believing something to be fact or fiction, we are trained to wait, to not decide until we have the facts. Facts can only be established by the data. Witnesses are helpful, but we know too well that witnesses are fallible. Witnesses can see what they want to see. Truth can become what I need it to be for my own psychological health. So in this story, a dead man suddenly appears in the room and then disappears again. Is he raised from the dead or did the disciples just see what they wanted to see?
It should be mentioned at this point that none of the four gospels offers us an account of the Resurrection. What we have is a collection of stories in which women find an empty tomb and then we hear reports from people who claim to have seen Jesus alive and well after he was dead. Remember our story from John’s gospel last week. John was particularly interested in telling us about the corpse of Jesus. A whole paragraph in his account is dedicated to the dead body. In John’s account, all of the preparations for burial—taking the body down from the cross, anointing the body with burial spices, placing the body in the tomb—are completed by Nicodemus and Joseph. When they put him in that new tomb, burial is complete. Jesus really is dead and buried. As John continues telling his story, he writes four successive scenes that take us from the dead Jesus to the confession of Thomas. Each scene offers new evidence. All four gospels agree that the first witnesses to the empty tomb are women. In John’s case we hear specifically about Mary Magdalene. It is worth pausing to consider why the first witnesses are women in a culture that rejected the testimony of women as credible evidence. The testimony of women was not admissible in court. Their stories were just female talk. We even hear some of that bias against female testimony in John’s story.
Mary runs from the tomb and finds the disciples. When she offers the report of the empty tomb, the men do what men do when women tell them something. They could just accept the testimony couldn’t they? No, at least two of them have to see for themselves. So Peter and the mysterious “disciple whom Jesus loved” race each other to the tomb. The writer actually takes the time to tell us who won the race—the disciple whom Jesus loved can run faster than Peter, but he stops outside and stoops to look inside. Peter just goes on inside. What they find is more evidence—a pile of rags that apparently were used as burial linens; another cloth in a different part of the room, apparently the cloth used to wrap the head. How does a person wrapped up in such cloth get all of that stuff off? In the story of Lazarus, when Jesus raised him from the dead, who took the burial wrappings off?
Strangely, it seems to me at least, the two men find the empty tomb and the burial wraps and they just go home. Wouldn’t it be time to get a search party organized? Equally strange is Mary; she just stands there at the tomb weeping. When she stoops to take another look inside, it’s suddenly populated! Not with one body but apparently two, only these don’t look like ordinary persons. Aside from television and movies, has anybody seen an angel lately? She sees two angels—of course they’re dressed in white! That’s what angels do, right? “Woman, why are you crying?” Mary starts talking to these beings in the tomb. When we already know the story it’s hard to hear what she actually says. She doesn’t say, “I’m crying because Jesus has been raised from the dead and I don’t know where he went.” She doesn’t say, “Someone stole the body of Jesus and unwrapped the corpse for some reason.” She says, “They’ve taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.” Somebody has moved the body but no one knows where.
She turns around and sees a man standing there—John tells us it is Jesus—by the way where did Jesus get his clothing? The soldiers divided up his old clothes. And listen to the contrast between the description of angels inside the tomb (dressed in white) and the description of Jesus—he looks like a gardener. Nothing about what Mary sees makes her think she is looking at Jesus. He asks the same question: “Woman why are you weeping?” “Whom do you seek,” he adds. Notice the difference in her response with the man she sees outside the tomb. She thinks he may be the guy that moved the corpse. “Sir if you’re the one who moved the body, just tell me where you put him and I’ll handle it from there.” “I’ll take him away.” What would she do with the corpse if she did find it?
The man standing there then speaks her name in Hebrew. True to John’s storytelling we hear echoes of the good shepherd who knows his sheep by name and when his sheep hear his voice they recognize him and follow. When Jesus says her name in Hebrew, Mary responds in Hebrew. Once there is recognition, there is also immediate warning: “Don’t hold on to me,” he says. What you’re experiencing at this moment is not the final chapter of the story. “I’ve not yet ascended to the Father. Go tell my brothers, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.”
Mary’s report that she has seen the Lord leads to the first Sunday night church service. Thomas, as I noted at the beginning, didn’t think Sunday night counted so he skipped church. It is there that the testimony of a woman is verified by the men. In a room with the doors shut (“out of fear of the Jews”), they suddenly see Jesus. There is the testimony of his voice: “Peace be with you.” There is the physical testimony of his body. He doesn’t need an open door for an entrance, but he still has a body that bears the marks of crucifixion. It surely is understated when John reports that the disciples were “glad when they saw the Lord.” Remember these are the same guys that were scared to death when Jesus appeared to them walking on the water back in chapter six. “They were glad when they saw the Lord.”
Jesus repeats his announcement of peace and then he commissions them: “As the Father has sent me now I send you.” We readers are to understand that the words of chapters 14-16 are now being fulfilled. Jesus went away; he has returned. Now he is sending them out. He breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The promised Advocate has come. The evidence of the Advocate’s presence in them takes a peculiar form. It’s not miraculous signs and wonders. It’s not the power to cast out demons or overthrow the Roman armies or take out retribution against the Jewish leaders or the betrayer Judas. With the reception of the Holy Spirit, they are empowered to forgive sins. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Finally we hear about thoroughly modern Thomas, who skipped church and missed the breath of new life given to the other disciples, and who doubts any of these people actually experienced what they are claiming. But Thomas does believe them enough not to skip church the next time. Once more the doors are shut, and the experience of a week prior is repeated. Jesus appears and pronounces blessing: “Peace be with you.” Then Thomas gets his tangible evidence: “Come touch me,” Jesus says. “Put your finger here, look at my hands; put out your hand and place it in my side. Don’t be unbelieving but believing.”
We don’t know whether Thomas actually does those things or not before his announcement of faith. For years I have read these verses and immediately jumped ahead to the announcement of Jesus that follows. “It’s great, Thomas, that you believe because you have the tangible evidence. But blessed are those whose faith doesn’t require such proof.” Blessed are those of us who come along 20 centuries later who don’t need physical evidence to believe that Jesus is resurrected Lord. I have skipped along to those powerful finishing words of John: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book; but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in his name” (John 20:30-31).
That’s the point of John’s gospel—to help people like you and me hold on to our conviction (without the tangible proof) that Jesus is indeed the living Christ. But this time, as Rubel and I have preached through John and as we have been reminded over and over again in John’s account that Jesus is God in the flesh, that Jesus is the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us, this time I think I heard Thomas’ confession for the first time. Everyone else who sees the resurrected Jesus in chapter 20 says, “We have seen the Lord.” Mary calls him “Rabbi” when she first recognizes his voice; she reports to the others that she has seen the Lord. The disciples are glad that they have seen the Lord. When Thomas finally believes he doesn’t say, “My Lord and my Messiah.” Or, “My Lord, the Son of God.” He doesn’t say, “Ok, now that I have touched your hands your side, I believe that you are the guy that was dead and now is alive.” He says, “My Lord and my God.” The confession of Thomas takes us way beyond all of our modern constructs of truth and evidence. His confession takes us beyond life after death, beyond the fleshly, bodily reality of resurrection, beyond talk of spirits and apparitions, beyond our questions about the nature of resurrection bodies that still have flesh but don’t need doorways any more.
He confesses what John tried to say in the last verse of the prologue: No one has ever seen God; the only begotten God who is at the Father’s side has made him known” (1:18). Yes, Thomas, blessed indeed are those who can conclude from this story—without touching my hands and my side—that the one who stands before you is both Lord and God! We remember those words in chapter 14: “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” We remember the words about going away so that the Advocate can come. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he says. Receive the power of forgiveness. That’s what this whole journey is about! The God-power of forgiveness: God becoming flesh to enable our forgiveness; God sending his Spirit to indwell us and empower us to forgive. That’s the power of love and relationship, with God and with each other. These are words of great mystery. These are words we inadequately try to explain with other words like “Trinity—God in three persons.” We stumble around trying to explain Father, Son and Holy Spirit as our belief in One God. There is no adequate explanation, no DNA evidence or data or eye witness testimony or philosophical argument that can eliminate the mystery. Blessed indeed are those who have not seen what Thomas saw, but in faith confess “My Lord and My God!” In faith, today—June 2, 2002 AD—we proclaim “He is Risen—He is Risen Indeed!” “My Lord and My God!”
Delivered at Woodmont Hills, June 2, 2002.
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