John 20:19-31 The Power of Easter: Power Over Doubt
Happy Easter!
He is Risen!
He is Risen Indeed!
It is still Easter. Often, we spend a lot of time preparing for Easter—the whole season of Lent and the build up from Palm Sunday to the Last Supper and Good Friday to the big celebration on Resurrection Day with breakfast and the big worship service—and then Monday comes and we sort of move on.
But what we sometimes forget is that Jesus is still alive. On the church calendar, the season of Easter lasts just as long as the season of Lent. In the Bible, the story doesn’t end with Jesus talking to Mary Magdalene outside the tomb that first Sunday morning. Jesus continues to make appearances to His disciples. He stays around for forty days before ascending back to heaven. And, of course, He is still alive today. So, in a sense, every Sunday is Easter Sunday.
And so, as we’ve spent the last couple of months moving through the Passion story in the gospel of John, we’re going to continue to celebrate the Power of Easter as we look at some of the other resurrection appearances of Jesus in John’s final chapters. Today, we’ll consider two of them.
Our text is John 20:19-31:
19On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." 22And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."
24Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."
26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 27Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
28Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
29Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
30Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
<<Prayer>>
Missouri Thomas
Thomas gets a bad rap. “Doubting Thomas.” Poor old Doubting Thomas. The guy has caught grief for 2000 years, and he’ll probably catch grief for 2000 more—or at least until the Lord returns.
It’s hard not to feel for the guy. Tradition has made him out to have an inferior faith because he expressed his doubt about the resurrection. He’s the poster child for unbelief. Exhibit A for skepticism.
Most people know what a “Doubting Thomas” is even if they’ve never heard the Bible story. All you have to do is pick up a Webster’s Dictionary and there it is. Actually, it is in two places: under “d” for doubt and “t” for Thomas.
According to Webster a “doubting Thomas” is an “incredulous or habitually doubtful person.” Habitually? That seems a little strong doesn’t it? We don’t know a whole lot about Thomas, but the only time—the only time—we see his doubtful side is in this story. So maybe habitually is overstating the case a bit.
Besides, who can blame him? When he heard the news that Jesus was back among the living he expressed a little uncertainty. Is that so bad? I mean, he was being asked to believe that a man who had been crucified was alive again—you have to admit, that idea is a little hard to swallow. He wants a little proof, what’s wrong with that?
My friend Matt says that we’ve mislabeled Thomas. He says we should do away with the “Doubting Thomas” moniker and instead go with “Missouri Thomas.” Missouri Thomas. Missouri is known as the “Show Me State”, and really, that’s all Thomas wants. He’s just saying: “Show Me.”
And honestly, Thomas isn’t alone here. If we’re honest, we all have to admit that we have doubts. I don’t care how long you’ve been a Christian, sometimes we all find faith to be a little hard to come by.
Right? Who doesn’t have doubts?
When the news reports another earthquake or terrible tornado and we hear about the devastating loss of life, it’s easy to doubt that there is a God in control of it all. When the doctor’s report tells you there is cancer or when your boss tells you there isn’t a place for you anymore, it’s easy to doubt that God actually loves you. When the preacher stands up and insists that a man who was good and truly dead got up and walked out of His tomb 3 days later, it’s easy to doubt that such a thing is possible.
Doubt isn’t restricted to Thomas. We’ve all been there. Maybe you are there right now.
But here’s the good news from our passage today: Jesus is not offended by our doubts. Jesus does not take it personally. He knows that faith is sometimes hard to come by. He is gracious to Thomas. He doesn’t take him to task or scold him for having a hard time believing.
But get this—this is important—He blesses belief. Jesus is not offended by our doubts, but He tells us there is something special about being able to believe. The passage before us today is an invitation to believe.
See My Hands
So let’s consider the two parts of that statement. Jesus is not offended by our doubts, but He blesses belief. First, Jesus is not offended by our doubts. I’ll phrase it like this: Jesus Invites Investigation.
Go back to the beginning of the passage. Verse 19:
19On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!"
The first thing that needs to be pointed out is that Thomas is not the only one with doubts. This is still that first Easter Sunday. Peter and John have been to the empty tomb. Mary Magdalene has had her encounter with Jesus and has come back to report it to the disciples. And yet, what are the disciples doing? They’re cowering behind locked doors, trembling with fear of the Jews.
Even though they’ve heard the good news of Jesus’ resurrection, they haven’t exactly embraced it yet. They’ve got their share of doubts too.
And then, there’s Jesus. Walking through walls and wishing them peace. You’d think that maybe Jesus would be disappointed by their lack of faith. But if He is, He doesn’t express it. Instead, notice what He does. Verse 20:
20After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Jesus knows that it isn’t easy to believe that a dead man is alive. He was there when the laws of nature were written, after all. So He gives them proof. He holds up His nail scarred hands. He pulls His robe aside to show them the spear hole. He offers absolute identification—there’s no other living person who can show off the scars of crucifixion. He lets them check it out.
Then, skip ahead to verse 24.
24Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."
Thomas has doubts, but who can blame him? His expression is a little strong: “Unless I see it and touch it, I will NOT believe it,” but that’s pretty much what it took to convince the other 10. Missouri Thomas. Show me.
So Jesus shows up, and He does just that, verse 26:
26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 27Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
Again, Jesus is not offended by Thomas’s doubts. He knows that the unbelievable can be pretty hard to believe. And so He invites investigation. He gives Thomas the chance to do exactly what he asked for. To reach out his finger and touch the nail scars. To take his hand and put it into Jesus’ side.
And I find this so encouraging. You and I are going to run into doubt. We’re going to ask hard questions, and we’re not always going to get satisfying answers. But Jesus isn’t offended by that. He’s not asking us to just close our eyes and jump off the cliff. He invites investigation. He asks us to come and check it out for ourselves.
Now, of course, Jesus isn’t in the habit of showing up in our living rooms to show off His scars anymore. We can’t reach out and touch Him, like Thomas. But He does grant us two gracious gifts for combating our doubts.
The first is the Holy Spirit. Go back to verse 22:
And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.”
This is back on the first Easter evening, right after Jesus shows the 10 His hands and side. Then He commissions them (“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you”) and breathes on them.
Now, He probably didn’t actually breathe out the Spirit at this moment. The Spirit doesn’t arrive until Pentecost, 10 days after the ascension. But Jesus is reminding them of the promise He made the night before the crucifixion. The promise of a Comforter. An Advocate who would come and fill them.
And one of the Holy Spirit’s roles—Jesus had said then—is to “testify about” Jesus (15:26). The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to us to help guide us into all truth (16:13).
In other words, when we run up against things that are hard to understand, or hard to believe—the Holy Spirit testifies to us that even though it is hard to believe, it is true. Even as we investigate, even as we struggle with doubt, the Holy Spirit is there to confirm the truth.
We may not have Jesus standing before us with His wounds on display, but we do have the Holy Spirit.
The second gift is the gift of Scripture. Jump down to the last two verses of the chapter:
30Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
This is the summary statement for the whole book of John. This is John’s explanation for why he wrote the book. He didn’t record everything Jesus did—he says elsewhere that the whole world would not have room for the books that could be written—but what he wrote he wrote for our benefit. He wrote it so that we could believe in Jesus. He wrote it so that we could have life.
And, of course, what is true of the book of John is true of the whole Bible. It is a gift to us to help us believe in Jesus. Jesus invites us to investigate. And the way we do that is by studying the scriptures. By reading the story and examining the evidence. One of the ways to overcome our doubts is by studying the Word.
I am convinced that if we will just investigate the Bible we will find it has the power to convince us of its truth. J. B. Phillips was translating the New Testament from Greek to modern English about 60 years ago and said afterwards, "[I] felt rather like an electrician rewiring an ancient house without being able to turn the mains off." When he finished with the gospels, he said, "There is an almost childlike candour and simplicity, and the total effect is tremendous. No man could ever have set down such artless and vulnerable accounts as these unless some real Event lay behind them" (The Ring of Truth, London, 1967, p. 58 found in John Piper, “Jesus Came into the World to Testify to the Truth”, Dec. 25, 1988).
What I am saying is that the way you credit a witness is by listening long and hard to him to see if you sense that he is conning you or if he has the ring of truth. That's what you must do with the Bible. And if you will, you find the Bible to be incredibly convincing.
Jesus invites investigation. He’s not offended by our doubts but offers two gracious gifts—the Holy Spirit and the Holy Scriptures—to help us believe.
Stop Doubting and Believe
And that leads to the second half of our opening statement. While Jesus is not offended by our doubt, He is not content to leave us there. And so, Jesus Blesses Belief. He’s not offended by our doubts, but He blesses belief.
Consider what Jesus says to Thomas, at the end of verse 27:
Stop doubting and believe.
Jesus insists on faith. He shows His hands and His side. Then He says: “Stop doubting and believe.” The NASB translates it: “Be not unbelieving but believing!”
Jesus loves us, but He demands faith. He loves us and He does not allow room for us to half-way believe, to disbelieve, to not trust Him. He insists on belief. He calls us out of doubt.
Or consider what Jesus says in verse 29:
29Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
Jesus is talking about us here. Thomas and the other 10 disciples saw Jesus in the flesh and they believed. You and I don’t get to see Him—at least not until He returns—but we still get the opportunity to believe.
And if we do, then we are blessed. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Think about that for a second, the disciples didn't have something (a blessing) that you and I can have by putting our faith in Jesus! Jesus is promising us a special blessing because our faith has not yet become sight.
Missouri faith is not as good and blessed as faith without sight. Missouri faith says “seeing is believing.” Jesus says, “believing without seeing is blessing.” We walk, Paul said, by faith and not by sight. Not yet.
Peter, years later, reflected on this in his first letter,
“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8-9).
Someday we will see him. But not yet. Till then we investigate and read the scripture and listen to the testimony of the Holy Spirit–and we are blessed.
Don’t be a Dwarf
At the end of the last book in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia—a book titled the Last Battle—there is a great and terrible final battle against evil. Children and warriors and talking animals under the leadership of King Tirian, the last of Narnia’s human kings, defeat the forces of evil and await the appearance of Aslan—the great lion who represents Christ.
Everyone is excited to see him, except for the Dwarfs.
A group of Dwarfs, shrewd and suspicious, refuse to trust in all this talk of Aslan and his kingdom.
Aslan comes:
The earth trembled. The sweet air grew suddenly sweeter. A brightness flashed behind them. All turned. Tirian turned last because he was afraid. There stood his heart’s desire, huge and real, the golden Lion, Aslan himself, and already the others were kneeling in a circle around his forepaws and burying their hands and faces in his mane as he stooped his great head to touch them with his tongue. Then he fixed his eyes upon Tirian, and Tirian came near, trembling, and flung himself at the Lion’s feet, and the Lion kissed him and said, “Well done, last of the Kings of Narnia who stood firm at the darkest hour.”
But then there are the dwarfs.
Lucy pleads with Aslan, “Could you—will you—do something for these poor Dwarfs?”
“Dearest,” says Aslan, “I will show you both what I can, and what I cannot, do.”
No matter what Aslan does—stand in the very midst of the Dwarfs, growl at them, provide a sumptuous feast for them—they won’t trust. “We haven’t let anyone take us in,” they proudly declare. “The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.”
“You see,” said Aslan, “They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.”
Contrast the reaction of the Dwarfs with the reaction of Thomas.
The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs, and they will not believe.
Thomas sinks to his knees and declares, “My Lord and My God!”
Which one will you be?
