Delivered on 7th April
It’s time of the year again when we hear of doubting Thomas, poor old Thomas because he takes the brunt for the lack of faith, he represents the unbelieving of a world who are not able to accept the impossible.
It was unlucky for Thomas that he wasn’t with the other close disciples when Jesus first appeared to them. Maybe it’s worth thinking about where Thomas was at the time, we know the disciples were in lockdown being afraid to step out in case they are recognised as followers of Christ.
For all we know, Thomas might have been in the streets still preaching avoiding the authorities, he might have gone out to see family and friends, he might even have gone out to get supplies for the group. For us we can only imagine, it’s probably not even very important that we even know, because the important thing is that he wasn’t there. This gave Christ another chance to deliver us this wonderful message when he appears again.
Today, we are not going to worry about the lack of presence of Thomas, an act of negligence to his friends or an absence designed by God. What we are going to look at is what Thomas did!
Our Gospel reading says that Thomas states, until he sees the nail marks and when he can put his hand into the side where he was stabbed, he would not believe. Thomas had been told by others how they attached his Christ to a wooden cross, others told him how they made sure his Christ had his last breath taken away. To any one, this would have meant that Jesus was well and truly dead.
What Thomas did you, was not to disbelieve. You could read this part of the gospel as Thomas saying this is impossible, how can he be alive? Or you can read this part of the Gospel, that Thomas, whilst having doubts, was leaving a gateway for the impossible to be possible.
How much does this say about our modern faith and our modern world? Are we able to believe the impossible? It is so easy to dismiss the impossible in life, it is a lot harder to accept the impossible.
Through life we always make walls, maybe we buy them with our homes or maybe we even build them. When you are looking for a new home, you want to make sure that you have walls to protect you and your loved ones from the elements.
Our first home when we got married was up in Merthyr and pre-dated 1840, now that had walls which you definitely felt safe behind. We only had one window upstairs (to avoid window tax back in time), there was the front entrance straight onto the street and the back door went into an old communal courtyard.
Our neighbors knew when we were in or out and which TV channel we were watching, they might not have known us directly but for sure then knew one of our family. The day we moved out down the valley, many of them came out to wish us well, some we hadn’t even seen before.
If the disciples were hiding from the authorities in the valleys it would be the sort of place you might have expected them to hide, because the disciples needed a safe place to hide. We all know I’m sure how important these walls are to us, the walls of our homes, walls of our places or work & walls of our churches.
What about the walls we build and we don’t see? It is a vital human trait that we protect ourselves from others. The oldest part of the brain is the part which tells you to run or to hide when there is danger! Other parts of the brain are developed to override this part, but the fright aspect still comes to us first before the rest catches up.
When you are in danger, when you are sad, when you are hurt, you build a wall around yourself for protection. The disciples put up a physical barrier but I also think they built a mental wall because they had this life saving experience in Christ! They also had been emotionally hurt by the experience, they had failed the one person who had given them real life. Not only had they failed to protect him in the last hours of his life but they hadn’t listened sufficiently to know the outcome.
And now he has come back, just as he said he would. They must have been so excited but also full of anxiety about what he would do to them. Those who have failed him, his closest friends, those who should have loved him till the end. The wall had been built around themselves in the form of a building but they also must have built a large wall within their hearts.
Living in Caerphilly, I’m lucky enough to walk a few streets away and then I’m faced with one of the mightest defenses in Wales, Caerphilly Castle. Built by the Normans as a show of strength against the local Welsh tribes. Owain Glyndwr neither bothered about taking Caerphilly, either it was not a strategic target or just too wasteful of his resources to take the king’s token of power here.
However, what do you always see at the front of a castle, at the front of a house? A gateway or a doorway! Any building with walls needs an opening so you can get in and out, some easier than others but nevertheless it has to be there.
For Thomas, he leaves the possibility of the impossible to happen, this is his gateway. I don’t feel it would be fair to him to say that he totally enclosed himself away with no way out or in of his heart, but I would like to say that he left his gate open for Jesus to enter and for the darkness to leave.
If the other disciples did close all the walls around them, not allowing for the opening of a door. Jesus came to them and opened the entrance so they could also let the impossible enter.
In John 1, his letter set out three important basics of Christian life: true doctrine, obedient living and fervent devotion. His letter opens with the declaration of faith, and that declaration is based on being a witness. His faith is protected, the walls he builds around it for protection but evangelism is the gateway, his want to proclaim the gospel for others, the light shining from the doorway waiting to meet with others.
It is very natural that we also want to protect our faith, it’s very normal for us to want to protect our Church, it’s also not unusual to feel that we have to keep this news of salvation for ourselves. However, we can’t!
Despite our want to build barriers for protection, we have to reach over the walls, around the walls and through the gateways to reach others, the family, friends and the stranger to share the good news.
Doubting Thomas? What about believing Thomas or maybe anticipating Thomas (not as catchy)?
One thing this world could do with is having the understanding that not everything can be sorted by humans. If there is an issue, we look to another human to sort the problem. If there is nobody who can sort the problem, then we just move on and forget those left behind and think about the next issue we want to tackle.
Think the impossible is possible, this is what we must do and this is what God is asking us to do and we ask for God’s strength so we can be like Thomas. Jesus declares that we must ask God to deliver what we need, if we lose this belief then we will fail as disciples. If we don’t take our faith through the openings in life offered by God, then we will fail.
Let God guide us through the doorways of the walls which we have created so the world will believe the impossible is possible through our Father.
Amen.