EASTER 2

John 20: 19-31 (Sermon 1: “Believing is seeing”)

(Sermon 2: “Thomas tells all”)

1 Peter 1:3-9

Acts 2: 14a & 22-32

Psalm 16

PREPARATION

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

Out with the anxie
ty of fear and distrust!

Out with the spirit of pessimism!

God has not given us up to the world of the dead,

nor allowed his children to see nothing but a grave.

Therefore my heart is happy and my soul celebrates,

and the life I now live in the body stays secure.

Let everyone be happy in the goodness of God

and celebrate the rising of Christ our Saviour.

OR -

Christ is risen.

Christ is risen indeed!

I will say to God: “You are my God,

and apart from you there is nothing worthwhile.”

Therefore my heart is happy and my spirits rise,

you show me the path of life

and in your company are the fullest joys.

PRAYER OF APPROACH

We come before you, Holy Friend, with the greetings of the risen Christ ringing in our ears!

You have done great things for us, though we barely understand them.

You have done great things for us, though we sparely share their riches.

You have done great things for us, though we rarely live in their full glory.

Today in this ongoing Easter season, please may the Spirit of Christ surprise us again.

with all his deathless truth and grace, and raise us up from the mediocre worship

into which we sometimes slide. In his name we pray.

Amen!

CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE

Christ has not risen to condemn us, but that we might be set free from evil.

Let us pray.

Most holy God, our ways are not like your ways, our thoughts are not as your thoughts, and our deeds do not reflect your deeds.

We are the low achievers who need uplifting,

the timid who need encouraging,

the clumsy who need correcting,

the proud who need humbling,

the rebellious who need recapturing,

the lost who need much saving,

an sometime we are the faithful who need your smile of approval.

Please, awesome God our Friend, may the risen Christ assert his presence in our midst, unhindered by the walls of this church, or by the half-closed doors of our minds.

May he assert his presence and reclaim his brothers and sisters from everything that corrupts, degrades, and alienates us from your joy and salvation.

May he give us the kiss of life, breathing your forgiveness and renewal into every corner of our being. For your love’s sake.

Amen!

FORGIVENESS

It is written: Jesus breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

By the grace of Christ Jesus I find the audacity to stick my neck out and declare to you: Your sins truly are forgiven! You know? Really, absolutely forgiven!

Thanks be to God!

Now then, its up to us to forgive one another even as Christ has forgiven us.

Amen!

The peace of the Lord Jesus be always with you!

And also with you!

PRAYER FOR CHILDREN

Dear God,

it’s hard to believe some things;

you know?

I’m always asking questions,

some of which grown ups

can’t be bothered with.

When I ask you hard questions

about Jesus and things,

please always hear me.

Even though I may be too young

to hear your answer now,

make me patient and willing to wait

for the right place and the right time.

Then may I hear your answer

and trust it.

In Jesus’ name.

Amen!

PSALM 16

Please help me, loving God,

in you I put my trust.

I declare you are my God,

without you I am lost.

The quiet saints of this land

are the fair dinkum thing,

they fill you with delight

though they remain unsung.

Those who chase empty gods

multiply their grief,

I will not share their offerings

or join their way of life.

You are my bread and cup

and hold me in your hand,

you lead in pleasant places

my inheritance is found.

You are my counsellor

and teach my heart at night,

You always go before me

ever my guide and mate.

With heart and soul I laugh

my life remains on track,

you don’t leave me for dead

or forsake me in the ruck

You show me life’s true path

your presence is my joy,

your hand holds the delights

that will not waste away.

Ó B D Prewer 2001

THE KISS OF LIFE

John 20:22-23

Come through our locked doors,

you persistent lover,

come where we’re hiding

and blow away our cover.

Come through disbelief,

enter and greet us,

with disruptive peace

come in and meet us.

Come in the doubting

when old fears molest,

come with your own breath

that we may know rest.

Come with your Spirit,

to lives sour and stale,

breathe forth your Spirit

that we may be hale.

Come with forgiveness

like no man has dared,

breathe in us your grace

that it may be shared.

Come in the evening

with your breath of peace

breathe on your people

that nightmares may cease.

Ó B D Prewer 2001

SERMON: BELIEVING IS SEEING.

John 20:29

“Blessed are those [Utterly happy are those] who have not seen yet have believed.”

Are sceptics as honest as they appear when they speak on the matter of seeing and believing? Some indeed are. Yet I put it to you that many, whether they realise it or not, are patently inconsistent.

On one hand, for maybe 80% of the time, citizens of the twenty first century take on trust a host of things without seeing for themselves. They rely on witnesses to tell them it is so: teachers, scientists, professors, authors, reporters, and even those anchor-persons of popular current affair programmes. We have also reached the stage where many will believe anything that is disseminated on the internet. For better or worse (and often for worse indeed!) they seem to think that such witnesses, ‘those in the know’, are sufficient for their kind of belief.

On the other hand, when it comes to religious belief, and to something like the trust in a living Christ, they snap alert and their eyes become beady as they demand “Prove it! Prove it and then I will believe you.”

It is ironic.

Example: I used to be on cordial terms with a family who ran a classy restaurant. It was revealing to sometimes be chatting in the kitchen and seeing what went on behind the scenes. Some evenings their stock of certain items on the menu, like for example barramundi, might run out. There were times when other fish was prepared to emulate a barramundi dish for an importunate customer. Later in the dining room, all sorts of lofty ‘connoisseur’ comments would be made over

that remarkable fillet of barramundi! Yet maybe that same diner would look disdainfully at us if he discovered we were those who celebrate the resurrection of Christ Jesus. “How could you be so naive?” he might ask.

EARLY BELIEVERS

The early Christians of that first century, and many generations after them, treasured the story of Thomas. They enjoyed hearing how Thomas (until he saw Jesus himself complete with his wounds) would not believe he was alive. They loved the story, not because it made Thomas look silly [not that at all; Thomas was a most respected and loved apostle] but because it highlighted the remarkable thing that had happened to them: They had never seen Jesus yet belief had come to them.

“Utterly happy are those who have not seen [Jesus] yet have believed.”

They had listened to witnesses, to personal testimony, and as they listened the brilliant truth which exceeded all explanation took hold of their hearts and they believed. The witness of other believers was corroborated by the witness of God’s Holy Spirit within them. It is impossible to describe how one comes to faith, except that the inner self is suddenly lit up with a new kind of knowing, and the mind exclaims: “Oh yes! It is true. It is real. I do believe!”

Such people who had never seen Jesus, delighted in the story of Thomas because it touched their own story; especially those potent words of Jesus: “Utterly happy are those who have not seen [Jesus] yet have believed.” And many people still feel a sense of resonance wherever it is read in churches today.

Belief comes, not at the end of a long, logical argument, but in a moment of inner light; usually in response to the witness of other believers in the living Christ.

BELIEF IS NOT ILLOGICAL

That does not mean that belief is illogical. There is nothing essentially irrational about saying: “Christ is risen!” For the witnesses, it was most unexpected, it was dramatic, it was unique. It overwhelmed those first believers with that special fear that we call awe. But it is not illogical.

We Christians have no reason to feel inadequate or foolish in the face of snide remarks from critics who aim is, at all costs, to evade the truth about themselves and God.

The resurrection only seems foolish to those who (in advance) have blindly made a decision

that such a thing could never happen. To closed minds the creed that Christ is risen, will always seem foolish. I want to underline this: If a person has already made up their mind that death is the absolute end, that there is no God, no eternal scheme of love, then of course from that premise resurrection is illogical. Such people will exclude Easter joy from their lives.

But note this: Such people are also living by one type of faith. The person who says there is no God, no eternal Lover, has taken a secular faith leap. They cannot prove there is no God by any scientific method. They have decided to make this their creed. They will live their lives on that unproven faith.

I have no quarrel with that. If that is the choice they make, so be it. What irks me is that very often they act as if their creed is not a faith but the fruit of reason.

Fortunately there are some scholars and scientists more self-honest than that. Including physicists and biologists (e.g. physicist John Wheeler, French mathematician Poincare, biologist Charles Birch) who ruggedly challenge the whole notion of “touch and see” mentality which has become the creed of blinkered, scientific fundamentalism.

SOME PRECIOUS INTEGRITY

If you take specifically the attitude towards the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, over the last 50 years there have been some surprising things happening among some of the traditional critics. For example, some Jewish scholars are much more open.

Professor Pinchas Lapide, of the Bar Ilam University in Jerusalem, was being interviewed on radio together with Roman Catholic theologian Hans Kung. At one point Kung asked Lapide: “What do you make of the resurrection?”

Lapide answered: “I must say that I cannot accept what you call resurrection...... But neither can I deny it, for who am I as a devout Jew to define a priori God’s saving action?........ this would be blasphemous..... I don’t know. That is all I can say.”

Now that is integrity. The kind of honesty which is all too rare among critics of core Christian belief. I have been told that in a later book, Prof Lapide has gone further, rejecting the view that the common view of critics that was some kind of hallucination that the early Christians had. He now uses the words, “a real and effective event” to describe the Easter gospel.

I repeat: there is nothing illogical about believing that Jesus transcended death and made himself known to his disciples. To believe, even though we don’t have the extra evidence granted to Thomas, does not mean that we are a bit soft in the head!

WITNESSES AND THE RESULTS

From the very beginning there was a stream of witnesses who demonstrated their belief by a life and a death commitment to it. It was no mere theory. No pretty sentiment idea for balmy days in springtime. To believe meant not only joy, but also trouble. Big trouble!

Never forget that as a result those first witnesses, Christianity sprang to life all over the Roman world. Also do not forget that nearly all the original witnesses died violently for their faith in the risen Christ. None recanted. None decided it was a hallucination and slipped back into pagan or Jewish ways. The word martyr means witness. They were witnesses to a living Christ.

From this sprang the generations of more witnesses who though they had not seen Jesus, yet believed and experienced the impact of his living Person on their lives. They were not illogical wimps or intellectual pygmies! Listen to those witnesses.

Read the works of Augustine, Abelard, Aquinas, Calvin, Barth or Kung, and you won’t find illogical fools but brilliant intellects working through their resurrection Gospel.

Listen to the majestic music of J S Bach or even the sometimes agonised music of Gustav Mahler and you will find in the case of Bach glorious resurrection faith, and in the case of Mahler a defiant resurrection faith.

Immerse yourself in the inspirational art of the western world, for example Leonardo de Vinci or Van Gogh, and you will find faith. Van Gogh, even in his times of mental distress, saw the living God in all around him, and could say that dying young of cholera or cancer was like taking a quick train to the stars instead of dying in old age and getting there tediously by foot.

Or go to the Australian Outback. Visit Alice Springs and put yourself in the shoes of John Flynn. Visit the first hospital he designed in the 1920’s (with its novel “air conditioning” system) and you won’t find an illogical sentimentalist. Travel around the vast, semi-arid country where he gave his energies for the forgotten people of the outback. Here you will glimpse what faith in resurrection means.

These are just a handful from among the great host of the witnesses. They have not seen yet they certainly believed with a trust and commitment that took them to a most profound expression of the Spirit of Christ in their age and their place. There is nothing irrational or irrelevant about such a faith.

ONE POET’S WITNESS

Listen to this witness from my favourite contemporary Aussie poet, the erudite Kevin Hart. Speaking of one he calls “my only friend,” he asks forgiveness for trusting in only what can be touched, then goes on:

How often I tell myself

you are not real, and how often I see you

more real than the houses, trees and people that pass

and leave me nothing.

When I am alone in the cool of the evening

you comfort me

when I think of all the dead beneath,

you open your hand

and show them as stars beginning to rise.

….“as stars beginning to rise.” YES, YES YES!

Of such stuff is faith. “Utterly happy are those who have not seen [Jesus] yet have believed.”

My Easter-celebrating friends, don’t be discouraged by the smug criticisms of those who, on a premise taken with blind, pseudo-scientific faith, claim that the spiritual world does not exist.

Dare to confess the faith thankfully, even though you don’t have more than more than a tad of the answers to your own searching questions. They who have no questions have no faith, and many who have no faith are blind to the answers.

Dare to celebrate the risen Christ, and the more you dare, the more you will find that in a remarkable way you will be lifted up by the resurrection dynamic; lifted beyond the superficial to the lofty and profound joys which Jesus called the state of blessedness. Blessed are those who have not seen yet have believed.

Note: The following is a long piece of story writing. If it is used for a sermon it might be best broken into 3 or 4 segments, and used in episodes various places throughout the service.

As I have done in green coloured alternative service that follows this one.

SERMON 2: THOMAS TELLS ALL TO PILGRIMS FROM AUS.

(John 20: 24-29)

Peace be with you, visitors from the end of the earth in Terra Australis! Or should I say, as do many of your kind, “G’day mate”.

My name is Tom, Thomas that is. I’m sometimes called Didymous which also means “the twin”.

Yep, I am indeed a twin. Not an identical twin, and in fact not much like my brother Dan. He has always been a good, earnest chap. Even as a kid he believed everything the rabbis taught him about God and the commandments. Never questioned anything. The words “why? or “how?” did not seem to exist in Dan’s vocabulary.

Me? I’ve always wanted to see how things work. Water clocks, birds wings, eggs hatching, ships sails, why wood floats but metal doesn’t, and even what causes swamps to smell like rotten eggs. I like finding answers. Can’t stand being brushed aside with: “Because I said so.” I want to know; really understand things, deep in my mind and heart.

Mum used to say that when I was a little kid, she could not dare say things like: “Don’t touch that hot kettle, or don’t tread in that donkey dung.” If she did, I would immediately touch and tread in the poo to find out for myself.

When I now think about my brother and me, it’s a funny thing how things have turned out. He has become the doubter of the truth that drives my whole life, and I have become the total believer in something I cannot prove to any other person. All I can do is to tell them about it and say “Try it yourself. You will never know if you never give it a go.”

1. AS I GREW UP

We grew up under the heel of Roman soldiers. My fellow Jews were reluctant to obey them because they insisted that worshipping the Emperor, the Caesar, must come first. Of course, my people insisted that honouring God must come first. The soldiers sneered at this and said: “But Caesar is a better god than your Yahweh. See how strong Caesar is. Look around and see how weak your god is. If he wanted to, the divine Caesar could order the utter destruction of your temple and your God could not lift a finger to stop him.”

If they suspected that anyone was muttering against Caesar, they would test us by forcing us to take an oath. They would make us bow down before an altar dedicated to Caesar. There, on our knees, we would have to say: “My Lord and my god.” That was the oath of allegiance.

Some blokes did it, although under their breath they whispered: “Like hell he is!”

If you were asked to take the oath of allegiance but refused, you could end up in trouble big-time. Sold as a slave if you were extremely lucky, but more likely nailed to a cross. Some of the governors got their kicks out of using the latter option.

Thank goodness I was never put to the test when I was a young man. I’m not sure what I would have done.

Why Guru Jesus (blessed be his name) called me to be a disciple and not good, kind, faithful Dave, I’ll never know. Anyway, he did. I became ‘rapt with the things Jesus (blessed be his name) did and said. I would chew over every story he told, every saying he gave us. If I teased away at it for a while, it would always make sense to me. Well most of it, anyway.

2. THAT STUFF ABOUT A CROSS

Not everything, though.

Not that cross business.

From the time when he started talking about going back up to Jerusalem and facing his enemies on their home turf, we were confused. Cephas tried to talk him out of it, as did some of the women. But Jesus (blessed be his name) had his mind made up. Not even the bluster of Cephas or the kindly questioning of John could dissuade him. He could be right stubborn when it mattered to him.

I still vividly remember that last journey up to Jerusalem. Some of the fine weather followers were becoming worried and even talked about pulling out. Couldn’t blame them. It seemed a

foolhardy venture. Why risk your neck in proud Zion when you could be safe and popular in humble Galilee?

When a message came that Lazarus of Bethany was dying, and Jesus (blessed be his name) slowly but steadily moved closer to Zion, quite a few hangers-on did leave us. Even some of the core group got the jitters. They mumbled and grumbled their dissatisfaction.

I did not like that. Yet there was something sane and good in me which inspired me that day. What came out of my mouth surprised even me. Maybe it was the Spirit. I clearly remember looking around at the followers and eyeballing each one. Then I said: “Come on. Let’s go with the Master, and die with him.”

They did; some hesitantly, yet they continued on with him up to Jerusalem. Of course things turned out even worse than we feared. Plenty of fun where he arrived on the Sunday’ singing pilgrims, waving palm branches, and Jesus (Blessed be his name) riding on a runt of a donkey.

But as the week went on, the heckling increased, and we felt we were being stalked. Evil seemed to be abroad on the chill wind that blew down the narrow streets of Zion. Of course he did not exactly endear himself to the Temple hierarchy by taking a whip into the temple market and cracking it like one of your Aussie jackaroos. Wow! Did he cause havoc among the traders and money changers.

After that happening, the end came quickly up there in Jerusalem among that den of pious thieves. You know the story well enough, I reckon. Betrayal; very sad that. Arrest in the Olive Grove. Night time trials (What you people call “kangaroo courts”). The death sentence. Mockery. Execution out on Skull Hill. Buried in a tomb. The big boys at last had him where they wanted

him. Jesus (blessed be his name) was finished.

3. SHOCK AND THE AFTER SHOCK

So were we. Finished. I mean it. Utterly gone. When our blessed Guru came to that bloody end, so did our hope and faith. And with it went love. Why waste your time on loving others if the most loving person we ever knew gets the chop? Huh?

On Friday we were in shock... On Saturday we were in despair. Most of the guys went into hiding, although the women showed a bit more guts.

Cephas, James, John and some others were huddled in a locked cellar room in the city house of the father of John Mark. But I wanted to be on my own. That’s the way I usually try to work things out.

During that day, with my face covered I moved around the city, trying to collect any news. Things did not look good for us. I spent most of Sunday on my own; first hiding in an Olive grove, and later in a wine shop down a back lane in the city.

Late on Sunday evening I came out and made my way to the hiding place of the other guys. Things were in a weird state there. Like crazy! They reckoned that early in the morning some of the women had met our Guru alive (yes, alive?) near the tomb. Then earlier that very evening, they claimed he had appeared to them all in this locked cellar. They insisted it was true.

That was too much for me. I’ve no time for nonsense. And this was the ultimate nonsense. He

was dead: dead, dead, dead! The quicker we faced it, the better.

I was not going to fall for some cock and bull story about Guru Jesus (blessed be his name) coming back from the dead. It must have been a hallucination. Had they been eating those magic mushrooms? (Matthew used to like those freak-out mushrooms before he met Jesus.) Something like this must have caused Cephas and the others to start seeing things!

Anyway, I could not, or would not, believe them. Not for a second. O yes, I wanted to believe. Desperately I wanted to believe. But I’ve always said that wishing something does not make it real. I wanted answers, not nonsense.

When they told me, I snorted: “O yea! And I suppose there are pixies running around in Martha’s back garden, and pink elephants floating over the golden temple tower? No way.

You guys are nuts. Unless I too can actually see our Lord; unless I see in his hands the print of those awful nails. Yes, and unless I can place my finger in that spear wound in his side, I will never believe.”

They were upset, naturally. I was questioning their sanity, after all. Cephas got very uppity.

But I decided to hang around with them and see what eventuated. There was nothing much else to do, and at least they were not dismal company any more- just sort of manic, that’s all!

4. SEEING FOR MYSELF

I kept in touch with them, off and on, during that week. I heard other rumours of the Guru appearing to people here and there in the city. Some kind of mass hallucination seemed to have taken hold of this lot. Rather than face the bleak reality, they wanted desperately to believe. And

so, maybe they were conjuring up visions for comfort.

Anyway, in spite of my doubts about their sanity, I was there in that cellar the next Sunday evening.

I checked the doors a couple of times. They seemed secure. We needed to be cautious. Caiaphas’ mafia were still looking for us.

Suddenly, Jesus (blessed be his name!) was there with us. It was really him, No illusion. And I had not been eating magic mushrooms. This was as real, in fact more real, than anything else I had ever experienced in my whole life.

The Guru gave the familiar greeting: “Peace be with you all.

Awe-struck we replied: “And also with you.”

“

He turned to me, smiled wistfully and said. “Thomas. Come now, put your finger here and see my hands. And place you hand here and feel my wounded side. Don’t doubt any more, but believe.”

I did not need to touch his wounds. I was already sure. I was now seeing and hearing what the others had experienced the week before and it was enough. More than enough!

I kneeled down before Jesus (blessed be his name) and with all my heart and soul and mind and strength gave my oath of allegiance: “My Lord and my God!”

To hell with Caesar all the other gods of Rome and Greece! To hell with the gods of Ephesus, Bagdad and Egypt! This was the only Lord to whom I would dedicate my life.

5. MY JOURNEY AFTER THE RESURRECTION

You know, my friends, all that’s many years ago. So much has happened since that evening.

The story of our lovely Jesus (blessed be his name) is now known throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. I myself took it to the Syrians and Parthians, and then later I went down into Egypt with its multitude of temples and gods.

I had a hard (found myself in prison twice) yet interesting time in Egypt. Small groups believed and were baptised. Some of these believers kept writing down on papyrus the sayings of Jesus as I told them. Egyptians seemed to have a fascination with writing- on papyrus and just about every piece of stone they could lay their hands on.

The only worry I had was that some of those Egyptian converts wanted to form an exclusive, closed community; to live in isolation, like those Hebrew Essenes down by the Dead Sea. To keep themselves pure. That did not seem to me the best way to express the Gospel. I wanted them out in the community, living the Gospel there.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder whether they took that exclusive course after I moved on. And if they did, how much did they adjust the sayings of the Guru to suit their exclusive view of things. I even wonder sometimes if there are now in Egypt copies of the sayings of our Guru with my name attached? And is it really what I taught them or is it slanted to what they wanted to

hear?

No matter. That is out of my control. My journeys for Guru Jesus (blessed be his name) finally brought me to this populous land in the Far East; the land you call India.

In this deeply religious country fed by mighty rivers like the Ganges, I have spent my last years. Not always fruitfully. But not in vain either. There are now small churches meeting in many places, whose light will never go out.

However, I have offended the devotees of too many of the local gods, and some priests have stirred up trouble for me. I was arrested by night, tried and convicted of blasphemy, and as you can see, I am being held in this prison near the city of Madras. One day later and you would have missed me. I await execution tomorrow morning.

6. NO REGRETS

Do I regret anything? No. I regret nothing that has happened since that evening when I knelt before the risen Jesus (blessed be his name) and said “My Lord and my God.”

All these long years I have loved and served him, and he has never left me without enough faith and love for each day’s service.

At sunrise tomorrow I will be executed on that small hill near the city. I am old and very weary, but never alone. Never left without hope. Jesus, my Lord and my God, is always with me, even here at the end of the world.

I, Thomas the questioner, Thomas the doubter, will go to my death feeling I have been among all men the most fortunate. I have amassed neither gold nor power nor fame. But I am rich and strong beyond all the kings and palaces of this world. I am fulfilled with the life and love of my risen Lord Jesus. Blessed be his name forever and ever.

THANKSGIVING

God of infinite possibilities, we thank you for the variety of blessings that we have received from your generous providence, including the gift of this Sunday, our weekly commemoration of the resurrection.

For the morning light that woke us, the water that bathed us, the breakfast that nourished us, and for the sights and sounds we experienced on the way to church.