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Acts 5:27-32

27 When they had brought them, they had them stand before the council. The high priest questioned them, 28 saying, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.” 29 But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than any human authority. 30 The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32 And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”

John 20:19-31

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “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.”

26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah,[f] the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Was Easter only last Sunday? It is already receding into the rear view mirror of life, seemingly long, long ago. Our challenge is to keep the Easter mystery, the Easter miracle, at the forefront of our lives and not go back to our previous everyday lives. Easter is a beginning, not an ending. It is the beginning of grappling with a new understanding of life and death. A new way to live. The author and theologian Brian McLaren asks some critical questions in his book, Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? One question that speaks to us in this season is, “What might happen if every Easter we celebrated the resurrection not merely as the resuscitation of a single corpse nearly two millennia ago, but more—as the ongoing resurrection of all humanity through Christ? Easter could be the annual affirmation of our ongoing resurrection from violence to peace, from fear to faith, from hostility to love, from a culture of consumption to a culture of stewardship and generosity … and in all these ways and more, from death to life.”

If only we would risk living this way. 

This account in the Gospel of John illustrates for us that the disciples, beginning with Mary Magdalene, all came to believe after seeing, and in Thomas’ case after being invited to touch. The disciples echoed the words we heard from Mary Magdelene last week when they too witnessed that, “We have seen the Lord!” and Thomas proclaimed, “My Lord and My God!”

We, like Thomas early in our scripture from the Gospel of John, have never seen the risen Christ. Never put our hands in his wounds. How did we come to believe? Or, How shall we come to believe? 

I imagine that many of us have at least one instance of coming to believe in the presence of the Holy Spirit. An occasion when God was so very real, so very evident, so very present—that hours, days, months, maybe even years after we had the experience, it is still spine-tingly real. But yet, with the passage of time, the clarity and immediacy of the moment fades. And we sometimes begin to question what we once knew to be true. 

Paul Tillich writes that, “Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.” I tend to think of doubt as one of the stepping stones of faith. 

It is only in John’s Gospel that we are told about Thomas being absent from the group when Jesus first comes to them behind the closed doors of the Upper Room. That should cause us to wonder, why? I think that this gospel is explicitly making space for us to step into the narrative, and making space for us to express our doubts.

We come to doubt the presence of God in the face of the brutal realities of wars raging throughout the world. We come to doubt the presence of God when our child dies; when a person is beaten for being Trans; when children, spouses, and elders are abused by those trusted to care for them.

We wrestle with wondering where God is among all the cruelties and injustices we witness. And then we find God in our neighbors, in our families, in the stranger that comes to our aid or the aid of another. And our belief is restored, if only for a time. The movement of this passage from the Gospel of John is from doubt to faith to doubt and back again. A fitting vessel to carry us through the spiraling chaos that occurs in our own lives.  

This is John’s Pentecost passage, appropriate for the first week after Easter as we re-learn how to live with the risen Christ. How do we come to believe? We certainly do not do it alone. Jesus is still coming through our walls of defenses, appearing to us even though the door to our heart may be shut and locked. Jesus breathes new life into his followers – breathes the Holy Spirit into them and commissions them to go and do the work of converting people into believers… believers of living as Christ did… believers of living together as God desires. His resurrection appearances did not just happen a few times two thousand years ago. Jesus has continued to enter closed hearts, has continued to breathe the Holy Spirit on us, has continued to offer peace and forgiveness to a fracturing world. Jesus was modeling relationship building through forgiveness of sins, hurts, transgressions. Jesus continues to show up all around us, breathing the breath of the Holy Spirit on us, so that we also have the courage to live in his footsteps. 

This week we learn about some of the initial challenges faced by the apostles after Jesus was killed. These early followers had a lot to sort out. First they needed to deal with their own grief and despair, joy and confusion, as they struggled to make sense of this turn of events. At the same time, they were living in fear for their own lives as the Roman government continued to crack down on dissenting voices, forcibly restricting those who evoked Jesus’ name and continued the work of carrying his mission forward.

Jesus lived, and died, by this compassionate example of how to care for those around us. These poignant first appearances present Jesus as loving and forgiving the very people who abandoned him in his darkest hour. Jesus models how to be present to one another and faithful to God. 

In our passage from the Acts of the Apostles, the Disciples refused to be silenced by threats or coercion or violence. Peter and the others are quoted as saying, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.” 

Peter and the other apostles were making sacrifices in the name of Love… refusing to bow to Kings or to unjust civil laws. It was necessary then and it is necessary now to stand on ethical and moral principles. 

This week I spent some time on a Zoom meeting offered by an organization called, “Faith in Public Life.” It was simultaneously broadcast from Washington D.C., Columbus, Ohio, Atlanta, Georgia, and Orlando, Florida. It was a reminder to live into our beliefs by resisting injustices wherever and whenever we encounter them. The speakers encouraged us to be fueled by faith and not by fear, and to stand in solidarity with all immigrant populations. The overarching message was a call to stand united as one people that are all made in the image of God: to seek the common good, to stand up for justice, to protect the most vulnerable. 

In our scriptures, Jesus comes to his followers on multiple occasions and greets them in a familiar fashion. Shalom. Peace. His words of peace and assurance may have more significance in this setting, however. I think of Jesus’ greeting at these appearances in the same way as the appearance of angels to mortals. The non-earthly visitors’ first words are typically, fear not. Jesus comes to those he was closest to and encourages them to be not afraid. The visibly shaken, grief-stricken followers do not wish to meet the same fate as their Teacher and so they lock themselves in a room to keep distance from the Roman authorities. They need to get out and continue the ministry that Jesus has started. In order to do that, they must conquer their fears.

And so, Jesus came to them with words of comfort and encouragement. Shalom—Peace—Fear not. Jesus breathed on them the Holy Spirit and commissioned them to go and get to work. Jesus came to bring us closer to God—to reconcile us with God—to bring us at-one with God. They are told to make believers of all the nations. 

And what is our work? The same. Although I might phrase it differently. Our work is to bring peace to all, to work toward forgiveness for all. I encourage us to help people believe not specifically in Christianity, but to believe the tools are at hand to create peace and cultivate forgiveness. Our work is to believe in the goodness of Creation, to believe in Love, to believe that diversity, and equality, and inclusion make us stronger.

How do we, who have not seen, who have not been invited to touch his wounds, come to believe? By seeing the works of Christ in the world. By feeling the works of Christ within us.  

Jesus the Christ comes to us and offers us peace. Peace be with us when we believe, peace be with us when we doubt… peace be with us always. Peace through reconciliation with those we have wronged and those who have wronged us. 

Like the apostles before us, our faith is in motion, ebbing and flowing like the tides. 

May your belief remain ever present, like the tides, even as your confidence ebbs and flows. 

Amen

Rev. TJ Mack – April 27, 2025