The Second Sunday of Easter April 26-27, 2025
“Believing Thomas” John 20:19-31
Rev. John R. Larson Ascension Lutheran Church Littleton, Colorado
Our world revolves around the negative. The news will show you what went wrong in the world today. It will tell you the evil that was done, the violence that occurred, who killed whom, what the wars across the globe looked like, and the faces of the children who are in distress.
Our world revolves around the negative. That makes sense. We want to know how life is different today than it was yesterday.
Today we read about a man named Thomas. What do you call him? I bet you give him an adjective before you speak his name. I bet you know him as “Doubting Thomas”. Jesus had visited His disciples on Easter evening. But Thomas wasn’t there. During the week they told Thomas they had seen Jesus again alive, but he didn’t believe their words. He was just a “Doubting Thomas.” The words that he uses have earned him that moniker of doubt. “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.” (John 20:25)
Why would he doubt so strongly? He lived by the adage “Seeing is believing.” He must have been from Missouri – the “Show Me State”. But he had seen miracles done by Jesus over and over again. He was there when Jesus turned water into wine. He was there when the 5,000 were fed with five loaves of bread and two fish – and they had more food leftover than what they began with. He was there when Jesus walked on water and stilled the storm. He was there when Lazarus, who had been dead for four days, was brought back to life.
Why would he ever doubt? Why would he say, “Unless I see…” “Unless I touch…” “Unless I can prove that he is alive…” – I will not believe!! He had seen the impossible before, why was this too hard for him to accept?
For whatever reason we normally speak of Thomas in a negative light. “Doubting Thomas.” But doubts aren’t necessarily bad. Doubts are tied to questions. We are seeking an answer. We desire to know something more thoroughly.
But Doubting Thomas was more than a doubter. In that week he had become an unbeliever. Doubters can have their mind changed. Show them enough evidence and they may come around. But Thomas, at that moment, had stopped believing in Jesus.
What a terrible week that had to be for Thomas. To cast away your foundation – his trust in Jesus, was to leave him alone and abandoned. Unsettled. To take a step away from Jesus is to go it alone. No faith. No confidence in Him. No hope for what lies ahead for your soul. People do it all the time. They step away from faith. They reject God. Maybe you have been through such a conflict at some point in your life. You may be facing that today. There was something worse for Thomas than living with his doubts and questions, it was living with his unbelief.
I have a better name for Thomas than “Doubting Thomas”. How about “Believing Thomas”? How about seeing him not in his darkest moments but in his greatest moment? One week after Jesus came to His disciples showing His brilliant resurrection from death, He came to them again. Really, He came back to meet the one who was absent on Easter evening and Jesus desired to change his life. This is what happened, “A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’” And what did unbelieving, doubting Thomas say? “My Lord and my God!” (See John 20:26-28)
He was not doubting anymore. He wasn’t outside of faith in Jesus anymore. Now he was believing Thomas. Now he was secure in saying that Jesus was his Lord, and Jesus was his God. Why the change? Well – Jesus came to him. Jesus showed Thomas His scars. Jesus was the same one who had been crucified just a number of days before this. Now Jesus, physically, was showing Himself to Thomas. He didn’t want him to drown in unbelief. He came to him.
Why do we believe in Jesus? I think we believe in Jesus because Jesus comes to us. Personally. Individually. One-on-one, just like He did to Thomas. Now, I haven’t seen Him. He hasn’t walked into my room. I don’t think that He has come into your room. But He has come to us.
Jesus talks about His coming to us when He said to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)
Jesus comes to you in the words that He speaks to you in His written word, the Bible. John tells us how important it is to God that we have faith in Jesus. At the close of this chapter John says, “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31)
The Scriptures have a purpose. They are God’s words spoken to you. Why do we have so many Bible readings in a worship service? Why do we offer many Bible studies at Ascension? Why do we encourage you to read your Bible daily? I believe that God wants to speak to you through His word. He wants you to entrust your whole life to Jesus. Your soul, your heart, your mind, your body, everything, is entrusted to Him. That is what faith is. II Corinthians 10:5 says, “We demolish arguments and every pretention that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
Your baptism is God seeking you. You are baptized once in your whole life and by it you are immersed into Jesus. “For all of you who have been baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Galatians 3:27) You are His. He covers you in His grace.
The meal – the Supper – is Jesus speaking to you. “This is my body – given for you.” “This is the blood of the New Covenant shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.” Does the grace and forgiveness and the fullness of God’s Spirit get any more personal than at this meal? You will never leave this meal the same way that you came, if you come in faith.
Thomas had his moment, from doubt and unbelief to the confession of deep faith. With conviction he proclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” His moment came to him because Jesus came to him.
We have our moment too. Jesus comes to us. He gives us His own words, words of life. His words take us from doubt and unbelief to conviction. I want to ask you – Did He die for you and rise – or not? Did He give Himself for you to take you from the death of your sins and give you new life – or not? Where do you stand? You know – you do have to take a stand. Have you had that moment at the table, maybe hundreds or thousands of times, where Christ has met you and showed you His scars? Remember He said to you, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” (John 13:8) Have you had that moment when you know God called you by your name in Holy Baptism and that you belong to Him?
Maybe we shouldn’t call him “Doubting Thomas” anymore. The Lord didn’t let him sit in that stink anymore. Now he is “Believing Thomas.” And so are you. Amen!!
