For some reason, something has always stood between famous people and me and kept them at something of a third party distance.  I don’t really know any famous people.  I did meet George Bush, the elder, in 1970 before he was famous for anything and my parents told me that I saw Richard Nixon in a parade in the 1950’s well before he made himself infamous.  I know some people who know some famous people.  My good friend George Mason was invited to the White House with some other folks a few years back to dialogue with then President Clinton about race relations.  He told me about it.  But, that’s as close as I got.  I know Fred McClure, as do many of you.  He’s the fabulous baritone who sang Sweet Little Jesus Boy for us last Christmas.  He once served as a congressional liaison for Presidents Reagan and Bush.  But, that is about as close as I’ve gotten to fame, with one exception. 

I actually went to college with Ron Dunn of Brooks and Dunn fame.  We even roomed in the same dorm on the same floor.  Hardin-Simmons University, Nix hall, third floor.  One of my best friends is one of his best friends.  Ron Dunn, they called him Ronnie back then, doesn’t look anything now like he did then.  But, neither do I.  Thank goodness they still just call me Glen and not Glennie.  I never got close enough to fame to change my name and never understood what it is that has stood between me and knowing any really famous people.  However, there is one other famous Donne I know though I’ve never actually met him.  I know him only through his poetry.

His name was John Donne.  He lived from 1572-1631 and, after converting from Catholicism to the Church of England out of marital and professional necessity, he eventually became the rector of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.  If you ever want to read some fabulous poetry that will help you meet God, meet John Donne.  May I introduce you this morning with just a sampling?  When I read this I’m led to believe that though I didn’t know John Dunne, somehow or another, he knew me.  This poem of his is a prayer I could pray any day. 

“Wilt thou forgive that sinne where I begunne, which is my sin, though it were done before?  Wilt thou forgive those sinnes, through which I runne, and do run still:  though I deplore?  When thou hast done, thou hast not done, for I have more.  Wilt thou forgive that sinne by which I have wonne others to sinne?  And, made my sinne their doore?  Wilt thou forgive that sinne which I did which I did shunne a yeare, or two:  but wallowed in, a score?  When thou hast done, thou hast not done, for I have more.  I have a sinne of feare, that when I have spunne my last thread, I shall perish on the shore; Swear by thy selfe, that at my death thy sonne shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore; And, having done that, Thou hast done, I feare no more.”  (John Donne, Hymne to God the Father)

John Donne had this problem with sin and the fear it spawned.  Whatever it was, it was a sin he had once confessed and then recommitted.  A sin, he feared, that might have encouraged others to sin.  A sin from which he thought he had ridded himself, only to be riddled by it again.  He wonders if, in this struggle with sin, he’ll almost make it to heaven only to collapse on heaven’s shore just shy of eternal hope.  But, just as he’s in the process of making his confession, not only of sin, but of the fear that has come with it, he learns to trust the God he once feared.  That’s how it worked for Thomas, too.

When Jesus first appeared to his disciples, Thomas wasn’t there.  So, they’d seen more than he had seen.  “‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side,’” he said, “‘I will not believe’” Jesus is alive.  We tend to give Thomas a hard time for saying that.  We hardly just call him Thomas.  We call him Doubting Thomas, as though his doubt were a part of his proper name.  I don’t know how many centuries he’s been stuck with that name.  But, what it reveals is our very sad tendency to name people for their worst failures rather than their greatest success.  And, sadly, people too often tend to become what others call them or spend their lives trying to overcome a name others gave them.

Timothy McVeigh has profound childhood memories of being called “‘Noodle McVeigh’” because he didn’t grow up as quickly as did other kids his age.  (Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, American Terrorist, Regan Books, p. 20)  It’s impossible to reduce the cause of the Oklahoma City bombing to that one event in McVeigh’s life.  But, there is good evidence that he grew up trying to shake off the influence of others whom he felt were always trying to bully him or put him down.  It’s scary what people can become when we name them for their weaknesses instead of their strengths, their failures instead of their successes.

And, in Thomas’ case, it also misses the more significant part of his life’s story.  He was the one, for sure, who said he needed more physical evidence than any of us have ever had that Jesus had risen.  We’ve been asked to invest our eternal hope in something we’ve never experienced with any of the five human physical senses.  We’ve been asked to trust the word of others that something we never personally witnessed is worth trusting with our eternal souls.  Jesus acknowledged and even blessed that kind of faith.  “‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,’” he said.  But, can any of us really blame Thomas for wanting more evidence?

Thomas was asking for nothing more, hopefully, than what you and I want.  All he wanted was his own personal encounter with the risen Christ.  He wasn’t asking for something sensational to convince him as much as he was asking for something personal.  In that sense, the church could use more people like Thomas.  People who are unwilling to simply accept the sensational word of others and who will settle for nothing less than a personal encounter with Christ.

This past Sunday, when I was ill, I decided to survey the worship options on television on Sunday morning.  I found, for one thing, that some folks have as much trouble as I do with sermon titles.  As he was preaching, one pastor’s title was written across the screen, “The Gospel in a Nutshell, Part 2.”  It must have been a big nut to need that much shell.  But, his struggle with distilling the gospel to its irreducible minimum reminded me of another time when I heard another television preacher oversimplify it.  Jesus died on the cross, she said, in order to break all the curses under which we live, including the curse of debt.  She went on to say, very specifically, that, if you can’t pay your monthly gas bill, that’s why Jesus died.  Jesus died to free you from that specific financial struggle.  Jesus certainly has compassion for us when there is too much month left at the end of our money.  But, if I may, I’d like to respond to the Jesus-died-to-pay-your-gas-bill sensationalism with my own version of the gospel-in-a-nutshell.  Jesus didn’t die because we can’t occasionally pay our gas bill.  Jesus died because we could never pay our sin bill.  And, that’s the only Jesus any of us should ever settle for meeting up close and personally.  That’s all Thomas wanted.  There was just one thing standing in his way, his doubt.  At least he was honest enough to admit it.  Should we call him Honest Thomas?

Remember now, Jesus has already made the point that’s it’s possible to believe in more than what you can see.  There are people who keep looking for evidence until they finally see what they are looking for.  Like the lady who called her husband to a window in their bedroom.  She was absolutely incensed, she said, because, as she looked across to the neighbor’s house, she could see the man next door standing naked in his bedroom.  Her husband looked out the window and said, “Honey, how do you know he’s totally naked?  You can’t see any more of him than from the waist up looking from here.”  “You can,” she said, “if you’ll stand on top of that table.”  At first, it looked like they had an exhibitionist for a neighbor.  In truth, the neighbor had a voyeur for his.  What we see or don’t see has a great deal to do with what we’re looking for and always says far more about us than what we see or don’t see.  We have biblical evidence.

There is a story in the New Testament of a man named Lazarus who was very poor.  He was what we would call a street person.  Covered with some kind of sores, he lived outside the house of a very rich man.  Street dogs licked his wounds and he longed for nothing more than the scraps off the rich man’s dining table.  Both died.  Lazarus went to heaven.  The rich man went to hell from which he began having a conversation with Abraham, who was in heaven comforting the beggar.  Having experienced hell up close and personally, he became the beggar when he begged Abraham to send the other beggar back to warn his brothers not to end up where he was.  Let’s listen in.  “’They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them,’” Abraham tells the rich man in hell.  “‘No, father Abraham,’” the rich man replies, “‘if someone goes from the dead they will repent.’”  Then, Abraham replies, “‘if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’  (Luke 16:19-31)  And, he was right.  Someone has risen from the dead and not everyone yet believes. 

According to Abraham, God has already given us all the evidence we need in order to believe.  That’s because unbelief is not an intellectual problem.  It’s a moral problem.  People do not believe because they don’t have enough evidence.  They don’t believe because believing means surrendering control.  And, most people would rather die than let someone else be in control, even God.  Sadly, if that’s what they want, they’ll likely get it.

The most beautiful part of the story of the one we call Doubting Thomas is that Jesus came looking for him.  Though, like the other disciples, Thomas had been hiding in his fear and doubt, Jesus made his way through the doors meant to lock everyone out in order to unlock the curse of unbelief.  Thomas didn’t resolve his doubts because he traced them out to their logical conclusion and found tangible evidence on which he could lay his hands.  Thomas’ doubts were resolved because Jesus came to meet him in them.  That’s the gospel in a nutshell.  We don’t find God.  He finds us.  Faith is what happens when we confess what is standing between God and us only to discover that the God we doubted and feared loves us anyway. 

Not one word of this scripture indicates that Thomas actually took Jesus up on his word and touched his wounds.  Simply overwhelmed at the presence of the one who had come from the grave to prove, yet again, his refusal to stop loving even those who doubt him, Thomas could do nothing but make the new confession that is the more significant part of his life’s story.  “‘My Lord and my God,’” he said, as his confession of doubt for which he is remembered was transformed into a confession of faith for which he is not named.  In the end, faith is not what happens when we find what we are looking for and finally lay our hands on it.  Faith happens when we awaken to realize that we have been found by the one who has been looking for us and he laid his nail-scarred hands on us.

Kenny Wood is a Presbyterian minister in Harlingen.  Years ago, as a Baptist pastor, he was trapped in the nightmare of drug and alcohol addiction.  He lost his church, almost lost his family and even his life to that addiction.  As he was beginning his journey into recovery, he was walking through one of those cavernous HEB food stores in San Antonio one day when he heard a woman’s voice come over the intercom.  Obviously, a mother who had lost her little girl somewhere in the shuffle of the crowded aisles had gone to the manager for help.  Stopping the music, the manager gave her the microphone.  Kenny heard the gospel when he heard this mother pleading with her child lost somewhere in the store.  He heard God speaking to him about the very doubts and fears that kept him from faith.  “Honey,” the mom said, “I know you are lost.  If you will just sit down right where you and stop looking for me, I will come and find you wherever you are.”

So, there you have it.  The gospel in a nutshell.  God has found you, in your doubt and fear.  If you could only confess that doubt or that fear or whatever it is that is standing between you and God you might be surprised who you’d meet next. 

Amen.