The Second Sunday of Easter       March 30, 2008

Genesis 8:6-16, 9:8-16

Psalm 111

1 Peter 1:3-9

John 20:19-31

I’m a bit shell shocked after spending a week in Moscow, Idaho. I went there to bury my mother and to wade through her personal effects. As an aside, please do your kids a favor and clean out your old records and discard old clothes and other things. Mom hadn’t even thrown away dad’s clothes 20 years after his death. It was a grim experience. It would be an act of love for your family. We took more than 40 big garbage sacks of stuff to the dump and one would have to look hard to see what we had done.

Added to this was all the old stuff about “going home.” I slept in my old bed room and the service was held at the Methodist Church in which I was raised. The last time I had been there was at my father’s funeral 20 years ago. I even sat in the same spot in the same pew. The feelings were both tumultuous and tender. 

I didn’t spend much time in sermon preparation, so I plucked one from my files.

Here’s a key to reading scripture.  When the author of the passage stops and takes the time to explain what a word means, then it’s important, very important. We have one such incident in today’s Gospel lesson. (Turn please to the lesson from the gospel. We’re at the 10th line down, verse 24 of John 20.) Here we have Thomas referred to as the “twin.”  But if you read more carefully you will note that it says, “he was called the twin,” not that he was a twin.  This is important because the word translated as “Called” in Greek is “legomenons” Let’s break it down into its two parts:

(Sometimes when I do this I feel like the father in the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  Remember he was the one who gave the Greek derivation for every word that came along? But I love words and I have fewer joys than probing into the meaning of a word and finding a rich, hidden goldmine.)

Anyway, the word legomenons has first the prefix  lego.  That’s right, the little plastic blocks you used to step on in your bare feet when you’d get up for a drink of water in the middle of the night.  Lego means “to lay something on something else.”  Menons means to rest or place something on something else permanently. The name the “twin” was something that was laid on Thomas permanently.  Here’s where it gets really interesting for me.  Thomas may not have had a twin. This may be a word play.  The word for twin in Greek is didymous which has the same root in our words duo, duet and duel, all of which refer to two participants.  If we tie legomenons with didymous we have Thomas who had the term “twin” or the “divided one”, or even the “one who cuts through stuff” laid on him.

Now we have more: The word “Thomas” in Greek means “to cut.”  Look at some medical terms: tonsillectomy, appendectomy, hysterectomy.  These are all terms that refer to cutting.  Even the word anatomy was first coined to mean that which is cut up so it can be studied.  If something is the epitome, it is the best cut.

He was called “Thomas the twin”, but I think just as easily he could have been called “Thomas the cutter.”  I believe that his name indicates that he was the one who cut right to the heart of the matter of things that other people did not see, or were reluctant to question.

He wanted to get right to the heart of something – he called a spade a shovel. He would probably call himself a realist.  Psychologists would say that he operated out of the left side of his brain. Fantasy and whimsy were not big parts of his life.

We have an example of this back in the fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel.  Jesus and his apostles are gathered at the last supper and our Lord begins to talk about his death.  He said that was going to leave them soon. He went on to say that He would get things ready for them as soon as He got where He was going and when the right time came, they would come and join Him. He tried to assure them because He said that he “knew the way.”

You can just imagine the room going silent...except for Thomas. In John 14:5 he pipes up and says, Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way? 

Jesus uses Thomas as a foil for perhaps the most controversial passage in the book of John.  All the pretext and equivocation were cut away.  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”   He did not say that “I am a way, a truth, a life. Folks can come to the Father a whole lot of different ways, I’m just one among many.” Now the scriptures don’t record Thomas’s reaction, but you can bet he mulled that over.

In the next few days, all the things Jesus said were going to happen, did happen.

He was killed, just as he said he would be.

Jesus was dead: Thomas was sure of that. He’d been there, probably way off to the side, but he’d been there.  He’d seen and heard and probably smelled Jesus death. There was no doubt in his mind that Jesus was dead, and dead people stay dead.

Easter comes around and Jesus appears to that frightened lot of apostles who are hunkering down because they think that they might be executed next.  All are there except Judas who betrayed our Lord and Thomas, for some unexplained reason.

Jesus looked at the collective anxiety, and fear and perhaps even anger and said to them, “Peace.”

You could just feel the tension leave the room.

He then breathed the Holy Spirit on them and told them that they now had the authority to forgive and retain sins and then He left. You can just imagine the conversation that started.

Now remember, Thomas wasn’t with them, so when they excitedly told him about what happened, he gave a rather interesting response. ( Turn about half way down in the gospel lesson, John 20:25)  John is setting the stage:

“But Thomas (who was called the twin) [remember he also could have been called Thomas who cut to the heart of the matter], one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.  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.”

Thomas was at best skeptical (from which we get the word scalpel).  He was saying to them, “Cut it out.” I’m not believing this stuff until I see Him and touch Him.

Eight days later, the next Sunday, the week after Easter, Thomas was there when Jesus appeared to them once again. Jesus looked him in the eye and said,

Put your finger here; see my hands.  Reach out your hand

and put it into my side.  Stop doubting and believe.(John 20:27)

Note that Jesus was blunt but not severe with Thomas.  He understood Thomas’s doubts.  He also understood that the best way to communicate with Thomas was to use short declarative statements that begin with verbs:

Put your finger here...

See my hands...

Reach out your hand...

Put it in my side...

That’s called the active voice.  There is no equivocation, there are no “maybes” or “perhapses” or “might bes” in this.  Jesus is very clear. He says, “Just do it.” Like the old Nike ad.

In response, Thomas made the statement which is the climax of the whole Gospel of John.  He is the first one to say it.  (We’re 3/4 of the way down in the Gospel lesson, John 20:28)

Thomas looks at Jesus and says, “My Lord and my God.” This is the first time anyone said that Jesus was God.  Thomas was the first one to articulate the divinity of Christ.

Note what Jesus says, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. (John 20:29)

Here’s where it comes to us. There isn’t one of us who hasn’t had some doubts along the line. We’ve all had times of struggle when we’ve wondered if God wasn’t more absent in our lives than present.

We’ve all had times of spiritual dryness when we’ve wondered if God is there at all.

In those times of doubt, when the well has dried up and the pit is so deep and we can’t sense his presence and tomorrow seems so bleak– you and I are tempted to say, “He’ll have to prove it to me. I sure don’t experience Him in my life right now.”

And Jesus says to Thomas, Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. My response is, “Oh great, now I have to feel guilty because I don’t experience God’s grace in my life.  I’m no longer blessed.” That’s not what Jesus is saying at all. The word blessed in Greek is Makarios, and it really means joyous.  He’s saying, “You will be a lot happier if you can embrace this mystery of my resurrection than if you always doubt it.”  Cut through all your doubts, (and that’s what Thomas did) and affirm Christ’s lordship, you will be filled with Joy. That’s it.

This sermon was for me this morning. It’s been a very difficult time.

Amen.