All Scriptures quoted are from The New Revised Standard Version unless otherwise quoted.

Before I read from John’s gospel let me say that I am honored to be in this pulpit this morning.  To stand before this congregation and deliver the Word of the Lord is no small task.  Being so, it is a task that I do not take lightly.

The men and women who have spoken and sung God’s truth from behind this altar and lectern have left a rich legacy of words and I pray this day that I might be legatee of their good works.  So to pastor Glen and your staff, thank you for this opportunity to proclaim God’s word this morning.

And now please hear these words from John’s gospel:

John 20:19-31

19When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 24But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “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.” 26A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” 30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31But 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.

Reader:  This is the word of the Lord.
All:  Thanks be to God.

Pray with me.  And now Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight O’ Lord, my rock and my redeemer.  Amen.

I guess it’s been about 14 or so years since I heeded the calling of our Lord for vocational ministry.  Since then I’ve had lots of interesting experiences in ministry.  I’ve had the opportunity to preach in faraway lands like Indonesia, El Salvador, Egypt and Louisiana.  I’ve been a youth minister, an education minister, a volunteer in student ministry, a bus driver, a translator, a Sunday School teacher, a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker. However, in all those opportunities there is one realm of the church that I’ve not been able to explore. And that is the position of Senior Pastor.  Now there are lots of things I don’t envy about being a head pastor of a Baptist church. However, there is one thing that I’ve always wanted the opportunity to do:  preach an Easter Sermon.

Because of my second tier ministry positions, I’ve never gotten to preach on the “Holiest of Days”.  I never get the Sunday nearest Christmas.  I never get the Sunday nearest Thanksgiving. Heck -- I've never even gotten to preach on Mother’s Day.  And I for sure don’t get to preach on Easter Sunday.  I get the Next Sunday.  The Sunday after the “big day”.

However, I understand why preachers wanna preach on Easter Sunday.  It’s exciting.  It’s fun.  Folks are happy to be at church.  Folks are dressed to the nines.  More people show up.  Easter Sunday is the most significant Sunday in the life of the Christian Church.  It’s our Super Bowl.  And in this Super Bowl, you don’t want Jim Sorgi or Matt Cassell under center (those are backup quarterbacks for NFL teams…see me after the service if you need more explanation on that). 

For you see, I don’t get to come to you today and talk about the glorious and supernatural event that took place early that morning.  I can’t tell you about the women who first saw the Lord and were afraid and at the same time jubilant in their hearts.  I can’t tell you about the apostles that ran to the grave (one out running the other) to find that it was vacant and the grave clothes empty.  I can’t preach about Easter morning.  I have to preach first about Easter evening. 

While the resurrection is the backbone of every good Christian sermon, I can’t start my sermon today with that good news.  Instead, we get to start the story with the followers of Jesus hiding out like villains scared for their lives.  Locked behind doors, leery of the would-be attackers that lay just beyond the bolted door.  They were scared to death.  Easter evening was nothing like Easter morning.

Can you imagine what it was like?  Can you imagine their conversation?  Maybe it went something like this:

Mary runs into the room and shouts, “I have seen the Lord.”

"You saw who?”  The disciples might have asked?  “Well, Mary I’m sure you saw something or someone that may have looked like Jesus, but we put him in the grave.”

“Yes, but John and Peter saw that the tomb is empty. They know that something is going on here, something out of the ordinary, something amazing.  Jesus is alive!”  Mary retorts.

“Mary, what we saw I, I can’t explain, but I, I mean we, we don’t know what to believe.  We never saw Jesus.  We just saw his grave.  We can’t be thinking about that right now.  We have to think of our safety, we have to save our lives!”

“Yeah, Mary think about it, if Jesus did rise, like you say he did then He’d be here among us he’d be telling us….”

Jesus interrupts, “Peace be with you.”

Do you know what that’s like?  Do you know what it’s like when you’re scared to death with life?  When your opponents are clawing at your door?  Do you know what it’s like when your job is in jeopardy?  Do you know what it’s like when you read the newspaper and see death and destruction all around?  Do you know what it’s like to live behind locked doors wondering if your life is safe?  Do you know what it’s like to be trapped in sin with no help on the way?  Do you know what it’s like to be afraid?

Anne Lamott does.  Lamott is an edgy author whose road to faith in Christ was more bumpy than smooth.  In one of her books, Traveling Mercies, she talks about a dark time in her life.  A season in her life before her conversion to Christianity.  A time when she fell into a pit of fear so deep, in fact, that it lead her to an abortion clinic.  Filled with guilt and dread after her decision, she began a weeklong binge on alcohol and drugs.  Then, this happened: 

“…I got in bed, shaky and sad and too wild to have another drink or take a sleeping pill.  After a while, as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there—of course, there wasn’t. But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus.  I felt him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this.”

In the midst of her sin, confusion, and fear Jesus spoke these inaudible words to Lamott, “Peace be with you.”

Can we hear those words in the midst of struggle?  With fear amongst us, can we hear His voice?  When we’re scared and frightened by lack of resources, can we hear Jesus softly speak into our horrified hearts…? “Peace be with you.”  Can we with those disciples rejoice when we hear those words from our Savior?  Can we take on the responsibility that He gives to His apostles?  Can we remember the feeling of the Lord’s breath as he exhaled on us all the winsome wind of the Holy Spirit?  Are we ready to do the work that Jesus describes in verses 21-23?  Or, are we afraid?  Are we afraid to minister because things aren’t like they used to be?  Are we afraid to do the work of the church because we’re worried about the others outside the locked doors?

In many ways our story could end right there.  Yet it would be incomplete.  For you see this sermon is not entitled, “Easter Evening”.  We have heard and read about the risen Lord who conquers our fears, but what about our unbelief?  What about our doubt?

In the 17th century, there was a Frenchman by the name of René Descartes.  Descartes came up with the often quoted, yet gravely misunderstood saying, Cogito Ergo Sum or in English, “I think, therefore, I am.”  However, the real message of Descartes was centered on a healthy dose of doubt.  His philosophy in layman’s terms:  doubt everything and in the end that which is real will be sorted out.  In his model, doubt was the beginning.  Belief was something happened after doubt.  So as not to dwell on a Cartesian model that will bore us all to tears, suffice to say that the problem with this philosophy, at least to me, is that it placed and still places too much emphasis on the self and fails to comprehend and take into consideration our collective experience.  It tells us not to trust others, but trust only in what we can perceive.

For those of you that haven’t fallen asleep yet, let’s find our way back to the Bible and the story that awaits us in the form of that disappointing, doubting, disciple named Thomas.

Where was he?  I mean at the beginning of our story.  Where was Thomas?  We aren’t told.  Think about it.  If the disciples were so afraid, why was Thomas running the streets?  He had been associated with them; it wasn’t as if no one knew that he was a disciple.  We hear, very early on, his name associated with the 12.  And this encounter isn’t the only we know about from Holy Writ.

In John 11 we hear Thomas encourage the disciples to ride to Bethany and die with the Lord.  And also, at the final meal in John 14, Thomas blurts out, “Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”  Thomas was a good disciple.  Perhaps not the brightest bulb in the light fixture, but he was a believer.  Never forget that.  Up till this point, Thomas was a faithful member of the twelve.  However, the bottom line is this:  He wasn’t there.

I’ve been that guy before.  I’ve been the guy that was supposed to be at a certain place at a certain time, but I wasn’t and boy did I miss out.  We all have haven’t we?  We’ve been that woman who missed the important meeting and ended up without a raise.  We’ve been that kid that forgot to set his alarm and missed the field trip.  We’ve been that family stuck in traffic that missed the wedding.  We’ve been that person, cold, hungry and worn down by life that arrived at the soup kitchen just as it closed.  We’ve all been there haven’t we?  At some point in our life we’ve all been like Thomas.  We’ve all missed out on something big before.

However, all of our absences seem to pale in comparison to his.  He missed out on seeing Jesus.  He missed the Messiah. 

His response to the disciples’ claim of a resurrected Lord is somewhat interesting.  He doesn’t totally write off the words of the disciples (as do some of the other disciples in other gospels).  Rather, Thomas tells them that he cannot believe until he has some proof.  He lets them know that he cannot believe their words alone.  He doesn’t say that he won’t ever believe, but asserts that he must find out for himself.  And here is where Thomas becomes like that French fella Descartes.  Here is where Thomas doubts.  Here is where Thomas places trust in his own understanding and forgets to rely on the friends of the faith that have been there alongside him in muck and the mire of Jesus’ ministry.  Thomas was there when Jesus performed signs and wonders.  He was there at Cana when Jesus turned water into wine.  He was there at the feeding of the 5,000.  He was there when Lazarus was called forth from the grave.  But he wasn’t there when Jesus came back and you know what, neither were we.

As we sang, before the offertory, the old spiritual “Were you there”, I wonder if words of that song had the same effect on you as they did me?  I wonder when you sang, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord”, did you with solemn face say in your heart, “No, no I wasn’t.”  When we sang, “Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?”, did you respond with a downcast stare, “No, how could I have been.”  When we sang, “Were you there when God raised him from the dead?”  Trembling, we say, “No…we missed it.”

And then…the Next Sunday comes.  As we read verses 26 and following, we find out something very important about the community of faith that is bunkered down in Jerusalem.  As we peer deeply into this passage we find that the apostles allowed Thomas to stay in their midst despite his doubt.  They understood.  They knew what it was like to get information that was hard to swallow.  You see they had all doubted the words of those women.  They understood what it was like to doubt the resurrection.  And might I say here on this second Sunday of Easter, that if you have never doubted the resurrection of our Lord, then perhaps you don’t really believe in it.  If you haven’t struggled, as did the apostles and Timothy, then you haven’t taken seriously that questionable quandary of death becoming life.  If you never wrestled with God on believing in that which you cannot see, then I’d imagine your faith is about as meaningful to you as a fairy tale. 

The good news of the gospel is here before us.  Whether we’re frightened before some door of our own making.  Timid about finances, illness, guilt or sin.  Whether we’re burdened with doubt so heavily that we don’t know if we can take another step.  Jesus greets us all the same, “Peace, be with you.”

As Jesus says to us in verse 29, so I say to you all, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  And as we pray back to God let us with open hearts, minds, and souls say, “Lord, we believe, help, fix, and mend our UNBELIEF.”

Let us pray:

Our Father in Heaven, He who raised Jesus from the dead, on this second Sunday in Easter we give YOU thanks for fear and doubt in our lives.  For Lord we believe, with your apostle Paul when he says, “That we delight in our weakness…”, because we know Lord that through those trials that your perfect peace comes.

So Father, this day we don’t ask for a sign, we don’t ask for miracle even, rather today we come to you asking for PEACE.  We beg you oh God to stand beside us in our doubt, never leave us in that dark place too long.  We beseech you, oh Blessed Lord, that in our fear you would show us safe passage.  Lord, hear our prayers as we pray them in the name of the nail-scarred Christ.  Amen.