John 20: 19 – 31 Thomas doubts the resurrection of Jesus.
Picture yourself in that upper room. Imagine the scene. The disciples are keen to pass on the news to Thomas, who wasn’t there for some reason. They have seen the Risen Jesus, but Thomas can’t believe it and dismisses their stories as fantasy.
“Jesus Alive? Get out of it! You’re all mad. No one has come back from the dead, well except old Lazarus. But was he really dead? Come on admit it. Jesus is dead and so are our dreams. Risen from the dead? I want tangible proof. Not until I touch His wounds, the nail marks in His hands, the place where the spear pierced His side. You might be having me on or hallucinating or fantasising. No, I won’t believe it until I can touch Him myself”.
But is it any different today? When we tell our friends or our family do they believe us? And when they don’t, do doubts enter your own heart. If we are honest, we all have doubts about some aspects of the Christian faith. Doubts are OK. Unbelief though is a bit more serious. Doubt is a transitional stage on the journey. Unbelief seems more settled - A place of arrival after a period of doubt. I meet very few Atheists or confirmed unbelievers. But I do meet a lot of Agnostics or sceptics or doubters.
Thomas is known as the patron saint of doubters. Are you a doubting Thomas?
In 1930 a lawyer called Frank Morrison set out to disproved the resurrection. In stead he was so overwhelmed by the weight of evidence that he ended up writing a book called ‘Who Moved the Stone’ setting out the evidence for the resurrection. After all it is the resurrection rather than the cross that is the corner stone of a unique Christian faith. But for some the resurrection is a stumbling block to faith.
So to use the metaphor of a courtroom, what are the most common arguments for the prosecution, against the resurrection?
1. Jesus didn’t really die on the cross, and later made a recovery.
2. Nicodemus or the authorities stole the body.
3. The disciples stole the body and simply made up the story.
4. The disciples saw a ghost or were hallucinating because of their grief.
If these common beliefs are the arguments for the prosecution, what do the defence have to say? Why should we believe that Jesus rose from the dead? Well members of the jury to reply to the first accusation that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead.
1. Jesus didn’t really die on the cross, and later made a recovery.
Apart from the fact that Jesus had already lost a lot of blood from the severe flogging he received before he was crucified. How could a man who had been beaten to an inch of his life and then hung up on a cross for several hours in the heat of the noon day sun have the strength to roll back the heavy stone which could have weighed around a ton and a half from inside his own tomb.
The roman soldiers who were used to seeing death by crucifixion, reported that Jesus was dead and when they pierced his side with a spear the separation of clot and serum had already taken place, hence the detail that water and blood poured from his side. If they had let a condemned man escape the death penalty they would have faced death themselves.
Also although Jesus had the visible scars of crucifixion in his body His appearance was different. His followers didn’t always recognise him. He had the ability to suddenly appear and disappear in a strange ways. And if he didn’t die, then when did he die, and where is the body buried?
I say to you members of the jury there is no body because
Jesus has risen. The resurrection really did happen.
To the second accusation that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead because:
2. Nicodemus or the authorities, or someone else stole the body.
If Nicodemus or the authorities had stolen the body, then why didn’t they wheel out the corpse of Jesus when the resurrection story started to take off and thousands of people right across the Roman world became Christians? They couldn’t because they didn’t have the body.
I say to you members of the jury, there is no body,
because Jesus has risen. The resurrection really did happen.
To the third accusation that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead because:
3. The disciples stole the body and simply made up the story.
When Jesus was crucified the disciples were depressed and dejected. The one in whom they had put all their hopes was dead. They kept their heads down behind locked doors because they too feared being arrested and being put to death as his followers. If the disciples had stolen the body why would they risk life and limb and subject themselves to floggings and martyrdom to perpetuate not just a harmless myth, but a blatant lie? Its impossible to become a martyr to the truth of the resurrection if you know the body is stashed in the shed or buried in the wilderness.
I say to you members of the jury, there is no body, because Jesus has risen. The resurrection really did happen.
And in reply to the fourth accusation that Jesus didn’t rise from dead and that
4. The disciples saw a ghost or were hallucinating because of their grief.
The gospels are clear that Jesus ate fish and bread after his resurrection. He could be touched physically as Thomas found out. Yes lots of people see ghosts especially if they are sensitive to such things. But no one has claimed to see a ghost that they could actually touch, or that can eat food. Yes there seems to have been things that were radically different to physical make up of Jesus’ resurrection body, but it was a real body nevertheless. Yes people do have hallucinations at a time of grief, but not a group of people together all having the same hallucination. Jesus appeared to the whole group on several occasions and Paul says that Jesus even appeared to 500 followers on another occasion. Strange as his body was, this was no ghost or hallucination.
I say to you members of the jury, there is no body, and this was no ghost, because Jesus has risen. The resurrection really did happen.
Also, it seems to me that despite the accounts of Jesus moral,
social and spiritual teaching and his amazing miracles, if he had simply been
crucified and died, like thousands of others, we would probably never have
heard of Jesus again. He might have got the odd mention by someone like
Josephus the famous Jewish historian of that time. But there would have been
nothing really to set him apart from other so-called Messiahs before him and
since. No, it was the resurrection that made Jesus different from all the rest.
No other great moral or religious leader before or since has risen from the
dead, so why make up the stories about this one. I say to you members of the
jury, The only reason for this story to have continued is because Jesus has
risen. The resurrection really did happen.
If the resurrection was simply “a conjuring trick with old bones”, as one famous Bishop of Durham once put it, Christianity simply wouldn’t have spread so quickly throughout the known world. And is still spreading because people from every colour, culture, social and educational background across the centuries since that Easter day have claimed to have met with the risen the Christ themselves. They weren’t just persuaded by a clever argument, they, like Thomas have had a vivid experience, or some kind of revelation that has convinced them. I say to you members of the jury, there was no conjuring trick, no body, and no ghost, because Jesus has risen. The resurrection really did happen.
As Lord Denning a former Chief Justice of England once said of the resurrection, “In its favour as living truth, there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true”.
When Jesus appeared to Thomas, Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord and My God”. Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed”. Thomas was taken beyond simply believing. He now knew. He could never deny that Jesus Christ had risen from the tomb, because he had witnessed it with his own eyes and touched him with his own hands. He knew it was true. This Jesus was and is the Son of God who has risen from the dead.
What is the verdict of the jury? Risen, or still dead?
Well I suppose that will remain a matter of faith?
But what difference does the resurrection of Christ make to us now?
OK - Jesus rose from the dead, but so what? What are the benefits in believing?
Firstly it means we are saved from the punishment of sin which is death. Not that we won’t die, but that we won’t be dead forever, but will be resurrected ourselves after death just like Jesus, raised to eternal life. As St Paul later says (Rom 10:9-10) – if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is your Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved, for belief in our hearts will be evident in a changed way of life, and our confession is that Jesus is our Lord, resulting in salvation.
Through the ritual of baptism, our initiation into the Christian faith, we have symbolically acknowledged that we have already died and have been buried with Christ in a watery tomb and have been raised to new life with him when we emerged from the water. And if you were baptised as a baby, that sprinkling was another kind of symbol of that re-enactment of Christ’s death and resurrection.
Secondly, His risen presence brings peace, a special kind of peace that passes all understanding - A peace in the midst of fear. When Jesus appeared to the disciples they were living in fear for their lives. But when the risen Lord Jesus stood amongst them and said, “Peace be with you”, peace flooded into their hearts. His resurrection from the dead brought them hope and peace. Hope because the future was no longer a bleak vision of oppression and fear of death. There would always be light at the end of the tunnel even in death, and an unexplainable calm in the midst of the storms of life. Despite the circumstances, we too can know a peace that passes all understanding. A peace that calms every lurking fear. Jesus brings us peace in the storms of life.
Thirdly, His resurrection confirms that we are both forgiven, and have the power to forgive others. When the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples he reminded them again that forgiveness is the key to the whole message of his life death and resurrection. Love your enemies, forgive those who persecute you, bless them and do not curse. The cross put an end to the idea of retaliation and revenge, even an eye for an eye. On the cross Jesus cried back into the past and into the future, “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing”. The resurrection is the vindication that Jesus’ radical approach to is right. Death is never the end. Jesus had the faith to leave the judgement to God and now God leaves the job of our final judgement to Jesus. He tells his followers to forgive and keep on forgiving. Those Jesus calls, He equips, and He equipped them with the power to love and to forgive. We can know his forgiveness for the sins we have committed. No matter how dark, we are deeply loved by God. Receive that assurance that you are forgiven in Christ’s name. In turn we too must forgive. When the previous Pope was shot by a gunman, he forgave the man who tried to kill him and later met and prayed with the ‘would be’ assassin in prison. That man was able to call the Pope ‘his brother’.
Fourthly, His resurrection brought the Church into being, and for a purpose as He commissioned his disciples present and future for mission. When the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples he re-commissioned them to carry on the work he had been sent to do. His work was finished, their work had just begun - “As the Father sent me I also send you” and when He had said this He breathed on them and said receive the Holy Spirit”. For Thomas his new life had begun with a new vocation to go and tell, to forgive, to bring healing, liberation, and the compassion of God to others. Like the rest of the apostles, was to be an eyewitness to the life death and resurrection of Jesus. It was a vocation that took him all the way to India as Thomas is widely regarded as being the apostle to India.
We too have work to do, people to tell, lives to touch, compassion to bring. Everything has changed, the old is passing away, the new has come.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed – ALLELUJAH.
Amen
Sermon written and preached by Capt Chris Harrington of Church Army