Sermon for Quasimodogeniti Sunday 2020

"A Faith Grammar Lesson: Not Seeing Yet Believing”
Text - JOHN 20:24-31 NKJV
24 Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” 26 And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” 27 Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” 28 And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” 30 And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

My friends in Christ: Luther says quite a bit on the events of the Easter season and whom it is that are truly Christ’s brethren. Regarding Hebrews 2:11, Luther comments, “The fact that Christ receives such abandoned wretches as you and me, and calls us brethren, is a fact full of all consolation for us…In Christ we also share common possessions and have one Father and one inheritance. But this inheritance never becomes less by being shared like an earthly inheritance. It becomes ever greater and greater, otherwise they would not be brothers.” Doesn’t that remind you of the feeding of the 5,000 when so little becomes a superabundance?

Luther continues with an obvious question: “What is this inheritance which makes us Christ’s brothers?” Then Luther later gives such a remarkable answer that it only can be received by faith. He says: “The title that we are Christ’s brethren is so exalted that no human heart can really comprehend it. Unless the Holy Spirit confers this grace, no one can say, ‘Christ is my brother’…To be sure, face to face with the magnitude of this blessing you may even have doubts and uncertainties whether it is really true or not. Those who are always crying out, ‘Christ is my brother, Christ is my brother!’ are not necessarily Christ’s true brethren.”

Eastertide is the time when doubts may become reality by faith alone! The name of this Sunday, Quasimodogeniti, comes from the first three words in the Introit of the Day for the liturgical church: “As Newborn babes (desire the sincere milk of the Word.)” The Gospel lesson also gives this Sunday the moniker “Doubting Thomas.” The expression was coined after that disciple who was absent when Jesus made His initial appearance to the other disciples as they were hiding behind locked doors for fear of the Jews. Thomas, called Didymus (i.e. the twin), wasn’t present with the others on that first day of the resurrection wen Jesus appeared to the other disciples. Thus, this Sunday begins the narrative.

The “seeing is believing” phrase, believe it or not, didn’t originate with the “Show Me State” of Missouri. The phrase “Show me” was attributed to Missouri’s U.S. Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver at the turn of the 20th Century. While a member of the U.S. House Committee on Naval Affairs, Vandiver attended an 1899 naval banquet in Philadelphia. In a speech there, he declared, “I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.” The “seeing is believing” or the “show me” response was first attributed to “Doubting Thomas” a disciple of Jesus.

Remember when the Roman soldiers were dispatched to watch the tomb of Christ when they themselves became aware of the physical resurrection. St. Matthew recorded that “some of the guards came into the city and reported unto the chief priests all the things that were done.” (Matt.28:11). But in the case of these Roman soldiers and the physical resurrection, empirical knowledge of the truth did not lead to faith. Why? Simply the powerful god of this world, money, caused the soldiers to falsify their witness to the truth, It is written in Matthew 28:12, “And when they (the chief priests) were assembled with the elders and had taken counsel, they gave a large sum of money unto the soldiers, saying, ‘Tell them , His disciples came by night and stole him away while we slept,’ and if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will appease him and make you secure.” Here the soldiers were convinced to lie by seeing the large amount of money in the earthly realm; they just couldn’t perceive what they saw with their eyes regarding the heavenly realm.

The phrase, “Doubting Thomas”, doesn’t just apply to unbelievers and the original disciple Thomas; but to all people who hear of the bloody, agonizing, suffering and death and resurrection of the Lord of Life...including you, whenever it is when you do not desire the sincere milk of the Word but seek only empirical evidence or signs that might satisfy your reason.

Doubt and unbelief, displays itself in two noted ways: First off, when curiosity isn’t involved, doubt shows itself in the inactivity of one’s physical body; the other manifestation of doubt involves the mouth, causing it to speak words like “unless”; “but”; “if”; and a number of other conjunctions, interrogatives, adverbs, prepositions, and a combination of such that always place a condition on the subject in discussion. Thomas therefore spoke: “Unless I see...I will not believe!” These are the words that come from mistrust, even the denial of the efficacy of the written Word of God in both the Old and New Testaments.

Note first of all that the disciples huddled together behind locked doors “for fear of the Jews.” Early that first Easter morning the women had already come to the disciples with the resurrection news, and yet the very next evening the disciples were cowering behind locked doors. Doubt has its way of effecting your very actions and even make you inactive altogether. Take the great prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 18 and 19, who, after being so bold in the Lord as to slay all the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, ran and hid himself in a cave because he feared Queen Jezebel’s wrath.

This was the very way in which the disciples had shown themselves to be before God: doubtful and showing the symptom of inactivity of the body; shameful and afraid. Doubt, coupled with fear, can paralyze the body just as the Romans soldiers who had been posted by Pilate to secure the tomb of Jesus.

Secondly, this doubting is what you should be most concerned about. This effect sometimes appears very quickly. This effect clearly identifies what it is you doubt. Ordinary little words then become mighty qualifiers and affects your vocabulary. For instance, conjunctions and prepositions become very powerful when dealing with matters of faith. Thomas used a famous phrase, “UNLESS I see!” which gives credence to yet another phrase which begins with what grammatically is called a gerund, a verbal noun, “Seeing is believing.” St. Thomas, here, would have been a fine resident of the State of Missouri, the “Show Me State”. But don’t we often use words expressing conditions? Such as, “Lord, I feel so lonely that unless you send someone into my life to help me I won’t feel like even you care for me.” Or this classic prayer of doubt, “Lord, IF you really exist, show yourself to me and help me now!”

How often do we insist on placing conditions upon God, that very same God who has given us all things, through faith, in His Son Jesus Christ, who had physically arisen from the dead for our justification. The vocabulary of doubt drives away that very faith which is of greater worth than gold because it gives us access to the graces of God. As it is written in 1 Peter 1:7 “…that the trying of your faith (being more precious than gold that perishes, though it be tested with fire) might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen, you love.” Not that the Bible witnesses to the fact that we do not have to “see” Jesus in order that we believe He is and that He physically rose from the dead. It is just as important that we love Him even though we can’t see Him physically.

It is the Bible, the living voice of God, that directs your thoughts and affections outside self to fix them upon Jesus, “the author and finisher of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:2).

Do you ever think of what hope of joy should continually be yours, and how often joy is passed by simply because of those little articles of speech that place a condition upon faith; those little words that so negatively affect your goals of peace and joy and makes them doubtful?! But note how Jesus is able to break that barrier of doubt and fear by coming into the midst of His disciples, interjecting the vocabulary of faith, saying, “Peace be to you.”

The incipient peace was given by Jesus to restore His disciples’ confidence; and, again, “Peace be to you” was given the second time in order to prepare His disciples for ministry. Without the assurance of the peace of God, Peter would had never been able to deliver such a terrific sermon on that Day of Pentecost. And without that same peace given to you, you would never be able to overcome your fears and doubts concerning the dreaded pandemic of our time yet alone witness the name of Jesus to friends and neighbors.

Whenever you go into God’s house of worship with cluttered attics for minds, and refuse to hand over our life’s anxieties to the Lord, how can you expect to receive that peace which passes all understanding through the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ? That is why God, the Holy Spirit, saw fit to have John record the challenge Jesus gave to Thomas to live by faith, not by sight!

Seeing is not always believing, Thomas…so stop doubting and believe! The actual words of Jesus are these: “Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.” To walk by faith and not by sight is to live daily with the reality of the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ and it is the Good News of that reality which does away with those little conditional words of doubt. You shouldn’t listen to preachers who tell you, “If you say this prayer after me” or “Unless you speak the ‘sinners’ prayer from your heart”. For all of these is what constituted Thomas in today’s text, “Unless I see!” So away with all these conditions! Away with the Doubting Thomas excuses! The Gospel of Jesus Christ has no unlesses!

St. Paul wrote to the Christians in Philippi: “Brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just; whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things...and the God of peace shall be with you.” Friends, anything that does not have the quality of virtue attacks your faith and will undoubtedly replace your faith with doubt. You even find the pressures of society so overwhelming that we allow society to shape the church instead of the church shaping society. But even though we are not of the world but in the world, when we use the right vocabulary and meditate upon the Law of the Lord, our responses to trying situations will always show its source as faith.

Thomas said, “My Lord and my God!” But Jesus’ response to Thomas was directed toward the simplicity of faith for generations yet to come: Jesus responded, “Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.” Jesus was speaking to you, especially whenever you gather together as His church to hear His Word and to partake of His precious, true, and essential body and blood
along with the elements of bread and wine.

In the Lord’s Supper we find that old certainty, which I addressed on Easter Sunday, and the very source of faith in Jesus and, even though we do not see Him, He is physically there nevertheless hidden with the bread and wine that are distributed. Jesus also offers Himself in this His Supper to assure you that your sins are indeed forgiven. His real and essential body and blood, which communes with the bread and the wine, gives that blessed assurance of the forgiveness of sins as it also strengthens your faith.

Friends, it is easy to be a Doubting Thomas; it is harder to be in a state of faith when you are presented with the truth. Yet your confidence is not in saying some “sinner’s prayer” but in God’s own testimony, His Living Voice, the Bible, which forever remains efficacious and creates faith. Why wait any longer when our Lord has prepared everything you need in faith for this life and the one to come? Listen as the glorified Christ speaks, “Peace be to you! I have overcome the world and you are Mine!” And may your response be… “My Lord and my God!” Amen.