Creekside Church Sermon of March 30, 2008 "Put Your Finger Here" John 20:19-31	Rev. David Bibbee
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The sound was in marked contrast to the majestic music of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" we had sung just minutes earlier. The grand and glorious message that "Christ the Lord is risen today!" was expressed in every facet of worship. Once again we heard the final score: Jesus 21 -- Death 0. Afterwards you roamed through the gathering area exchanging smiles, handshakes, and embraces as you wished each other a "Happy Easter!" Some of you put a finer focus on the wish and said, "Happy Resurrection Day!"

Sue and I stayed long enough to hear it. I've heard it before, lying in bed, waiting for sleep at the end of Christmas Day. I heard it after the last faith sound of the outfitter's boat motor was swallowed by the Canadian wilderness and I was alone for three weeks. I heard it the moment my mother took her last breath. I have heard it after "all that had been said and done" had been said and done.

Some people don't like it and try escaping it by keeping busy. Some tune it out and fill it in. There are some, not many, but some who actually welcome the sound. It unsettles. It calms. It says, "Face the facts." It says, "All is well." It makes us fearful. It makes us peaceful. It says, "God is nowhere to be found." It says, "Surely, the presence of the Lord is in this place." It is the language of silence.

Mary heard it. It was the silence of an empty tomb. The disciples heard it locked inside their hideout, fearful that they would be found and meet the same end as Jesus. The silence was especially intense when they kept to themselves, thinking about what had happened and what might happen. That is when they felt the void. They missed Jesus. All creation missed Jesus. The silence begged a question -- "What do we do now?" They were about to get an answer.

Jesus appeared. In the blink of an eye, there he was standing before them. There was no drum roll entrance. No voice of Ed McMahon was heard announcing, "Heeeeeer's Jesus!" Mary had seen him that morning and mistook him for a gardener. But the disciples had no problem recognizing him. "Peace be with you," is what he said to them. It was a good thing to say because peace had disappeared the moment Jesus was arrested. He showed them his wounds, and in case they hadn't heard the first time, he said it again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." Then he breathed on them.

Does this sound familiar? In the second chapter of Acts, the disciples were in Jerusalem, together in one place. It was the day of Pentecost. There came a sound like the rush of a strong wind. Tongues of fire rested upon the disciple's heads and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. In John's gospel, Easter and Pentecost merge. Jesus gave them his peace. He breathed on them. "Receive the Holy Spirit," he said. He armed them with forgiveness, mercy and the power of his resurrection and commissioned them to pick up where he left off. What an electric moment!

But one disciple wasn't there. Thomas was out and about, perhaps at the employment office seeing what work was available since the crucifixion put an end to his savior and had put him out of a job. When he came back and heard what had happened, he was skeptical. "I won't believe it -- unless I can poke my finger in the holes of his hands and side."

You couldn't ask for more specific evidence than that. They had come to expect this kind of reaction from Thomas. We have the mistaken impression that "Doubting" was his first name. My Grandma LeMay was a doubter -- not in God or Jesus or the articles of faith, but in everything else. If the forecast called for sunny weather she would say, "I doubt that. They never get it right." In my early years of telling fish stories she would say, "Did that really happen? I doubt it." She could not let herself belief that men would land on the moon. She watched it on TV with the rest of the world, and just as Neil Armstrong said, "… one giant leap for mankind," Grandma said, "I doubt that it happened."

Grandma was a good woman with a negative slant on life. She wouldn't swallow anything without cold, hard, facts. She was a relative of Thomas. Before we stick the doubt label on him, let's take a closer look.

Thomas was a realist -- a pragmatist -- a "show me the facts" guy. Back in chapter fourteen Jesus told the disciples he would return to the Father and prepare a place for them in heaven. Jesus said, "And you know the way to the place where I am going." Thomas raised his hand and said, "Lord, we have no idea where you are going. How are we supposed to know the way?" (John 14:5). In the eleventh chapter Jesus was on the way to raise his friend Lazarus from the dead. Afterward he would go to Jerusalem and the cross. Seeing what was ahead, Thomas said to the others, "Let's go there, too, and die with him."

I wouldn't go so far to say that Thomas is a role model for Christian discipleship, but there is something to appreciate about Thomas. He said what the rest of the disciples were thinking, but wouldn't say. He didn't pretend to know when he didn't know. Thomas speaks on our behalf. He asks our questions. He struggles to believe what doesn't happen in nature. The dead do not return to life. He wanted to believe that Jesus was alive, but the method wasn't logical. He would not change his mind until something trumped his reality card.

A week later, Thomas was with the others when Jesus walked through a locked door and repeated to Thomas what he said to the rest. "Peace be with you." Not, "I hear we have a doubter in the house!" or, "So… you don't believe its really me, do you?" Thomas got the gift, the same as the rest - peace, plus an invitation. Hold out your hand. "Put you finger here. Put it in my side."

Take a look at a painting done in 1600 by the Italian artist, Caravaggio titled, "The Doubting of St. Thomas." The disciples look on as Thomas sticks his finger into Jesus' side up to the first knuckle. Jesus has Thomas' arm, guiding his finger into the wound. There is no scolding look on Jesus' face. The lesson doesn't say that Thomas actually touched him. What comes from Thomas is a great declaration of faith, "My Lord and my God."

Jesus did not scold Thomas for saying, "Prove it!" Jesus offered evidence. Mary was given evidence when she spoke with Jesus at the tomb. The "other disciple" who peeked into the tomb saw the evidence of emptiness and believed. Jesus gave the disciples evidence when he came to them the first time. John says, "He showed them his hands and side." Thomas was asking for something the others already received.

I heard the author Frederick Buechner tell a story about his dearest friend, Dudley. He had died months earlier. Buechner and his wife drove to spend a couple days with his widow. The first night he dreamed that Dudley was standing at the foot of his bed, wearing the navy blue sweater he was so fond of. His presence felt so real, and Buechner asked, "Dudley, is that you? Are you really you or is this just a dream?" His old friend assured him that he was real. He pulled a strand of wool from the sweater and tossed it to Buechner. It felt so real in his fingers that it startled him awake. Realizing it was a dream, after all, he went back to sleep.

The next morning at breakfast he shared the dream with Dudley's widow. As he spoke, a look of astonishment came over Buechner's wife's face. She said, "I saw that piece of blue thread on the floor by the bed as I was getting dressed!" She knew it hadn't been there the night before. They went upstairs, and there was the blue strand. Buechner said, "Maybe my friend really did come to me in my dream and the thread was his sign. Maybe it is true that by God's grace the dead are given back their lives again and that the resurrection of the dead isn't just a doctrine (Clown in the Belfry, p. 9)."

What do we do with such stories? Accept them? Believe them? Doubt them? Ignore them? Reject them? Or bet our lives on them? Ultimately, that is what we must do -- bet. If you are going to bet your life on something, what will it be, "Yes, I believe," or, "No, I cannot."

Christians believe Jesus was raised from the dead. If you believe that God did in fact raise him, then you open yourself to believe that he can come however he chooses. Pastor Susan Andrews says:

We are blessed with a God who just appears -- in dreams, in visions, in people, in words, in institutions. The truth of Easter is that all of humanity is blessed with a God who defies the locks of logic and grief and prejudice and fear, a God who blesses us and then sends us, fresh and filled with hope, back into a hopeless world.

Phillip Yancey wrote an essay about dealing with the loss of three close friends who died in separate car accidents within a short period of time. He concluded with this thought: "There is another way to look at the world. If I take Easter as the starting point, the one incontrovertible fact about how God treats those God loves, then human history becomes the contradiction and Easter a preview of ultimate reality."

During Jesus' ministry, people witnessed the miracles. Many believed. Many didn't. Jesus could not perform miracles in one town because of people's doubt. Not everyone believed Jesus was resurrected from the dead. Millions upon millions don't believe it still. Some are in church every Sunday. But to those who saw Jesus after his resurrection, and to all who have believed their witness, life is radically altered.

Two years ago on a beautiful spring morning near Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, a troubled, tortured man walked into an Amish school and did the unthinkable. He shot and killed five children, wounded several others, and traumatized the rest before taking his own life. The media swarmed the area. Reporters asked why. Professionals were asked to speculate about a motive. Questions were asked about what should be done with such deranged, evil people. Most knew nothing about Amish culture or their faith.

While the media circus went on, representatives from the Amish community went to minister to the widow of the gunman. They spoke words of forgiveness. They invited her to stay in their community. They invited her to the funerals. They gave cash gifts to see her through the hard weeks ahead. Nothing shy of a new reality could ever do that. It started with Easter. Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven."

Let's open up, people. There's no telling what marvels may come. Don't be afraid to put your finger on them. Doubt may turn to faith. Brokenness relationships to healing, or death to life, and cause us, like Thomas, to fall on our knees and declare, "My Lord and my God!"

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