Unless We See

John 20:18-31

The final Chapter of John reads like a scene from a modern day thriller-flick. Let’s try to set the scene a little more theatrically. The atmosphere reads fear. It’s a dark room, maybe a few flickering candles casting dancing shadows across the ceiling and making the anxious brows of those gathered in the room seem as though they are quivering. Perhaps they are shaking a bit. Just a few days ago they watched in horror as their best friend and teacher was dragged through the streets, spat on, beaten, bruised, and publically executed. They had been so hopeful that he was teaching them how to overcome the corrupt powers of the world, but now, his death has left a lingering dread in their hearts that any one of them could be next.

One of their friends had ratted the teacher out, but did he share any other names of members of their group? They’ve locked the door out of fear that at any moment guards could show up and drag them through the streets, too, up to the top of the hill where the empty crosses stand as a constant reminder of the powers they’re up against, and what happens to those who dare oppose them.

What makes things worse is that their attempt to lay the teacher to rest has gone all wrong. Two of them had been to the tomb the day before and came back with the report that his body had been taken. If his death had been undignified and ugly, that’s nothing compared to the anger and disgust they feel at the knowledge that his body won’t even be allowed to rest in peace. But what’s really creepy are the rumors from one of the women in the group who insists that she actually saw the dead teacher. Alive. Walking. He spoke to her. They don’t know what to make of this.

Then…in the locked room, there’s a gust of wind. The candles all go out. There’s a deadly silence other than heavy breathing and the sound of flint stones clicking to get the candles lit again. A glow. A candle comes to life. Peter is up in a heartbeat with his dagger pulled to the neck of the stranger now standing in their midst.

“Peace be with you.” The stranger speaks, slowly raising his hands, revealing deep wounds pierced through the palms. The dagger clatters to the floor as Peter can no longer contain it in his shaking hands. He falls to his knees and throws his arms around his teacher’s legs as the others in the room gather round and joy begins to fight through the heavy fog of fear.

“Peace be with you,” the teacher says again, now with the room’s full attention. “As the father has sent me, so I send you.” You can feel it beginning to dawn in their minds: “This is what he meant when he said, ‘Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, Where I am going you cannot come.’ This is what he meant when he then said, ‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’”

Poor Peter picks up his dagger and tucks it sheepishly into his belt. He remembers, all to well, how he had responded to Jesus that night. He had been stupid, asking where it was that Jesus was going that he and his friends couldn’t follow—for he didn’t understood then as he did now standing in the presence of his resurrected teacher. He had told Jesus that night that he would lay his life down for him, and Jesus had laughed. Oh, it made his blood boil then. He felt his face warming again now, too, but this time flushed with embarrassment, not anger. Jesus had told him that he would deny him three times, and sure enough he had. Peter had let his fear get the better of him and had denied ever knowing his teacher. He looked up at his teacher now, eyes on the verge of tears from a mixture of joy and shame. Jesus looked down on Peter’s face, not with anger, nor with pity. Jesus’ eyes landed on each of them gathered there, and again he spoke, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Again, a breeze swept the room as Jesus exhaled. Peter felt his shame melt away as it was replaced with deep peace. Peter knew, in that moment, that he was forgiven, that he was loved, that Jesus still accepted him.

As if he were reading Peter’s mind, Jesus spoke, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” In that feeling of peace and forgiveness, Peter knew how he was to live from that day forth: with love, compassion, and forgiveness.

But Thomas, one of the twelve, had not been with the group that night when Jesus appeared. He had been out, perhaps watching the streets for other signs of trouble or danger. Imagine the scene when he returned. He knocks on the locked door, expecting to enter into a chamber of gloom and fear, and is instead overwhelmed with 10 other guys’ renditions of “Holy cow you won’t believe what just happened, Tom!” Finally calming them down enough to get a chance to hear one of them tell him the whole story, he wipes his brow with the back of his hand and laughs. “So you’re telling me that late night, frightened, dark, exhausted, you all fell asleep and had the same crazy dream? Because that’s the only explanation I can think of.”

“No,” the 10 retort, “we really saw him, we saw the Lord.”

Thomas shakes his head again, “Nah, look…unless I can see him, too. Unless I can actually touch his wounds…I’m going to have to write this off as a case of a crazy coincidental dream you all had.”

It was a week later, we read—and probably a pretty tense, frustrating week—that Jesus reappeared to his disciples. This time Thomas was there. And with the same gentleness and respect that he had shown to Mary’s grief in the garden, Jesus approaches Thomas. He does not berate Thomas for doubting, he does not belittle him and mock him in front of his friends, he does not shove his hands in Thomas’ face and say, “See?! See!? For crying out loud man…you’re such a lousy disciple!” No. Jesus shows up, and again says, “Peace.” Then turns to Thomas, who is standing aghast and embarrassed, and says, “I want you to believe, my friend. See my hands and feel the wound in my side.”

“My Lord and my God,” Thomas whispered.

A few weeks ago, when my friend, Billy, was in town to help run the big disc golf tournament, we went out with his son to shoot pool and sing some karaoke. Some guys were in the bar who were going around talking to people, not getting very good reception. They came to talk to Billy, who engaged them politely as they began to talk with him about the Bible. He nodded his head in my direction (he apologized for this later, having told them that I was a trained theologian and a pastor and that they should come talk to me). “So you’re a pastor, huh?”, one of them said as he approached.

“Yeah?” I answered…implying the question ‘what’s it to you?’

“Man that’s so great, so where do you preach?” I engaged politely, but at some point, not too far into the conversation, one of the guys said, “So I just gotta let you know, I’m a flat-earther.” I let him know up front that that was simply foolish, probably using some colloquial version of “cow-manure”. “Nah man,” he insisted, “It’s all in the Bible, you’ve just got to read it. It says the earth is flat. NASA and all that science stuff is just feeding us a bunch of lies.” He told me that all you needed to do was go to any beach and look out at the horizon, “And it’s flat!” I proceeded to assure them that I indeed read the Bible and that I have read it well enough to understand the Word of God as something living, non-stagnant, like a breath or a wind. Sometimes things are even bigger than we can see, including our planet, our universe, and the one that made them. They eventually got frustrated with me and left the bar. I felt like I had done a good deed for everyone there.

I share this for two reasons. First, because it reminds me how hard it is to get along with someone you’re convinced is delusional. Thomas, I imagine, had a pretty tough week with his friends leading up to his own encounter with the risen Lord. Second, because it makes me wonder what Jesus would have said if he were there with us that night waiting for his chance to sing Karaoke (also makes me wonder what Jesus would choose to sing). Whose faith was predicated upon needing to be able to see something? To whom would Jesus have said, “Don’t doubt, but believe”?

I think it’s worth pointing out that you can’t draw too many straight lines between my experience and Thomas’ experience. Thomas simply thought his friends were delusional, whereas I am certain that the flat-earthers were delusional. I say this, in part, in jest, but also to confess what I feel to have been a failure of my own faith, and an area that I have since recognized as needing growth. It may have been an act of kindness to everyone else in the bar that I frustrated the flat-earthers to the point of leaving, but I certainly failed in showing them gentleness and kindness, I failed in being Christ-like. How quickly our doubts turn into disagreements, and how quickly our disagreements divide us. And I don’t think a faith with a tendency to divide us from others is actually faithful to Jesus—the guy who said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another.”

There are plenty of folks who think it’s delusional to believe anything the Bible says at all. I have friends who are committed atheists who set science and rationality as opposites of religion and faith. (I actually find it easier to show them gentleness and kindness than I did to the flat-earthers, not sure why.) We can take it back to Paul’s words about the perceived “foolishness” of our faith by some, and the stumbling block it causes others. How do we distinguish between a foolish faith and a functional faith? I take it back to two things: does your faith inspire you to love one another (per the command of Christ), and does your faith empower you encounter others with gentleness and respect (per the behavior of Christ)? Simply put, does our faith see disagreement as grounds for division or grounds for growth? Does our faith draw us into relationships or keep us from them?

We saw how Jesus approached Mary with love, gentleness, and respect in the garden last week—despite her lack of faith that would have preserved her against the grief of doubt and loss. Today, we see how Jesus approaches Thomas with love, gentleness, and respect—despite Thomas’ lack of faith. I quickly lost my patience with the “flat-earthers”. As much as I want to write them off as foolish (and as much as they probably want the same for me), I have to imagine that Jesus would approach us both with equal love, gentleness, respect and forgiveness.

Unless we can see Jesus loving those we are inclined not to, then I don’t think any of us can claim a truly functional faith. It’s when we see that the “others” of Jesus’ “love others” command actually includes those we’re inclined not to love that the functionality of our faith is truly tested.

There may be moments in your journey of faith when your faith will be tested by a family member or friend or flat-earther who finds you foolish. What shows our faith in Christ is not our ability to convince them we’re right and they’re wrong, but our ability to breathe the Holy Spirit into that moment. To find peace in the midst of disagreement out of which we can approach the other’s doubt with love, gentleness, and respect. Unless we see Jesus standing there, reminding us of our own doubts for which we have been forgiven, we’re not going to be able to do this. And God wants us to do this.

“Friends, receive the Holy Spirit.”

Now go, forgive and love. Amen.