Second Sunday of Easter
April 11, 2010
Thomas, 0ur Twin
John 20:19-31
Have You a Twin?
Have You Ever Met Your Twin?
Have you ever met a person who could be your twin? A person of the same age and height and girth. The same contours to their face, the same mannerisms, the same patterns of expression? What is that experience like?
I sometime wonder what it is like for people who are twins to look across at their “identical” and see the spitting image of themselves. Is it comforting to know that there is another person out there who looks and acts like you? Or, is it disturbing?
I can hardly stand to see myself on a mini-cam in a video. What would I ever do if a person jumped off the screen and came to life and stared at me eyeball to eyeball—my Twin!
Met Thomas, the Twin
Meet Thomas
Each year on the Second Sunday of the Easter season, we meet a man named Thomas, who was also called “the Twin.”
Whose twin? Well, the bible never says. The bible never says who bore the same face and appearance of our Lord’s disciple, Thomas. His twin is never named in the record of the past.
Which very well could be intentional. For in one very significant respect Thomas is our “Twin,” in that he was not there either the day the Risen Lord first appeared to his disciples.
From that first small band of twelve disciples, there is one who shares with us the same handicap, the same misfortune: the disadvantage of not having our fears and doubts instantly removed by a visual sighting and a tangible experience with the crucified Jesus risen and alive.
How Easy it Was for Those First Disciples
How easy it was for those who had locked themselves behind closed doors on Easter day…how easy it was for them to believe!
They could see the lips of Jesus move when his tender words of peace swept away their troubled fears and stirred within their hearts a solid joy.
The marks on his hands and in his side where plainly evident. They could clearly see this was not smoke and mirrors or computer generated graphics. They could first see…and then they could believe.
Death’s Question Mark
Not so for second-generation Christians living outside the land of Palestine around the end of the first century when the book of John was written.
They could not see or touch the risen Lord. And what was worse, by the time this gospel book went to press around the year 90 AD, the last of the twelve, the very last, John, had died.
Gone was their living link to the living Lord. Gone was any chance to look John in the eyes, while he was telling his amazing story, and search them for the truth.
All that was left were his words written in book. The ones we read today. The death of the last eye-witness had put its question mark over all his words of life.
And doesn’t death always do that? Put a question mark over all of life and make us wonder if it is so? It did for the disciples & early Christians. And it does for us today.
Thomas Blew It
Caravaggio - The Incredulity of Saint Thomas
A lot of dying has happened since the day that Jesus rose. And should we have our doubts about the truth of the resurrection and of a dead and buried Son of God coming back to life again, it may be good to know that we have many “twins” who share our company, including the man they called “the Twin.”
O yes, Thomas! Here Thomas had the tremendous opportunity to be the very first person in all of human history to come to faith solely on the basis of the Gospel word proclaimed by his ten brothers.
Here Thomas had the chance to come to faith the way everyone must come to faith since the day that Christ ascended: by hearing, not by seeing.
And he blew it! “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.”
And much to our surprise, the Lord obliged him. Jesus appeared to Thomas.
Just as Jesus had broken free from the prison hole of Death and just as Jesus had broken through the locked doors of the disciples’ room, so also Jesus broke through the locked doors of his disciple’s mind and heart so that Thomas could throw away his question mark and replace it with an exclamation point, “My Lord and my God!”
Blessed are Those Who Have Not Seen and Yet Believe
And what are we to say of all of this? Is Thomas more fortunate than we because he had his doubts removed by a command performance of the Risen Lord?
Is he more blessed than we because he was finally included among that privileged group of the first eye-witnesses? He is—the way we see it. We envy him.
But, he is not—the way that Jesus sees it. “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Up to this point throughout the entire gospel, Jesus had a private “reality show” going on with his twelve disciples.
But, now at the very end Jesus finally turns and stares into the camera and has a word which is said to us as well: “You, people watching. You Christians at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Elyria, Ohio. I did it all for you. Blessed are you, when even though you have not seen, you still believe.”
And there we have Christ’s word on it. It is not the original eye-witnesses who are more privileged and more blessed. But rather it is you and me when we believe without the benefit of having seen.
For when Christ rose again and opened up the door to that locked room, he broke down every barrier which can separate him from his disciples of every time and place including those of us who are his disciples now—in this time and this place.
My Lord & My God!!!
Thomas by be our “Twin” both in the initial doubts he had and in the bold confession which he finally made. But that does not mean that we have to see like him before we can believe like him.
The resurrection of Jesus both written and proclaimed is more than sufficient to straighten out our question marks and turn them into exclamations—“My Lord and my God!”
We may not know everything we would like to know about the things which Jesus did which never got written down into any book. But what we have is quite enough.
For it is written, the gospel word is written, “so that you might come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
© 2010 Pastor Paul Jaster