Richard Davenport
April 7, 2024 – Second Sunday of Easter
John 20:19-31
The life of the disciples around this time, how they reacted and what was going on in their minds is easy to understand. If I had been following around a guy for the last three years who I was convinced was the promised savior sent by God, I’d be a little confused, bewildered, uncertain, right now too.
The guy had done countless miracles, creating things out of nothing, commanding the elements, curing people of any and every ailment, including death. This whole “salvation” thing seems pretty well in the bag. Not much else to do here. I just need to wait for the whole thing to get finalized, watch God mark my ledger with his big “Cancelled” stamp and call it a day.
Except now he’s dead. That’s not really part of the plan. I mean, I know he said it was going to happen. He said it a number of times, but we know that wasn’t really how this was all supposed to work. They killed him! They really killed him! What’s stopping them from coming after us now? The priests and the Pharisees have seen us with him constantly for these past years. Of course they’re going to want to stomp out this whole thing. They got rid of Jesus and they’ll want to get rid of anyone who might carry on after him. That means us! We’ve got to get out of here!
I say it’s easy to understand how they reacted, but at the same time I have some difficulty putting myself in their place. There are times I’ve been anxious, worried, or scared, but I’ve never been afraid for my life, running and hiding in the hopes no one finds me. Schools these days will often have active shooter drills, running kids and teachers through what to do if someone should come to the school with murder in their heart. It’s not fun to think about, but it also doesn’t seem real. It’s not much different from fire drills. Schools do fire drills periodically by law. The alarm goes off. The kids get up and walk out all higgledy piggledy. They’re messing with their books, looking at their phones, they’re milling about and talking to their friends as they make their way to the stairs and out the door. There’s no real urgency because no one thinks there’s any real danger. You aren’t thinking about how different this would all be if fire were blazing all around and smoke was billowing in thick clouds, choking your lungs and burning your eyes. You aren’t thinking about someone so filled with hate and malice hunting you down in your classrooms to vent all of that hate into you and bring you to a painful end.
Maybe some of you who have seen military action out on the front lines have some sense of this, but most of us do not. The chaos and the confusion, the adrenaline pumping so fast you get all jittery, attempting to stave off the pure, animal panic that would have you just run blindly into the night. I’ve never been in that kind of situation, so in that way it’s difficult to put myself in their place.
It’s Easter evening. Jesus has already appeared to the women who came to the tomb. He’s appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. He’s had a busy day, but he’s got at least one more thing to do. He appears in the locked room where the disciples are hiding out. They’re surprised to see him. They had already had the report of the women at the tomb. Peter and John had run out to the empty tomb to see it for themselves. Still, the idea that Jesus might actually be alive is so implausible as to not be worth considering. There has to be another explanation. There really aren’t any other explanations that are much better, but anything is more believable than someone who is very clearly dead and buried coming back to life.
It is into this that Jesus reveals himself. He truly is alive, just as he said. All of the doubts, the fears, the worries, and the sheer incredulity all wash away. They may not understand it, but they can see that it must be. For here he is, standing right there with them.
They all see him, all, of course, except for poor Thomas. He has another week to live in that incredulity. The rest of them are all making it up or they’re confused or they’ve seen a look-alike, something. They have to be. He can’t accept it. He needs to see it for himself. He needs to confirm it’s real.
You may not think you’ve been in a similar situation to Thomas, but I’ll bet you have and didn’t realize it. If you take a look at what’s going on here, you’ll focus on how our Lord deals with Thomas. What does Thomas get out of all of this? Was he saved by this little visit from Jesus? No, not in the strictest sense. John’s Gospel doesn’t tell us that Thomas had rejected God, given up the faith, and walked away. No, he was no different than the rest of the disciples. He didn’t understand the plan. He didn’t realize what salvation would entail. He didn’t see that Christ had to die on the cross to pay for our sins, nor did he see that Christ would have to die and rise again to break the power of death.
Thomas doesn’t understand. So Jesus reveals himself to poor Thomas. Thomas sees a side of Jesus he had never seen before, rather literally in this case. The importance of Jesus’ physical presence here can’t be overstated. He really is alive. He isn’t a ghost. The afterlife isn’t about some floaty, spiritual existence where you drift around on clouds. It’s real. It’s physical.
Obviously Thomas has seen Jesus before, seen Jesus in the flesh, but he hasn’t seen Jesus like this. I don’t mean the nail marks or the spear wound, though those are new things. I mean, he’s never seen the resurrected Christ, the man for whom death was no longer something to be feared. That’s truly something special. No one has ever seen that before. Everything in the world has eventually grown old, broken down, died, and decayed. But not this, not Jesus. No death here, never again.
That really is a big deal, but it’s actually only part of what’s going on here. In both of these visits, Jesus begins with the very simple declaration, “Peace be with you.” The disciples have seen Jesus comforting people, healing people, forgiving people. They’ve seen him proclaiming the good news. They’ve even seen him raise the dead. But they’ve never really had any of that directed at them. They’ve only ever been watching on the sidelines. Now they’re the ones in need. They’re the ones afraid. They’re the ones in hiding. They’re the ones struggling with doubts.
Jesus comes to them in the locked room and shows them a side of himself they’ve never seen, not just physically but spiritually. Here is Jesus offering strength and comfort. Here is Jesus, the light that shines in the darkness, the light that darkness cannot overcome. They thought they had seen everything there was to see about Jesus, but their understanding had fallen far short. There was much more to Jesus than they knew before.
What is Jesus to you? Is he the mighty warrior and defender? Is he the wise teacher? Is he the gentle shepherd? Is he the selfless sacrifice? Is he God incarnate? However it is you typically think about Jesus, there’s the strong temptation to shove everything you know about God into the same box. “Jesus is the good shepherd. He cares for the sheep and leads them to green pastures, but right now what I need is someone strong and mighty to protect me from my enemies. Who is going to do that?”
If you only think about Jesus in certain ways, then you may find yourself in the very same position the disciples are in, thinking there’s no one around to help, no one to save and rescue, no way out. That’s when doubt and despair set in. That’s when death seems a certainty.
Jesus reveals something new to the disciples today, and he’ll keep doing that in the days, weeks, months, and years to come. He will demonstrate again and again how he is watching over them, how he is protecting them, how he is defending them, leading them, guiding them, providing for them, forgiving them, saving them. Just when you thought you’d seen it all, he’ll show you something new. He’ll surprise you with the depth of his love, his mercy, and his might. He’ll show you once again that, just when you thought you’d found the limits of God’s concern, his grace, or his power, that the limits were yours all along.
It’s those last verses that bring all of this together. “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 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.”
He has revealed his love and grace to you and he calls on you to trust him, to set aside your sinful doubts. Even as we repent of some sin we turn around and doubt him about something else. He has shown you who he is here in his word. Don’t be like the disciples, who are determined to live in fear until Jesus physically shows up to demonstrate he’s still with them. Whatever your situation is, good or bad, look to him and know he’s there, that he loves you, and that he’ll see you through it, one way or another. Also know, that even if you can’t seem to find your way out of the doubts, even in if you really think all is lost, even if you think God himself can’t save you, he won’t leave you there either. He died to save you. He came back to life to bring you life. He’s not about to leave you now.