“There’s More to the Story” (John 21:1-25)

For the last couple of Sundays we’ve been reading from John 20—the beloved disciple’s dramatic account of Jesus’ resurrection. We’ve stood with Mary Magdalene weeping outside the empty tomb as she mistook the risen Jesus for the gardener. And we’ve been with the disciples in the upper room as they listened to Thomas declare, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my fingers where the nails were…, I will not believe.”

Of course these are not the only incidents that the gospels recount of the miraculous events of that first Easter. My personal favourite has to be the one that Luke tells us, of the two disciples making their way to Emmaus, when they were joined by a shadowy stranger along the road. It was only as he broke bread with them in their home that they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

No doubt there were numerous other encounters between the risen Christ and his followers that have been lost to us. And John says as much in the final verses of chapter 20:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

It would almost seem at this point as though John had reached his conclusion. He puts down his pen. But then he pauses. “Wait a minute!” he says to himself. “There’s one more story that I must tell. And here is how it happened…”

The comfort of the familiar

The scene this time is by the Sea of Galilee. It is early in the morning and the mist is slowly rising from the tranquil surface of the lake. Seven of them had decided to go fishing. And so they had pushed out the night before and let down their nets.

I remember years ago when Karen and I were cottaging with our children in St Margaret’s Bay. I thought I should give them an experience of fishing. I had memories of going out in a rowboat to fish with my dad and brothers and rarely catching anything. And so, if nothing else, I thought to myself, it might teach our kids some patience.

Well, we were barely minutes out on the bay when the water around us was teeming with fish. I’m talking hundreds of them. And it seemed as though they were begging to be caught, practically jumping into our boat. What we didn’t realize was that we had rowed right into the middle of a school of mackerel—and it didn’t take us long to haul in enough to feed our family of five. So much for a lesson on patience!

Sadly, that was not the experience of Peter and his companions. They had fished all night and hadn’t anything to show for it. But I’m not altogether sure that it mattered. My suspicion is that they had not gone back to Galilee and to their fishing boats to earn some cash. No, they had gone back because it was familiar. It was somewhere that they could be quiet, somewhere that perhaps they might at least begin to process the whirlwind of events that they had become embroiled in over the previous few weeks.

Try to imagine for a moment what their lives had been like. They had marched into Jerusalem to the cheers of triumphant crowds shouting “Hosanna!” and waving their fronds of palm. Days later they had looked on powerlessly as the one they had come to revere as the Messiah was arrested, savagely beaten and nailed up to breathe out his last on a cross. Then only days after that they were confronted with the news that he was alive—and soon they were seeing him for themselves in front of their very own eyes.

To say that they had been on an emotional roller coaster would be an understatement. So should it be any wonder that they would want to go back to the lake, back to where things were quiet, back to where life was predictable? And besides, hadn’t Jesus himself instructed the women to tell them that they would see him in Galilee? (Matthew 28:10)

Peter, Thomas and the others just needed a break. So it was only human that they should retreat to the comfort of the familiar. And the wonderful thing was that Jesus met them there. “Buddies, you don’t have any fish, do you?” came a voice through the mist from a figure on the shore. “No,” they replied. “Then try casting your net on the right-hand side of your boat.”

I can imagine them thinking to themselves, “What does this guy know? Oh well, I suppose it can’t do any harm.” So with aching backs and arms from working all night, they let down their net. It seemed that no sooner had it sunk under the water than it was loaded with fish. And then it began to sink in—the strange familiarity about what was happening. It had been three years before, at one of their first encounters with Jesus that an almost identical scenario had unfolded (Luke 5:1-11).

Now there was no question in their minds as to who the figure was that was calling out to them. And hardly a split second was lost before Peter was splashing through the water on his way to meet him.

Some years ago a friend of mine wrote a book which she entitled, God Meets Us Where We Are. And it seems to me that that is the point of this incident. Jesus comes to us at our points of loneliness and sorrow, our times of fatigue and doubt. He doesn’t wait for us to come to him. He is the good shepherd, who seeks out his lost sheep until he finds them and brings them home. He is the one who graciously invites you and me, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

Right now we’re heading into what for many is the busiest time of the year. Three weeks ago I was already hearing “Jingle Bells” in one of the stores—and it wasn’t even Hallowe’en yet! If you can do it, may I suggest that somehow, amid all the rush and bother of this season, you try to find the time to go to your own personal Sea of Galilee and let Jesus meet you there and nourish you as he did those first disciples. Even if it isn’t for any more than a few minutes, I have no doubt that Jesus will not disappoint you.

The call to serve

Of course the story does not end there. After the last of the fish and the bread have been eaten, Jesus turns to Peter and asks him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” Peter replies, “you know that I love you.” To which Jesus replies, “Feed my lambs.” Then a second time Jesus says to Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Again Peter answers, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” And Jesus says, “Tend my sheep.” Hardly have the words left Peter’s mouth before Jesus asks a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

John tells us that Peter was grieved when Jesus asked him the same question the third time around. In fact, I don’t think it would be going too far to say that those words pierced into the depths of into Peter’s soul. Why do you think that was so? Because not that many days before, at Jesus’ moment of greatest need, Peter had denied even knowing him three times.

Peter could not have missed Jesus’ intent. And I can only imagine that it was with lips quivering and tears welling up in his eyes that Peter managed to blubber out the words for the third time: “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” To which Jesus tells him once again, “Feed my sheep.”

What encouragement I find in that dialogue! I am embarrassed and ashamed when I think of the number of times I have failed Jesus since I first began to follow him. And perhaps you might say the same of yourself.

Indeed, when it comes down to it, none of us is equal to the task of serving God. Yet that is a pattern that we see from beginning to end in Scripture. Think of it: Jacob was a deceiver, Moses was a stutterer, Ruth was a penniless widow, David was an adulterer, Jonah was a coward, and on and on the list goes… Yet God empowered and equipped each of them to serve him in remarkable ways. And in his grace Jesus still calls and trusts the likes of you and me to serve him.

Your name may never be in the headlines, but there will be people whose lives were made better because of having known you. You may never be aware of it. You may not remember what you said or did and they may never tell you. But in the end you will hear your Master say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” (Matthew 25:23)

The cost of discipleship

Discipleship is an immeasurable privilege. But our passage this morning warns us that it often comes with a cost. And in these closing verses of John’s gospel Jesus warned that for Peter that cost would be his life.

Tradition tells us that Peter’s journey of discipleship led him to Rome. In the year 64 that city was struck by a disastrous fire. The blaze raged unchecked for nearly ten days, destroying over 70% of the city. And the ruins were still smouldering when rumours began to spread that the Emperor Nero himself was somehow behind it. Anxious for a scapegoat, Nero in turn pointed an accusing finger at the Christians, who had been a small but increasing presence in Rome for a generation.

In a savage display of cruelty, believers were sentenced to be torn apart by wild animals; they were covered in pitch and burned alive as human torches to light the imperial gardens; and some were crucified. Among this last group was the apostle Peter. And there is a further tradition (although it cannot be proven historically) that claims that, as he did not consider himself worthy of being put to death in the same manner as his Lord, Peter chose to be crucified upside down.

We can be grateful here in Canada that we live in a society where we are free to worship as we choose and to live out our beliefs on a daily basis. But did you know that one in eight Christians in the world today live in countries where they may be persecuted for their faith? That is over 300 million believers!

In the twelve months between October 2019 and September 2020, it is estimated that over 4,700 Christians were killed for their faith; nearly 4,300 were unjustly arrested, detained or imprisoned; and more than 1,700 were abducted for faith-related reasons.[1]

Those are sobering statistics. But let them be an encouragement to you and to me to follow the counsel that Peter himself has left us: to honour Christ as Lord in our hearts and always to be prepared to give a reason to anyone who asks us for the hope that is in us (1 Peter 3:15).

As John concludes his gospel, he looks back over his times with Jesus and the years that have passed by since. And every bit as much as on that first resurrection morning, he remains wide-eyed with amazement. You can hear it when you listen to his concluding words: “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

And isn’t it equally amazing that nearly two thousand years after the events, people are still talking about Jesus and books are still being written about him! As we close our Bibles (at least for now) may we never lose that sense of wonder and awe in the presence of Jesus, the Word become flesh, who dwelt among us—and continues to dwell among us by his Spirit today—full of grace and truth!

---

[1]     Ewelina O. Ochab, “One in Eight Christians…”, Forbes Magazine, 13 January 2021

“What does he mean?” (John 16:16-24)

I wonder how many of you may have seen Martin Scorsese’s film Silence when it was showing earlier in the year. Sadly, it has received far too little attention and was a failure at the box office. Yet I believe it is one of the most profound films to have been released in years. I won’t tell you too much about it, except to say that it is based on a novel by Japanese Christian author Shusaku Endo.

The story takes place in the late 1600s, with two Jesuit missionaries, Fathers Rodrigues and Garupe journeying to Japan to try to find their former mentor and fellow priest, Father Ferreira, who is rumoured to have abandoned his faith in the heat of the vicious persecution unleashed against Christians. Suffice it to say, the film is gruelling to watch, as the situation becomes bleaker and bleaker for the two priests, not to mention the Japanese peasants and villagers who have embraced the Christian faith.

Here at First Congregational you have been making your way through what are almost Jesus’ final words, spoken to his disciples as they shared their last supper together in the upper room. I can’t help but think that, as in the film Silence, there must have been an overpowering, almost palpable, sense of foreboding, indeed of bewilderment, as Jesus donned a servant’s towel and washed the disciples’ feet, as he warned that there was one among them who would betray him, as sent Judas Iscariot off into the night, and not least as he used the bread and wine of Passover to speak of his own body being broken and his life’s blood being shed for them.

No wonder, then, that the evening was filled with confusion and questions: “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” “Lord, who among us would ever betray you?” “Lord, where are you going that we cannot follow?” “Lord, how can we know the way?” “Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?” And now, in this morning’s passage, “What does he mean? We can’t make head or tail of what he’s saying.” (Notice that at this point the disciples’ confusion has reached the stage where they don’t even bother to address their questions to Jesus any longer, but to one another.)

So it is that into the midst of this gloom and confusion Jesus speaks once more: “In a little while you will see me no more…” “You will weep and mourn…” “You will grieve…” Hardly words to instill confidence and hope! Yet I believe that as we look into them, as we take time to examine them, we will find that they are words bursting with a richness that is scarcely possible to fathom. So let’s turn in our Bibles to John 16, verses 16 to 24.

The Wonder of the Cross

The passage begins with Jesus saying to his disciples, “In a little while you will see me no more…” As I’ve suggested already, these words must only have added to their confusion. Twenty centuries later we have the advantage of hindsight. It is clear to us that what Jesus was speaking to them about was his death on the cross. Within a few short hours Jesus would be forced away from them to be humiliated in a series of mock trials before the religious council and the secular authorities. He would be savagely beaten and then subjected to the cruellest form of execution the Roman Empire had managed to devise—the slow, painful process of hanging exposed on a cross gradually to asphyxiate to death. By the time it came to that, however, all but one would have left the scene. Both through the wicked actions of the authorities and through their own weakness, the time was swiftly coming when the disciples would indeed see Jesus no more.

In my mind’s eye I can picture them on that first Good Friday going back to the places where they were staying or possibly to the upper room, their bowed heads and stooped bodies bearing silent witness to the profound dismay and utter bewilderment that filled their hearts. “You will weep and mourn,” Jesus warned them. “You will grieve…”

Yet little did they know that as their hearts were being ripped apart, so too was the veil of the Temple, the thick curtain that separated the Holy of Holies—revered as the very dwelling place of God—from the rest of the Temple. So holy was this place that only the high priest could enter it, and he only once a year, on the Feast of the Atonement (Yom Kippur). He would have a rope tied around his waist, so that if he happened to die or become incapacitated while performing his duties he could be dragged out and nobody need enter to rescue him.

What happened that day on a physical level, dramatic as it was, was only a sign of what was also taking place on a cosmic level. Through his sacrificial death on the cross Jesus had breached the separation between God and humankind that had been a reality since the days in the Garden of Eden.

Centuries before, the prophet Isaiah had proclaimed, “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you…” (Isaiah 59:2) Now, because of Jesus’ death on the cross, the church can proclaim, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain…, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings…” (Hebrews 10:19-22).

Clearly all of this was far beyond the grasp of the disciples. Indeed theologians today still ponder over it with amazement. American preacher Fleming Rutledge spent eighteen years working on her more than 600-page book The Crucifixion. New Testament scholar Tom Wright, who himself has just published a book on the crucifixion, has written, “I am under no illusions that, even if I were to write a thousand pages on the subject, I would never exhaust it.”[1] Surely in the end our response to Jesus’ death on the cross can only be one of amazement and praise. In the words of Isaac Watts,

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

The Wonder of the Resurrection

However, back to the disciples in the upper room… Jesus had warned them that their hearts would be filled with sorrow. But he also promised that they would be filled with exultation. “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me… You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.” And so the scene shifts from Good Friday to the first Easter morning, from Calvary to Joseph of Arimathea’s garden. If those first disciples could not come to terms with Jesus’ crucifixion, how were they to handle his resurrection?

It was only with great difficulty and after considerable persuasion that they came to believe the reality of Jesus’ resurrection after it occurred. They dismissed the women’s reports of the empty tomb and the angels as old wives’ tales. When Jesus appeared before them in the upper room, they at first assumed he was an apparition. So no wonder Jesus’ words about their sorrow being turned to joy and about not seeing him and then seeing him only left them befuddled and confused! I know for certain that I would have been.

Yet within a few short weeks they would be proclaiming, “You … put [Jesus of Nazareth] to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead… Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah” (Acts 2:23-24,36). The resurrection points to Jesus as an individual utterly unique in the course of history. And that alone would have been enough to blow the disciples’ minds—or anyone’s mind for that matter. But dare I say that that is only the tip of the iceberg?

Look at what Paul writes in his famous chapter on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15: “But Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). You see, Easter was only the beginning. Because of Jesus’ resurrection we can look forward to that day when, as Paul again writes, “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

It’s Jesus’ resurrection that assures us that all the injustices, all the seemingly pointless suffering, the atrocities and the horrors that human beings are subject to will one day be gloriously, mysteriously redeemed. Climatologists warn us that human existence may come to an end when our pollution of the environment reaches the point where human life is no longer possible. Astronomers warn of a collision with a comet of the proportions of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago. Still others see us all being sucked into the oblivion of a black hole. None of them is a pretty picture. But Jesus’ resurrection tells that there is more, that God has greater plans for his creation than we could ever imagine—in Paul’s words, “that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

Now that does not mean that we are not to seek justice, to minister to the downtrodden, or to care for the environment. Quite the opposite: Jesus’ resurrection calls us to be outposts of that new creation that is to come, to be glimpses, even if ever so weak and glimmering, of the light that is to be revealed.

The Wonder of Communion

If all of that were not enough, Jesus reveals a third point of wonder for the disciples. The first is the wonder of the crucifixion; the second, the wonder of the resurrection; and I was going to call the third the wonder of prayer. But on reflection I think it is better to call it the wonder of communion. Listen to Jesus’ final words in this morning’s verses:

Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

On the surface it almost seems like some magical formula—the kind of thing we read about in fairy tales: “Make a wish and all your dreams will come true.” Yet I suspect that all of us have had enough of an experience of prayer to know that that just isn’t the case. Nor is it what Jesus is speaking about here. For prayer, as we all know, is not some mechanical formula—put a loonie in the slot and down slides a candy bar. No, prayer is a conversation, and like all conversations it is an expression of a relationship.

When we begin to see it in this way, we also begin to recognize that asking something in Jesus’ name is not just a matter of tacking those words onto the end of a petition—“… in Jesus’ name. Amen”—as though that makes our prayer valid in a way that it wouldn’t be without them. No, it seems to me that to pray in Jesus’ name is to pray the prayer that Jesus himself would pray. And that in turn means that a significant element of prayer is seeking his will. It means coming to him and allowing him to come alongside us, and to be with him in the Garden of Gethsemane as the disciples soon would be, where they would hear him utter, “Father, not my will, but yours, be done.”

In that gift of prayer, that gift of communion, of being able to come into his presence, of knowing that he is with us even when we are not conscious of it, Jesus has given us something again that we will never fathom, never understand, yet to those of us who have entered into its mysteries, a gift more precious than words could ever express.

The disciples asked, “What does he mean?” And like them, our minds will never fully grasp the mysteries into which our faith in Jesus leads us. But more importantly he who has died for us, who is the first-born from the dead, and who is ever-present with us—he has grasped us, and he will never let us go.

---

[1]     “The Cross and the Caricatures”, Fulcrum, Eastertide 2007, https://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/articles/the-cross-and-the-caricatures/

“Unless I see the scars” (John 20:24-29)

It seems that on the Sunday after Easter there just isn’t another story to tell than John’s account of Thomas and his unwillingness to believe. I have to admit that I looked hard for one, since I just preached on this passage a year ago and did not want just to rehash an old sermon. However, just six weeks ago my wife Karen and I had the enormous privilege of visiting what tradition claims as the sites of the martyrdom and burial of the Apostle Thomas in Chennai, India—so I decided to take a look at Thomas once again.

Thomas is a character who occupies very little prominence in the gospel story up to this point. The first we meet with him is in the lists of Jesus’ apostles in each of the first three gospels. The lists divide into three groups of four, and Thomas is in the second group, suggesting, in the words of one scholar, “neither eminence nor obscurity”.[1] We do not meet with Thomas again until towards the end of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus had been informed that his friend Lazarus was grievously ill. The disciples tried to dissuade him from going to him for fear that Jesus’ life might be in danger. Thomas, however, challenged them, saying, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16). The next time Thomas comes into the picture is in the upper room. Jesus had been saying puzzling things about going away to somewhere that they could not come and yet that he was preparing a place for them. It was Thomas who protested, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” To which Jesus famously replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:5-6).

Fast-forward now a few more days. The disciples were again in the upper room—all of them, that is, except for Thomas. The doors were locked, just in case the religious authorities decided to come down on them now that they had managed to dispose of Jesus. A mixture of fear and puzzlement filled the room because of the recurring reports that Jesus, who had been executed only days before, had been seen alive. Whether it was the weak flickering of the oil lamps or whatever, we do not know. But for some reason they were not aware of the other person in the room until they heard the familiar words, “Peace be with you.” Their fear turned to joy as he showed them his hands and side and they realized it was Jesus. When they told Thomas what had happened, he could not bring himself to believe them. We all know his words: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” It was a week later, when Jesus appeared to the disciples once again and this time Thomas was among them, that his adamant refusal to believe melted away. “My Lord and my God!” was all that he could manage to sputter out—one of the greatest and most famous professions of faith in all of history.

A little more about Thomas

The story of Thomas does not end there, however. Twice more we meet with him in the New Testament: the first time on the shores of Lake Galilee as Jesus appears to the disciples (John 21:3), and finally in the upper room once again with the other disciples following Jesus’ ascension (Acts 1:13).

Although the New Testament has nothing more to say about Thomas, early Christian tradition does. And while we cannot guarantee its accuracy, the odds are pretty good that some of it has a basis in historical fact. So here is how the story goes. Thomas, a carpenter by trade, was sold as a slave to an Indian merchant and ended up in the service of a king named Gundaphor, who is known from contemporary records and coins to have reigned from about 20 AD at least until the year 46. Thomas was engaged to build him a palace. The king gave him a substantial sum of money, the entirety of which Thomas promptly distributed among the poor. When the king insisted on seeing some progress, Thomas told him that the mansion he was building was in heaven. His words were these: “You cannot see it now, but when you depart this life, then you shall see it.”[2] For that he was immediately sent to prison but miraculously escaped, and King Gundaphor was converted to Christianity.

Thomas’s missionary journey then led him more than a thousand miles southwards along the west coast of India, where he arrived in the ancient city of Muziris in the year 52. Muziris had enjoyed a longstanding trade relationship with the Roman Empire, in addition to a Jewish settlement that had been established for six centuries, and it was probably both that drew Thomas there. Clearly Muziris was ripe for the gospel. During his short stay Thomas is credited to have founded seven and a half churches. (I’ve never found out what the half-church was all about!)

The next we hear of him is on the southeast coast of India, in Mylapore, part of modern-day Chennai. Through his ministry both the king’s wife and his son came to profess the Christian faith. Thomas, however, was sentenced to execution. Under the king’s orders he was led to a hill outside the city by four soldiers, who pierced him to death with their spears in 72 AD. Nearly fifteen centuries later, when Portuguese missionaries first traveled to India, they discovered that there were already well-established Christian communities, which traced their origins back to St Thomas’s evangelistic exploits. Right down to the present day the Mar Thoma Church of India, or Nasrani as its members are called, continue, as Thomas did, to worship Jesus as their Lord and their God.

The wounds we have received

I confess that all of that is really off-topic. So let’s go back to the upper room, a week to the day after reports of Jesus’ resurrection had begun to circulate. Thomas’s dogged insistence on seeing Jesus’ scars may seem almost ghoulish to our sensitivities today. I personally find it difficult to be faced with the sight of an open wound. Yet I have always appreciated the story of Thomas. It assures me that there is a place for healthy skepticism in the church and that Jesus is more than able to deal with our doubts.

This time around, however, I have begun to see the story of Thomas from another angle. In the past my focus has always been on Thomas and his transformation from doubt to faith. This time reading the story I have found myself attention drawn to Jesus—and not just to Jesus but to those nail marks, those scars that Thomas was so insistent on seeing. I have been helped in this by an article I came across recently by Leonard Vander Zee, interim editor of The Banner. He wrote this:

We all have scars … countless inner wounds: the griefs that never quite heal, wrongs that can never be righted, memories that cannot be erased, hurtful words or betrayals that still seem to have a direct line to our tear ducts or to the recurrent knot in our stomach. We are all scarred in one way or another. You can’t get through life without scars, inside or outside.

So it’s fascinating that when John tells the story of Jesus’ appearance to his disciples after the resurrection, he tells how Jesus shows them his scars—not once, but twice.[3]

A generation after the events in the upper room (as Thomas was far off in south India) the apostle Peter reflected, “Christ himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Peter was of course quoting from the famous passage about the suffering servant in Isaiah 53, from which we drew our Old Testament reading this morning:

Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4,5)

And so, as we stand with Thomas and look upon Jesus’ scars, we recognize that those scars are ours: the hurts we have carried with us since childhood, the betrayals that have left us feeling forsaken and destitute, the losses of deep and abiding friendships, or perhaps the physical pain and deprivation of illness and disease—all of what Shakespeare called “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”.[4] Jesus has borne all of these upon himself on the cross, so that we can look forward to that day when sorrow and sighing will have fled away and our only tears will be tears of joy.

The wounds we have caused

Yet as I look upon Jesus’ scars, I recognize that these are not the only wounds he bears. What about the injuries, not that others have done to me, but that I have caused to them?

I remember years ago being asked by a doctor friend to visit one of his patients in the hospital who was suffering from intractable pain. It should have been amenable to treatment but it was not, and he had begun to wonder if her problem was not physical but spiritual. She was German originally and in conversation it turned out that she had been a member of the Nazi party, and while she had never personally tortured or killed anybody, she could not forgive herself for her complicity in the untold sufferings of millions of innocent people. Sadly, she was never able to recognize that Jesus had taken those wounds upon himself, never able to accept the forgiveness that God offered to her through the cross.

I don’t know about you, but as I look back on my life, there are things of which I am deeply ashamed: unkind words spoken without thought—and sometimes quite deliberately, not responding to others in their time of need because I was too busy with my own preoccupations, allowing my actions to be dictated by prejudice or preconceived notions about others, not to mention my complicity in global injustices and inequalities. The list could go on and on and indeed it does. And while there are some things for which I may be able to make amends and should, there are far more that I cannot, some of which I am not even aware of. These scars too Jesus has taken upon himself on the cross.

One year after the carnage of World War 1, Edward Shillito, a Free Church pastor serving in England, wrote these words:

If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;

Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;

We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,

We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.


The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;

In all the universe we have no place.

Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?

Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.


If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,

Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;

We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,

Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.


The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;

They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;

But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,

And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.[5]

Today let us thank God for Thomas and his doubts. But even more let us thank him for the scars that Jesus revealed to him. Surely he bore our sorrows and was bruised for our iniquities.

---

[1]        Robin E. Nixon, “Thomas, Apostle”, The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church

[2]       Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions, 51

[3]       “He Showed Them His Wounds”, Reformed Worship, December 2012 http://www.reformedworship.org/article/december-2012/he-showed-them-his-wounds

[4]       Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

[5]        “Jesus of the Scars”

“Thomas” (John 20:19-31)

 Our Gospel reading this morning has to be one of the most dramatic and arresting in all of Scripture. It all has to do with a man who occupies very little prominence in the gospel story up to this point: Thomas. The first we meet with Thomas is in the lists of Jesus’ apostles in each of the first three gospels. The lists divide into three groups of four, and Thomas is in the second group, suggesting, in the words of one scholar, “neither eminence nor obscurity”.[1]

We do not meet with Thomas again until towards the end of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus had been informed that his friend Lazarus was grievously ill. The disciples tried to dissuade him from going to him for fear that Jesus’ life might be in danger. Thomas, however, challenged them, saying, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16). The next time Thomas comes into the picture is in the upper room. Jesus had been saying puzzling things about going away to somewhere that they could not come and yet that he was preparing a place for them. It was Thomas who protested, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” To which Jesus famously replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:5-6).

Fast-forward now a few more days. The disciples were again in the upper room—all of them, that is, except for Thomas. The doors were locked, just in case the religious authorities decided to come down on them now that they had managed to dispose of Jesus. A mixture of fear and puzzlement filled the room because of the recurring reports that Jesus, who had been executed only days before, had been seen alive. Whether it was the weak flickering of the oil lamps or whatever, we do not know. But for some reason they were not aware of the other person in the room until they heard the familiar words, “Peace be with you.” Their fear turned to joy as he showed them his hands and side and they realized it was Jesus. When they told Thomas what had happened, he could not bring himself to believe them. We all know his words: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” It was a week later, when Jesus appeared to the disciples once again and this time Thomas was among them, that his adamant refusal to believe melted away. “My Lord and my God!” was all that he could manage to sputter out—one of the greatest and most famous professions of faith in all of history.

Introducing Thomas

The story of Thomas does not end there, however. Twice more we meet with him in the New Testament: the first time on the shores of Lake Galilee as Jesus appears to his disciples there (John 21:3), and finally in the upper room once again with the other disciples following Jesus’ ascension as they all awaited the coming of the Holy Spirit in power (Acts 1:13).

Yet, while the New Testament has nothing more to say about Thomas, early Christian tradition does. And while we cannot guarantee its accuracy, the odds are pretty good that much of it is at least close to the truth. So here is how the story goes. According to the early fourth-century Christian historian Eusebius, the apostles divided up the world, with Thomas and Bartholomew being assigned to Parthia (roughly modern-day Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan) and India. Arriving in the north of India, Thomas, who was said to have been a carpenter by trade, ended up in the service of a king named Gundaphor, who is known from contemporary records and coins to have reigned from about 20 AD at least until the year 46. Thomas offered to build him a palace that would last forever. The king gave him money, which Thomas promptly passed along to the poor in its entirety. When the king insisted on seeing some progress, Thomas explained that what the king was building was a mansion in heaven. Thomas was immediately sent to prison but miraculously escaped, and King Gundaphor was converted to Christianity.

Thomas’s missionary journey then led him more than a thousand miles southwards along the west coast of India, where he arrived in the ancient city of Muziris in the year 52. Muziris had enjoyed a longstanding trade relationship with the Roman Empire, in addition to a Jewish settlement that had been established there for six centuries, and it was probably both that drew Thomas there. Clearly Muziris was ripe for the gospel. During his short stay Thomas is credited to have founded seven churches, and through his ministry both the king’s wife and his son came to profess the Christian faith. For this Thomas was sentenced to execution. Under the king’s orders he was led to a hill outside the city by four soldiers, who pierced him to death with their spears. Nearly fifteen centuries later, when Portuguese missionaries first traveled to India, they discovered that there were already well-established Christian communities, which traced their origins back to St Thomas’s evangelistic exploits. Right down to the present day the Mar Thoma Church of India, or Nasrani as its members are called, continue, as Thomas did, to worship Jesus as their Lord and their God.

Independence

But at this point we need to go back to the upper room, where the disciples had gathered after Jesus’ crucifixion. We have already recalled the scene, as suddenly, without their being aware of it, Jesus was in their midst. And there was no mistaking that it was he. It was his voice greeting them, “Peace be with you.” Then, to make sure there was no doubt about it, he showed them his hands, where the nails had been driven through, and his side, where the spear had been lunged.

When Thomas returned to the group it was clear that something had changed. Instead of the fear that had pervaded the room, there was a mystified joy. No sooner had he come through the door than all the others were trying to speak to him at once. “Jesus is alive!” “The stories the women told us were true.” “We’ve seen him with our own eyes—the nail holes through his hands, the spear wound in his side.” I can only imagine that Thomas did not know what to think. His whole world was spinning around him. Then it all stopped as Thomas took hold of his senses and resolutely declared, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

Those famous words have earned him the name “doubting Thomas” ever since. Yet I think we do him an injustice if we simply write Thomas off as a cynic or hard of heart. In fact, I think that quite the opposite was true, that Thomas was speaking with passion. He had become so devoted to Jesus, so invested in him, that he was not willing to set himself up for another disappointment simply based on what someone else had told him. Like Peter who had declared, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68), or the two disciples along the road to Emmaus who had professed, “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21), Thomas too had put all his hopes in Jesus. And he was not willing to settle for a faith that was simply based on what someone else said. It had to be his own. With Paul he would want to shout, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).

We’ve all heard it said that God has not grandchildren, and Thomas did not want to be God’s grandchild. He wanted a faith that was his own. This morning we are baptizing two darling little girls, who cannot yet speak a word for themselves. On their behalf their parents and sponsors will affirm their Christian faith. Much as they depend on their parents to be fed and taught and cleaned, so they will depend on their parents for faith. But we pray that it will not stop there. Baptism is just a first step—and we look to the day when these children will be able to say with conviction, and not just because their parents told them, “I believe in God the Father Almighty…; I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord…; I believe in the Holy Spirit…”

Years ago I had a parishioner who told me how as a child with his siblings he had been taken to church every week by his father. They never missed a Sunday. Then he went off to university and (unlike most of his peers) he continued to be in church—simply because that was where you were on Sunday mornings. At some point, however, and it was probably a gradual process because he could not pinpoint the moment, he said that what had once been a discipline became for him a faith. That is our prayer for these children: that they may move from a second-hand to a first-hand relationship with Jesus. And that was the desire that lay deep within Thomas’s heart: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

Interdependence

In the mercy of God, that was exactly what happened. A week later Jesus returned to the upper room and this time Thomas was there. There was no question of his readiness to believe. There was no need to feel the nail marks in Jesus’ hands or thrust his hand into the wound in Jesus’ side. All Thomas was able to do was to stammer, “My Lord and my God!” But Jesus’ words in response are instructive. “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

I do not believe that what Jesus said to Thomas was intended as a rebuke. Rather, I believe it contains a principle. That is that, while our faith in Christ must always be a personal faith, it is not an independent faith. Whether we acknowledge it or not, our faith will always depend on the faith of others. Jesus does not call us to be hermits. He calls us into community. I remember another very wise parishioner describing how in youth we move from dependence to independence. But, he said, the mark of true maturity is not independence but interdependence. So it is that as Christians we do not live in isolation. As members of the body of Christ we are nourished and fed, we are challenged and encouraged to use our God-given gifts, we are instructed and sometimes rebuked—and all so that we may live to our utmost for Christ, to trust him and to serve him as our Lord and our God.

This morning we will welcome these children into the body of Christ, receive them into the household of God. Part and parcel with that, we have made a pledge that by our prayers and witness we will help them to grow into the full stature of Christ. I pray that we will take that promise seriously not only with respect to them, but also in our relationships with one another. May we take it as a part of our mission to help our brothers and sisters to grow and to flourish in their relationship with Jesus—and may we recognize and receive with gratitude the role that our brothers and sisters play in ours—as together we proclaim him “my Lord and my God”.

---

[1]     Robin E. Nixon, “Thomas, Apostle”, The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church

“In Accordance with the Scriptures…” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)

As I look at Jesus in the gospels, I find myself again and again being captivated and challenged the remarkable conversations that he had with all kinds of people. Think of the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, for example, and her fascination over Jesus’ offer of living water. Or how about Jesus’ words with the wealthy young man who came to him earnestly seeking the way to eternal life? Then there was the nighttime exchange with Nicodemus, who only grew more and more confused as Jesus told him of his need to be born from above.

There are at least a couple of conversations, however, that the gospels do not let us in on—conversations that I would very much like to have heard. One of them is the one that took place as the sun was setting on that first Easter Day. It is in Luke’s gospel that we read of the two disciples who were sadly trudging their way home from Jerusalem to Emmaus, a distance of about seven miles. As they walked, a stranger came up and began to walk with them. He asked them what was engaging them in such deep and agitated discussion. When they informed him that it was about Jesus, who had been put to death just days before and about whom there were now rumors that he had been seen alive, he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” “Then,” Luke continues, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:25-27).

Every time I read that passage (and it is one of my favorites in all the Bible) I find myself asking with puzzlement and not a little frustration, “What were those truths that the prophets declared?” “What were ‘the things about himself’ in the Scriptures that Jesus interpreted to them?”

The Cross

The same question crops up when we read this morning’s passage from 1 Corinthians. What we have read this morning are the two earliest written accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. Mark likely composed his gospel around the year 65 AD. But 1 Corinthians comes to us from a decade or more before that, around 55 AD—so within less than a generation of the actual events that the gospels portray. There we read the apostle Paul writing, “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…”

Most of you will recognize Paul’s words from what we recite Sunday by Sunday in the Nicene Creed: “He suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures.” It is highly probable, that just as we recite the creed (many of us from memory), so Paul too was reciting a formula that was already well known to his fellow believers in Corinth. Aside from the events themselves, what is significant about that statement is the repeated phrase “according to the Scriptures”—that both Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave were all laid out centuries before in the pages of the Old Testament.

We can certainly see that in the case of Jesus’ death. The sublime poetry of Isaiah 53 bears eloquent witness to it. Let me read it to you from a contemporary Jewish translation:

He was despised, shunned by men,
A man of suffering, familiar with disease.
As one who hid his face from us,
He was despised, we held him of no account.
Yet it was our sickness that he was bearing,
Our suffering that he endured.
We accounted him plagued,
Smitten and afflicted by God;
But he was wounded because of our sins,
Crushed because of our iniquities.
He bore the chastisement that made us whole,
And by his bruises we are healed.[1]

Or think also of the plaintive cry of Psalm 22:

My God, my God, why have You abandoned me? …
All who see me mock me, they curl their lips, they shake their heads.
‘Let him commit himself to the Lord; let Him rescue him,
let Him save him, if he is pleased with Him.” …
My life ebbs away: all my bones are disjointed;
my heart is like wax, melting within me;
my vigor dries up like a shard; my tongue cleaves to my palate;
You commit me to the dust of death…
I take the count of all my bones while they look on and gloat.
They divide my clothes among themselves, casting lots for my garments…

We do not have time to examine the whole sacrificial system of ancient Israel or the numerous other passages in the Psalms and the Prophets that portend the cross. No, we have no difficulty in affirming with Paul and the creed that “Christ died … in accordance with the Scriptures”.

The Grave

No, the challenge comes with the second half of the statement, that “he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures”. Where do we find this in the Old Testament? In actual fact, if you look at the Old Testament, its perspective on death is bleak at best. By and large for the writers and singers of the Old Testament death is the end of the road. That message comes through loud and clear in verses such as these:

The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any that go down into silence. (Psalm 115:17)

In death there is no remembrance of you; in the grave who can give you praise? (Psalm 6:5)

Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise you? Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in the place of destruction? Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness? (Psalm 88:10-12)

A living dog is better than a dead lion. The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no more reward, and even the memory of them is lost. Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in the grave, to which you are going. (Ecclesiastes 9:4,5,10)

You can see from passages like these (and there are plenty more) that by and large the Old Testament’s perspective on death was grim indeed. The best you might hope for after you died was to be fondly remembered by your descendants and perhaps in some sense live on in them. This was the position held by the Sadducees in Jesus’ day. More than once they are described as “those who say there is no resurrection”. And they held that position not because they were agnostics or trying to be radical, but because they believed that were being true to the witness of the Scriptures.

The Resurrection

How then, if this was the case, could Paul and the Corinthians confidently profess that Jesus “was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures”? What did Jesus share as he walked along the road to Emmaus with those two disciples? To find the answer we need to take our Old Testaments once again; and if we read them carefully we will begin to see amidst the gloom and the darkness some tiny pinpricks of light.

Beneath the sadness of the Psalms surrounding death for example, there is a quiet but unflagging confidence that what we see from this side of the grave is not the whole picture, that there is more.

My heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure. For you do not give me up to the realm of the dead, or let your faithful one see the Pit. You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:9-11)

I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me with honor. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:23-26)

Those few tiny hints, that almost imperceptible adumbration, that we find in the Psalms, begins to become a rising chorus as we move into the prophets. From Isaiah we read,

The Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food… And he will destroy … the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. (Isaiah 25:6-8a)

Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead. (Isaiah 26:19)

Then there are these words from Daniel:

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. (Daniel 12:2-3)

And perhaps clearest of all from Hosea we read,

Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth. (Hosea 6:1-3)

But to my own thinking, some of the most amazing words were spoken by Job. In the midst of his unutterable suffering we find that beneath all his self-pity there is an unshakeable conviction, which he expresses in those profound and moving words,

I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. (Job 19:25-27)

Although those words came from deep within his heart and he could hear them coming from his mouth, Job still found them almost impossible to believe—too good to be true. “My heart faints within me!” he cried. It seems to me that that was the same reaction of the two disciples in Emmaus. They stared back and forth at each other across the dinner table and said to each other in amazement, “Did not our hearts burn within us while … he opened the Scriptures to us?” It was the reaction of the women who first came to the sepulcher that morning. They ran from the tomb, seized by terror and amazement. The men refused to believe them, accusing them of spreading idle tales. And then there was Thomas, who would not believe until he had put his fingers into where the nails had pierced Jesus’ hands.

Yet what they would discover was that suddenly with Jesus’ resurrection all those tiny points of light sprinkled through the Scriptures had come together to form a single blazing sunrise lighting up the whole sky with its brilliance. In a few moments’ time we will have an opportunity to affirm once again our own faith that Jesus has risen. May it not be for us just a matter of words. Rather, may it be with that same sense of amazement, of overwhelming, as those who first heard the news.

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, this God has prepared for those who love him.” “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:9; 15:57).

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

---

[1]     Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures, The Jewish Publication Society, 1985