“Looking Beyond Thomas”
Original sermon given on Sunday, April 27, 2025 written and delivered by Pastor Doug Groll at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.
Watch the sermon live.
“Looking Beyond Thomas”
John 20.19-31
John 20.19-31
In Jesus’ name, friends at First Saint Paul’s.
Any way we look at this Gospel lesson for today, we are drawn into the drama of Thomas, the doubter. That seems to be the front and center of the entire event. And perhaps because we live in a heightened world of confrontation, an in-your-face world of personal, political, religious confrontation, this interchange of Thomas with his fellow disciples and then a week later with the Resurrected Christ, the dynamics at play here are really not so out of the ordinary. Perhaps you could envision your own view. On the one hand it is not difficult to envision the press conference in which there is the cacophony of reporters calling out “Thomas! Could you comment on your colleagues’ assertion that Jesus of Nazareth has arisen?” And we have no trouble envisioning the little man, his face becoming red, his shoulders hunched, and he seems ready to explode.
And he says, “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). That would be pretty normal in our world.
Or perhaps your view is more nuanced: the cynical skeptic approach, a sort of academic espousing of a very learned position. The man in front of his laptop being interviewed over Zoom. There are the white bookcases directly behind him full of thoroughly serious books with Thomas’ latest book cover entitled A Skeptic’s View of Jesus. And he says with a very low and learned voice, “Really now, 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.”
So as much as we might want to indulge for the next twenty minutes or so in a sort of “let’s all gang up on Thomas,” I would rather say to you this morning that Thomas is not the center of this morning’s narrative. He is placed there to point at what is really the center:
Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified on a cross has arisen!
The Risen Christ is a flesh and blood God made man who came into the world to be flesh and blood with us and be flesh and blood with us in our resurrection.
That Resurrected Christ has breathed the breath of life into his church and sends us into the world to be breathers of new life to the world around us.
That new life in the flesh is for now and for the lived breathing and living experiences of the world around us now and into the future, in hope.
For a few moments I invite you to see the events of chapter 20 of John’s Gospel over here in the right end of a larger picture, a picture frame that is the Gospel. We have a beginning, an introduction that sets the theme for the whole Gospel, for all the Gospels in reality: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1.14). The new creation breathed out in John’s Gospel is here telling us what is to come, and so we see the entire life of that flesh and blood Jesus played out in the water turned to wine, the healings, the expelling of demons, the resurrection of a trusted friend Lazarus, the exhaustion and tears and hunger. Everything that you and I can experience is there in the Word made flesh who came to mankind to be one with us and has now moved from the preface of John 1 to the empowering conclusion for us in the other end of the picture frame.
Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’ 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 20.29-31)
So, what we are seeing here is Thomas in the light of the entire Gospel. We have to take Thomas as a person and his actions in the context of his time and in the context of our time. John wrote at the end of the first century. Most of those first century eyewitnesses had long since gone. What was there to hold to? There was persecution. Emperor Domitian was adamant that He Was Lord. No one could claim that for or about anyone else for fear of death.
And there were all sorts of theologies of angels, spirits, out of body theories of what happens after death out there floating around. Something spiritual after death was not new. It was old then and it is now. We see it each time a running back flattens a defensive tackle over the one-yard goal, does his summersault, and then looks to heaven to thank his mother, his great aunt, or his dearly departed coach. Theories of a spiritualized resurrection were as old as then and as common as today. It is a resurrection of spirits, it is highly individualized, it is between me and my loved one. So spiritual (if you would) that it forgets the world around us. It forgets my brother, my sister, my society. It relishes the one-on-one of spirituality: “I am saved. I am saved. Me and Jesus, us two, my spirit, we will live forever!”
So here is where today’s text in its totality comes in. On the night of the resurrection the disciples are huddled together in fear. They have heard of the resurrection. Some have seen something, but they are confused. The Risen Christ comes into their midst, at first announcing Peace, announcing calm, announcing God with them. But already here he is separating himself from any over-spiritualized, over-contemplative view of the resurrection. He announces peace and then he shows them his hands and his side to see flesh and blood. God in the world, with the world, and for the world. God caring, weeping, healing, feeding, flesh and blood. God in the World for them, inviting them into a ministry of flesh and blood for others. The one Sent by His Father now sends them not into the ethereal of a world of spiritualism, but —
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (John 20.19-23)
The one sent by his Father now becomes the sender!
And now we come to Thomas.
Some have suggested perhaps it was Thomas who was the closest disciple to Jesus, the Disciple that Jesus loved. He was not to be dismissed. Earlier in the Gospel, after Jesus and raised Lazarus and the disciples saw the hostility on the part of the religious establishment, it was Thomas who saw the writing on the wall. “Let us go down to Jerusalem and die with him!” Here we have the realist, this is the guy who saw the chaos coming. He could see the dehumanizing coming. The Leader, the teacher’s clothes could be ripped off and sold, a humiliating walk in chains to Golgotha could be as short as few steps to a plane waiting to send him off to El Salvador. Or as a walk outside on the North Side late at night with your dog cut short by meaningless gunfire. Or the knowledge that a maternity clinic historically tied to a religious hospital is now being closed down as the hospital is sold to become for profit. No, Thomas was no dunce. He was the realist. His questioning might have been both “in your face!” and quietly Academic.
And that is why this ending of the gospel is so important!
Jesus announces the peace again. Jesus does not scold, but invites Thomas to come home, touch, touch and see I am still with you in the world. Flesh and blood in the world so that you can be that for others as I have been with you. The Risen Christ’s first action with Thomas is to invite, to forgive, to bless, to welcome back the realist, but then to proclaim Good News to those who have not seen and have yet believed. Who are now the ones sent into His World to announce forgiveness, to care, to understand, and to serve. To rejoice that there is the promise of life forever, a resurrected life, flesh and blood as was He in the resurrection, but flesh and blood in this world as we live and move and have our being. As baptized children in the water and empowered by his presence in us in the bread and wine, elements of this earth as we live and move and have our being in community of the church, and the community of the world around us. As we live, die, and look to the future in Hope with Him.
Amen.