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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
People are either damned or saved, based on whether they either disbelieve or believe. In today’s Gospel Reading for the Second Sunday of Easter, Jesus commands Thomas, “Do not disbelieve, but believe.” What could be simpler, right? Well, on which side of that line, between damning disbelief and saving belief, are people who have doubts? Can the extent of their doubts be quantified, and disbelief and belief weighed out on a scale that points to one side of the line or the other? Maybe the matter is less‑simple than at first glance it appears to be. This morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading under the theme “Disbelief and Belief”.
Today’s Gospel Reading, with its content largely unique to St. John’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, is likely familiar to many of us, as it is heard on the Second Sunday of Easter in each year of our three‑year cycle of Readings. The Reading itself has three “scenes”, as it were: first, Jesus comes and stands in the midst of ten disciples on Easter evening; second, the ten disciples’ repeatedly tell Thomas, who was not with them when Jesus came, that they had seen the Lord, but Thomas refuses even the possibility of believing unless certain unprecedented conditions are met; and third, Jesus comes and stands in the midst of all eleven disciples the following Sunday. By the Reading’s end, Jesus with His Word and presence has moved Thomas from disbelief to belief, and St. John the Evangelist has said that his Gospel account, which makes Jesus present for us, should so move all of us who hear it from disbelief to belief.
On the basis of today’s Gospel Reading, Thomas is often called “doubting” Thomas, but today’s Gospel Reading does not mention anything about doubts. Thomas refuses to believe, and Jesus refers to Thomas’s disbelief, not to his doubts. (Other Gospel accounts mention the “doubts” of some in connection with Jesus’s resurrection, but they do not name Thomas [Matthew 28:17; Luke 24:38].) Today’s Gospel Reading may lead us to “pick on” Thomas, after all, he was not with the others of the Twelve when Jesus came, and earlier, on the night when Jesus was betrayed, Thomas said they did not know where Jesus was going and so could not know the way (John 14:5), but, after that eighth day that the Gospel Reading reports, Thomas was with the disciples when Jesus revealed Himself to them again. And, others certainly had had little-faith apparently mixed with doubts on other occasions. For example, earlier, when Peter walked on water but began to sink, Jesus called Peter one of “little faith” and asked why he doubted (Matthew 14:31), and, even earlier, when all the fearful disciples woke Jesus up to save them from a storm-tossed sea, Jesus called all of them those of “little faith”, or asked if they all did not yet have faith, or where their faith was (Matthew 8:26; Mark 4:40; Luke 8:25).
Maybe it is too easy for us to “pick on” all of the disciples, when we really should be more concerned about ourselves. I headlined my newspaper column this week, “Thomas did more than ‘doubt’, how about you?” We all should ask ourselves whether or not we refuse even the possibility of believing unless certain unprecedented conditions are met. We all should ask ourselves whether or not we have little faith and big doubts. We all should ask ourselves whether or not we show our doubting thoughts by what we say, maybe how and whether we even pray, or by what we do, perhaps acting inconsistently from the believer we otherwise claim to be. Those who do not believe are condemned already because they have not believed in the Name of the only Son of God (John 3:18), and those who do believe certainly would merit condemnation except for their belief, because of our sinful nature and our actual sins of evil thoughts, words, and deeds that continuously flow from our hearts (Matthew 15:19; Mark 7:21).
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus essentially confronted Thomas with his refusal to believe by commanding him to do virtually the very things he said that he would have to do as conditions for his belief. By the Holy Spirit working through God’s law, God confronts us with our refusals to believe, our doubts, and all our sins. As God called and enabled Thomas to confess both his sin and his faith, so God calls and enables us to confess both our sin and our faith. When we so confess both our sin and our faith, then God forgives us. God forgives our refusals to believe, our doubts, and all our sins. God graciously forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
Not only Thomas should have expected such rebuke and censure on the eighth day but also all the disciples could have received such rebuke and censure one week earlier, on account of what they had done just on the night Jesus was betrayed (CSSB, ad loc Jn 20:19, 1647). But, instead Jesus gave all of them and gives all of us peace—the peace He made between the world and God with His death on the cross, evidenced by the nail-marked hands and the spear‑pierced side. Those “rich wounds” (Lutheran Service Book 525:3:2) not only prove that He is the same Crucified One (still God in human flesh), but, in that He is resurrected, those “rich wounds” also prove that He is victorious over sin and death and can offer us that same victory. St. Peter put it well when “preaching” to the Sanhedrin, as we heard in today’s First Reading (Acts 5:29-42), that Jesus Who had been crucified was exalted to give repentance and forgiveness of sins. Thomas got the message and confessed Jesus as Lord and God, no unspecified or vague faith did he have! Nor do we! There is a fixed object to our faith and fixed content to our confession. Not only St. John’s Gospel account but all of Holy Scripture leads us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and, by believing, to have life in His Name (confer John 17:20; Acts 10:43)—His Name put upon us in Holy Baptism and His Name used by the pastors, to whom we privately confess, in individually absolving us of our sins.
To be sure, verses from today’s Gospel Reading are used by Luther’s Small Catechism, to which all genuine-Lutherans subscribe, as at least part of the basis for understanding the Office of the Keys as the special authority that Christ has given to His Church on earth, exercised through Her called ministers, to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent. (Not that a form of private Confession and individual Absolution did not already exist even in the Old Testament [see Scaer, CLD VIII:182]!) More broadly, in sending the disciples and their successors in these verses our Lord Jesus Christ arguably institutes the Office of the Holy Ministry to preach the Gospel purely and to administer all of the Sacraments rightly (Augsburg Confession XXVIII:6).
Part of rightly administering the Sacrament of the Altar is each of us’s individually examining ourselves, and ultimately my in some fashion examining all those who commune, as to whether we do not believe or doubt Christ’s words, and so should not receive His Body and Blood (present here the same way He twice entered the locked room where the disciples were), or whether we are weak in faith, and so should receive His Body and Blood for the purposes of strengthening and increasing our faith (see the 1991 Explanation, Questions #302 and #304). For, in the very context of discussing Himself as the Bread of Heaven, Jesus promises that whoever comes to Him He will never cast out (John 6:37). Determining whether we do not believe or doubt or whether we are weak in faith clearly is not an easy thing. The devil certainly wants us to stay away from this Holy Meal and the blessings of forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation that we here receive. In the Gospel Reading, Thomas refused to believe at all, and, if we do likewise, or are deliberately hypocritical, we rightly stay away. If, however, like the father of the boy with the unclean spirit that the disciples were unable to cast out (Mark 9:14-29), we both believe and disbelieve (in thought, word, or deed), then we say with him “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief”, and we come here for Him to do just that.
Our former member Bob Abraham, who less than two weeks ago, as they say, transferred to the Church Triumphant, is now free of any mixture that he might have had of “disbelief and belief”, which we have considered this morning. Bob has received, in the words of today’s Epistle Reading (1 Peter 1:3-9), the inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for us. We look forward to the resurrection of the body and the blessed reunion with Bob and all those who have gone before us in belief! Until our deaths or the Lord’s coming in glory to judge the living and the dead (whichever comes first), the rest of us will continue to struggle with “disbelief and belief”. Daily confessing our sins—of refusal to believe, doubts, or whatever our sins might be—and daily confessing our faith, we live in God’s forgiveness of sins given to us through His Word and Sacraments. As the Epistle Reading also said, by God’s power we are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Though we have not seen Jesus as Thomas and the others did, we love Him. Though we do not now see Him as they did, we believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, ultimately obtaining the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls.
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +