22^nd April 2013

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Sunday 7 April 2013

Lessons - Psalm 150; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

But Thomas said to them, 'Unless I see in his hands the print of the
nails and place my finger in the mark of the nails and place my hand
in his side, I will not believe.' (v25) Then he said, 'My Lord and my
God' (v28)

The great 19th Century Russian novelist, Dostoyevsky, once wrote, 'My hosannas have been forged in the crucible of doubt.' His experience is like Thomas's. Adoration and doubt go together in the Christian life!

This is not what we might have expected of faith. We have been brought up to be positive and to shun negative thoughts. Always look on the bright side of life. Do not have anything to do with cynics. This way of thinking has had serious effects in the lives of many Christians who, because of things that have happened to them, have felt guilty about having doubts about the goodness of God. Others have simply walked away in tough times!

If this is your experience, take heart! Thomas is not a hard-bitten cynic.
He is a man of faith who, having seen God's forgiving, healing presence in Jesus and left everything to follow him, is devastated that God's purposes have been defeated on the cross. That is why, upon hearing news of Jesus'
resurrection, he demands to see the marks of his crucifixion.

This is a story of hope! When every door seems 'closed' - as it was for the disciples after the crucifixion (vv19,26) - we are deeply sceptical about the endurance of love and goodness. However, the story of doubting Thomas who comes to faith is a source of hope for all who experience the absence of God and the weight of sin, evil and death. It is only when we look into the abyss, face human evil (and our part in it) and see what it does to God that robust faith and joyful hope are possible.

Then we shall understand why 'doubting Thomas' is so overwhelmed by the unexpected presence of the crucified Jesus that he exclaims, 'My Lord and my God!' (v28) As he knew, Jesus' resurrection from the dead is such an improbable and powerful response to the dreadful power of evil that it can be explained only by the presence of the Creator and Lord of the universe.

But what if our narrow perspective on 'the facts' blinds us to the reality of this remarkable event? What if we miss the word of hope in this incredible story because we refuse to look outside the scope of what we regard as being real, factual and rational?

If we think like this, we should be brutally honest and admit that sin and death have the last word. We should be honest and admit that, while God may be good and merciful and Jesus may be a wise teacher, the evil that bedevils our life together has not been overcome. It would be better to try to forget life's unpleasantness and carry on with a stiff upper lip or a cheery optimism.

If tempted to follow that path, we need Thomas' bracing realism! If we are to be true to our calling as a community of hope grounded in Jesus Christ, then we must face the horror of the evil that resulted in his crucifixion.
Only then shall we be open to the reality of his resurrection.

If - as many people believe today - Christ was just a courageous figure whose presence and influence came to a tragic end, then hope would be an illusion. God's purposes revealed in Jesus' acts of teaching, healing and mercy, would have come to nought! Jesus may have been remembered here and there as a spiritual and moral guru. But there would have been no sign of freedom, joy and courage that was evident in the lives of disciples who had been gutted by his death on the barbaric cross. The appearance of the Risen Jesus, who is recognisable because he bears the scars of crucifixion, is the sole reason for Thomas' conviction that evil and death have not destroyed God's good-and-gracious purposes for humanity.

Such an event defies easy comprehension. It is the reversal of everything that we have come to expect in life. This is splendidly expressed in Together in Song 649 (Troeger, 1983). It is gritty, earthy and sensual. It is not pious. It does not spiritualise what happened. It portrays Jesus'
humanness, the horror of the cross, the grimness of burial (v1). It tracks the incredible change in Thomas from scepticism to faith. And in verse 4 it speaks to those of us referred to in John 20:30,31 and 1 Peter 1:8 who, unlike Thomas, have not seen the crucified marks of the Risen Lord.

When we see things, not in the light of our 'small world of fact' but in the light of the large fact of the resurrection of Jesus, then the world is seen in a completely different light. In Christ crucified-and-risen, God radiates hope in the midst of darkness, faith in the midst of doubt and love in the midst of hatred.

In 'The best of our belief' (The Sunday Age, 31 March 2013, p13) Prof.
Dorothy Lee writes, 'It is not always easy to believe.' ... 'Even Christians can find it hard to believe in any sort of God - let alone one who is involved in our lives.' [However,] 'when we look at the violence and suffering from another point of view, a more hopeful one, it seems inconceivable that there should not be a God: personal, intimate, engaged with the world at every turn. It seems extraordinary that death should mean the end of everything ... that there should be no consolation for those who have suffered innocently and died' ...

'From this perspective it is not difficult to believe in a God who loves the world passionately, who created it and will remake it. It is not difficult to believe in a God who has become human ... [and] suffered with us and for us on the cross, whose resurrection has opened endless possibilities of new life and hope.'

She concludes, 'It is challenging to believe, ... it is even more challenging not to believe. ... Why would people want a world without a loving creator, source of its life, restorer of its beauty, healer of its wounds?'

Thomas knew how hard faith in God can be. He also knew that without the scars of crucifixion on the body of the Risen Jesus genuine faith and hope would be impossible. 'His hosannas were forged in the crucible of doubt.'

Also may our 'hosannas be forged in the crucible of doubt' that moves us to ecstatic praise of Christ, not simply as a teacher, but as 'Our Lord and our God'. May our worship, preaching, teaching and pastoral care be a glad expression of adoration and confession which flows from the completely unexpected and overwhelming experience of the presence of the Risen Jesus.

--------------------------------------

DOUBTING THOMAS

Frankly, I could not bear to watch what
they did to him - the whips, the insults.
the hammering in of nails. So I snuck off here, hopes shattered, to lick my wounds.

Now they beg me to go back to see him -
surely something beyond belief. At least mine. I'm a realist, not into sentiment or apparitions. There needs to be a body.

Today the clouds hang heavy with doubt.
The others may be deluded. But if - and it's a big if - I see him, touch actual wounds, then I will kneel before him, and adore.

- William Rush

---------------

Rev Dr Max Champion is minister in the St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is Chair of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.