Text:  John 20:19-31 (1 John 5:1-6)                                                Quasimodogeniti (Sunday after Easter)

Reliable Witnesses

            In the name of our risen Lord and Savior, dear friends in Christ:

            One of the great British luminaries of the twentieth century, author and philosopher Lord Bertrand Russell, was an outspoken critic of the Christian faith.  Once, in the midst of a debate about religion, he was asked how he would respond if, after he died, he found himself standing before the judgment throne of God who was demanding to know why, in spite of all the Christian witness he had received from family, friends, and colleagues during his life, he had never become a believer.  Russell replied, “I would look God in the eye and tell him that he failed to give me enough evidence.”

            Which tells me that despite all his worldly wisdom, Lord Russell should not be considered a very good prophet – because when the day comes that he does stand before the throne, my guess is that there will be for him a lot less of the smug defiance he foretold and a whole lot more trembling in terror.  Be that as it may, I expect it’s safe to say that we all know unbelievers who would say pretty much the same thing:  that the reason they don’t believe in the Bible, or in Jesus Christ, or in his Gospel of salvation is that they don’t have enough proof.  And I suppose too that from time to time, we all go through those little crises of faith in which you find yourself wishing that you had a bit more evidence upon which to rest your sense of eternal security.  I mean, we’d all like to be a little more certain, wouldn’t we?  Wouldn’t you like to have more proof to back up your faith?

Which leads me to ask, “How much evidence is enough?”  “How could you be absolutely sure of the object of your faith – that is, what you believe in?  What would it take to prove it to you beyond question?”

            That’s a little tricky to answer, because all of us know that not all evidence carries the same weight.  Some is direct and physical, and some is merely circumstantial or inferred.  And there’s the question of reliability.  You have to consider the source and the possibility that some evidence could be tainted.  And we all know how easy it is to be deceived by evidence.  The mind can play tricks on you, and the senses can be fooled so that things are not always what they look, feel, taste, or smell like.  And then there’re problems with memory.  Part of my daily routine is to take a vitamin.  I do it every single morning … or at least I think I do.  Because most mornings if you were to ask me ten minutes after taking a pill, if I took my vitamin, I’m sure I couldn’t tell you with certainty.  “I think I did; but I wouldn’t want to stake my life on it.”  And then, with respect to matters theological, there are so many different interpretations.  Even when we’re all looking at exactly the same biblical evidence, we come up with all kinds of different answers about what it means.  Taking it all into consideration, when it comes to your Christian faith you may wonder how it’s possible to believe anything for sure – which is kind of daunting when you think about it, especially believing, as we do, that your eternal destiny hangs upon your faith in the risen Lord Jesus. … So again I ask, how much evidence is enough?

            Consider the disciple Thomas and all the evidence he had of the resurrection of Jesus.  At the time of the crucifixion, Thomas had been following Jesus for some three years.  We know that with the other disciples, he was absolutely convinced that Jesus was the long promised Messiah – and he was willing to stake his life on it.  A few weeks before Jesus’ arrest, when Jesus was planning to go to the town of Bethany very near Jerusalem where all his enemies were plotting to kill him, Thomas said to the other disciples, “Come, let’s go die with him.”  He wasn’t afraid to go face death with the man he called his teacher and his Lord.

And he had seen plenty of evidence to confirm what he believed.  In addition to hundreds of miraculous healings, he had seen many other absolutely amazing things.  He had been there when 5000 and later 4000 people were fed with a picnic lunch for one.  He had been one of those who held a seemingly bottomless basket in his hand as he helped distribute the bread and fishes to the crowds.  He had seen Jesus walk on the Sea of Galilee.  He had been in the boat when Jesus spoke and stopped the storm that threatened to drown them all.  And he had seen Jesus raise the dead to life, including a man who had been dead for four days.  This is important:  Thomas knew for a fact that Jesus could command life into a dead body.  He knew that Jesus had power over death.

            Then, on the morning of the resurrection, he heard the report of the women who said what the angels had told them to say about Jesus rising from the dead.  He had probably visited the empty tomb and seen the grave clothes lying there – or at least he believed the reports of the others so that he didn’t have to go himself. Later that day, he surely heard the eyewitness accounts of Peter and Mary Magdalene, both of whom saw Jesus and spoke with him.  Though he wasn’t present on Easter evening, when Jesus first appeared to the whole group behind locked doors, we do know that they tried very hard to convince him of what they had seen – and these were people who by now were close friends whom Thomas trusted.  On top of it, he would have had the testimony of the two Emmaus disciples who had spent the entire afternoon of Easter listening to Jesus teach them from the Scriptures.  They were shown from the prophetic Word how it had all been part of God’s eternal plan that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise again on the third day. They were able to explain to the others how everything that had happened all made sense now.  And they recalled too how Jesus himself had predicted all the things that had happened – including the resurrection, which at this point had some twenty or more reliable eyewitnesses to confirm it. Putting it all together, Thomas had an impressive body of good, solid evidence – enough to easily confirm any fact; but still he refused to believe.

            In fact, you can detect a certain amount of defiant pride that he has in his skepticism.  He practically tells the others that they’ve all been taken in by some kind of hoax that he’s just too clever to fall for.  “I won’t be taken in like you unsophisticated rubes.”  And then with no small measure of arrogance, he lays down the conditions by which his superior intellect would have to be satisfied.  “It wouldn’t be enough for me just see Jesus or to hear his voice – that might be an illusion, or somebody who just looked and sounded like him, or who knows what. No, nothing short of him standing right here in front of me where I could touch him; and me actually handling his wounds – jabbing my finger in the holes left by the nails and placing my hand in the opening made by the spear that pierced his heart – nothing short of that would prove it to me.  Unless I can do that, I will not believe.”

            And here Thomas really does put his finger on the cause of his unbelief.  It isn’t a lack of evidence, or a question of its reliability; it’s that he wills himself not to believe it.  He has been called “Doubting Thomas”, but that’s a misnomer.  We’re not talking about doubt here; no, doubt suggests there’s a measure of uncertainty – that there isn’t quite enough evidence to prove something to be true.   No, what Thomas is displaying is willful, calculated, obstinate unbelief.  It’s an act of defiance.  It’s a rebellion against the facts and truth of the situation. It’s a deliberate refusal to acknowledge the work and Word of the Lord.  Simply stated, it’s sin.

            And it’s vital that we understand this because it applies to everyone:  what stands in the way of faith and trust is not the lack of evidence.  Whenever we consider some biblical truth like the resurrection of Christ or anything else, the fact that God has spoken is all the proof we need, because God cannot lie.  His Word cannot be broken.  The problem is that we do not trust him – and that’s not because of lack of evidence; it’s because of our sin and rebellion against him.  When we do not believe, we are deceived like our first parents who fell in the first place because they allowed Satan to convince them that God could not be trusted.  We really ought to see it the other way around:  God is always to be trusted in spite of what anyone or any evidence suggests to the contrary.  He is far more reliable than any evidence.  And so Thomas and the other disciples should have believed in the resurrection of Jesus even if the tomb had remained sealed and no one ever saw him alive again, simply because Jesus said that he would die and rise on the third day.  If they had been without sinful unbelief, the appearances of Jesus after his resurrection would have been unnecessary.

Of course, the Lord isn’t dealing with those who trust him with pure and innocent hearts; he’s dealing with people like us:  fearful, mistrustful, sinners.  And so we see that Jesus’ post resurrection appearances are really not so much an effort to prove the fact of the resurrection (though that happens), but rather to convey to the disciples the forgiveness of sins that his sacrificial death earned for them.  Notice the first words out of the Savior’s mouth when he appears in the locked room are a declaration of absolution:  “Peace to you.”  There’s stunned silence all around.  Mouths drop open.  All eyes are on him wondering what this means, “and then he showed them his hands and side.”  Ah, he shows them the very wounds by which he purchased the forgiveness of their sins.  And now the disciples can rejoice.  Now that their sin problem is resolved, they can trust in the Lord with hearts cleansed and freed of rebellious unbelief.  But it doesn’t end there.  Again the Savior speaks to them the peace of God, fills them with his Holy Spirit, and commissions them to go forth and proclaim what?  His resurrection?  His parables and other teachings?  No, at least not specifically at this point.  Of primary importance is the forgiveness of sins. That’s what he sends them to carry into the world.

And we could take this a step further:  the community of faith has always been a little hard on Thomas for his willful unbelief; but let me suggest that part of the problem was that the disciples tried to convince him of certain facts, “We have seen the Lord!” rather than attempt to convey to him the forgiveness of sins Christ commissioned them to proclaim.  Had they dealt first with the sin problem, Thomas might not have remained in his unbelief. Thomas had plenty of evidence; what he lacked was a call to repentance and a declaration of God’s peace in the atoning work of Christ.

That’s exactly what Jesus provides him one week later.  Again Jesus appears and speaks the peace of God.  But to Thomas, his appearance is a sign of judgment on his prideful skepticism.  His willful, sinful unbelief is exposed for what it is.  Thomas is terrified.  But at this point you can envision Jesus physically taking Thomas’ wrist and drawing his fingers into the wounds in his hands and side.  Here.  Touch the wounds by which your forgiveness was obtained.  Here are the reliable witnesses.  Here is the proof that you are forgiven.  And now, freed of his sin, Thomas can make the confession of pure faith, “My Lord, and my God.”

And for the willfully unbelieving Thomas in each of us, Jesus provides the same reliable witnesses. We all suffer from certain doubts. Part of us always rejects the Word and truth of God.  But to enable us believe more firmly, the last thing we need is more proof of the facts. What we need is repentance and the assurance that comes from Christ’s declaration of forgiveness.  This is what heals the heart and it cleanses of sin so that it can believe.  This is what casts out the influence of Satan’s lies, and makes the heart the temple of the Holy Spirit.

And so, to convince us of his forgiveness as he did for Thomas, Christ places us in contact with his wounds.  That’s what John is talking about in today’s Epistle lesson:  the reliable witnesses that testify of our forgiveness in Christ.  He, Jesus Christ, comes to us by water and blood.  He’s speaking of the water and blood that flowed from the crucified body of the Lord when the Roman soldier pierced him with a spear.  It’s what he gave up in death to give us life, and it was the proof of the atonement he made for us. 

It continues to be so because now Christ touches us with that same water in Holy Baptism.  Christ and specifically his suffering and death in the water, united to it by his Word and promise, makes direct contact with us to wash away sin, and drive out unbelief, and create faith in him by the power of his Holy Spirit.  And we return to that cleansing touch in the water every time we confess our sins and hear again his word of forgiveness.

Likewise, the Lord puts us into direct contact with his wounds – his crucified body and the blood he shed on the cross – when we come to the Lord’s Table. There again, as often as we come, he assures of his sacrifice and the forgiveness he earned for us not specifically by attempting to provide evidence that can be processed and weighed through scientific analysis and logical deduction, but that rather speaks forgiveness and peace directly to the contrite heart by the Spirit, and so feeds and reinforces the faith that trusts the Words of Christ.

            And that’s vital, because none of us is going to be saved by what we know to be facts by the use of observation, logic, and scientific investigation.  We don’t need more proof and evidence of that sort – it can’t help us because no amount of it can overcome unbelief that is caused by sin.  Only forgiveness can overcome sin.  Besides, the Scriptures clearly say that we are saved by faith in Christ – and faith is hope in things that are not seen.  That’s why Jesus doesn’t come to us today with testimony that appeals to reason and the senses.  He comes with the far more reliable witnesses of his Word and Spirit in water and blood.  It’s like we sing in that old Lenten hymn, “Grant, Lord Jesus, that my healing in your holy wounds I find.”  There is the proof of our salvation.  There we find the ground of faith that allows us to believe without seeing. And as our Lord told Thomas, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.”  All glory and praise to him who so blesses each of us with such faith that even without seeing is able to confess him to be “my Lord and my God”. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!