Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31
“Blessed are those who have NOT seen and yet have come to believe.”
In the midst of one of the most familiar Gospel passages, the “Doubting of Thomas” as it’s called, we have an important prologue that gets little or no attention. The scandal of Thomas, who wasn’t present at the other important piece of today’s Gospel reading, distracts from the heft of the words of Jesus before we’re even talking about Thomas.
First, in verse 21, Jesus says to the disciples, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Here Jesus reminds the disciples that what was his God-given ministry is now their God-given ministry. In one quick sentence we have the Great Commissioning as found in the 28th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, versus 18 through 20.:
18And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’
The disciples are sent out to do the work that God has given them to do, just like in our Dismissal at the end of the Eucharist, where we are also sent with the words: “God in peace to Love and serve the Lord.”
In verse 22, we hear Jesus give the disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit. In one quick sentence we have the gift of the Holy Spirit as found in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles chapter 2 verses 1 through 4:
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
To assist them with the ministry Jesus has just called them to, the Great Commissioning, the Holy Spirit has been given to them to help them on their way.
In verse 23, Jesus says to the disciples, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’” As part of this new ministry they have been commissioned to perform, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit to guide them, the disciples are given the power of judgment to forgive sins as found nowhere else in the New Testament. Previously reserved only for God himself, the disciples now have the power to forgive sins.
In summation, the disciples are now sent to continue the ministry Jesus began, they have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide them in that ministry, and they have been given the gift of mercy to forgive the sins of those they minister to. All this before we even hear about Thomas and his refusal to believe.
Then we finally hear the story about Thomas and his doubting. And this is an important part of the story as well. But before we look at Thomas’ response to the risen Lord before he encounters Jesus himself, I think it’s important to remember verse 20 before we discuss verses 26 through 29. Jesus greets the disciples in the usual important way, “Peace be with you,” then we encounter this sentence, “After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”
Ahhh. So Thomas’ doubting wasn’t a singular event. Verse 20 gives us the clue that the other disciples only “see” Jesus after he shows them his hands and his side, too. So in verse 26 through 29, Thomas is not being singled out as the disciple who refuses to believe until he “sees” Jesus. The other disciples also knew the Lord after seeing the wounds on his hands and in his side.
So the point of verses 26 through 29 is not that Thomas is a worse disciple than the others, or that he is more stubborn that the others, or even that Jesus is perturbed with Thomas in a way that he is not perturbed with the others. All the disciples “see” Jesus, know that it is Jesus, by seeing the wounds in his hands and side. All this time Thomas was given a bad rap, but he’s no different than the others.
And so the other Thomas’ of us who can’t quite believe in the resurrected Lord until we see the wounds in his hands and in his feet and in his side are no different than the Apostles themselves. In fact, we Thomas’ are in good company – the Apostles as a whole.
The true point in the “Thomas is a doubter” message is found in the second half of verse 29, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” This is the important piece of verses 24 through 29: not that Thomas doubted but that he believed, just like the other disciples did; in the exact same way that the other disciples believed. The Apostles are blessed because they now believe, not because of what Jesus had to show them for them to believe.
With Jesus’ final verse we too are blessed with belief. Not belief based singularly on seeing Jesus with our own eyes, but belief based only on a pure gift from God. The gift of faith comes to those who have physically seen and those who have not physically seen. The gift of faith comes to the Apostles who have seen, and to the disciples like us who have not seen. That is the message of the short story about what Jesus had to do for the Apostles to believe. It’s not meant to shame us, but to make us grateful. Belief can come in many ways, but is it always of God, and belief is always a blessing.
Today is a good day for the Thomas’ in our midst, because today we will all witness the Incarnation at work. As we gather around the Lord’s Table to celebrate the Eucharist, we will witness in that bread and wine become flesh and blood the miracle of God who is both fully spirit and fully physical matter. Jesus Christ our Lord becomes present to us in spirit and in body, and the wandering Galilean who won for us eternal life with God on the hard wood of the cross becomes physically present to us once more. We will see. We will taste. We will inwardly digest. And our faith will be bolstered because of it.
The Good News today is that all of us, those who must see to believe like Thomas and myself and I’m sure many others, and those who have not seen and yet have come to believe, together we are all blessed and we are all saved through the body and the blood of our Lord. The death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ has won for us our victory over death and the grave, the gifts of Grace from the Holy Spirit have made us the Body of Christ, and the love of God the Father for us is an eternal flame that can never be quenched.
The Good News today is that true faith is both a gift and a blessing. Because of the miracle of Jesus’ empty tomb, because of the free gifts of the Holy Spirit through Baptism and Eucharist, because of sins forgiven, and because of the eternal, unconditional love of God the Father, we now are free to make our song “Blessed are we who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!”