JOhn 20.19-31

Do you ever think that God might not be real? 

Or, have you ever thought that you may be wasting your time on Sunday morning’s with a child’s fairytale?  Is everything you’ve ever believed a lie?

Do you ever question if God loves you?

Do you ever sit back and think, “Is God really on a mystical throne somewhere beyond the expanses of space?” 

Or, “Is God even aware of me and what is going on in my life right now?”

Do you have doubts about what will happen when you die?

Or, have you ever questioned if the Bible is really God’s Word, or, if your name is really written on the palms of God’s hand, on God’s heart, and in the book of life in Heaven, like the Bible says it is?

If you have ever asked any of these questions or had similar doubts about God the Father, Jesus the Son, or the places of Heaven and Hell, you are not alone.  You are not alone with your questions and doubts in this room today.  And, you are not alone with your questions and doubts in the annals of the history of mankind.

Last weekend, we celebrated both Good Friday and Easter.

Good Friday and Easter were confusing.

Good Friday and Easter were wild.

But, Good Friday and Easter were also grace-driven, grace-filled, and glorious.

This morning, we are entering back into the Biblical narrative with a text from John’s biography of Jesus that was chosen for us by the lectionary.

John’s text tells us what happened on Easter night, and then 8 days after Easter, with Jesus’ disciples who were still feeling the effect of the confusion, the wildness, and the glory of Good Friday and Easter.  

Let’s hear together what happened immediately following Jesus’ resurrection.

John 20:19–31 tells us this:

[19] On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” [20] When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. [21] Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” [22] And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. [23] If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

[24] Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. [25] So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

[26] Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” [27] Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” [28] Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” [29] Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

[30] Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; [31] but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (ESV)

In the early 1950s teenage Lyle Dorsett and his family moved to Birmingham from Kansas City, Missouri. They were outsiders, often labeled Yankees by peers. But one summer evening in 1953, Dorsett was walking to his house after work and decided to take a shortcut through the campus of then-Howard College (now Samford University).

He was immediately intrigued by the sight he saw: a large tent on the football field featuring a magnetic preacher. As Dorsett drew near, he could hear evangelist Eddie Martin preaching on the parable of the prodigal son, calling other prodigals to come home. Dorsett said, “I knew I was the prodigal and … needed to come home.”

Martin asked those in attendance to return the next evening. Dorsett came early, and this time was seated near the front. When the call came, “the evangelist led me through a sinner’s prayer. I confessed my need for forgiveness. While being led in prayer, I strongly felt the presence of Jesus Christ. I sensed his love and forgiveness as well as his call to preach the gospel.”

Shortly thereafter, Dorsett and his parents joined a local Baptist church. However, 18 months later, Dorsett’s family moved back to Kansas City. On his return, gradually he drifted. During his time in college, he embraced a materialistic worldview. He received a Ph.D. in history but despite professional success, he began to drink heavily and became an alcoholic. His wife, Mary, who became a Christian after their marriage, began to pray.

One evening, he stormed out of the house after Mary asked him not to drink around the children. He found a bar and drank until closing. While driving up a winding mountain road, he stopped at an overlook and blacked out. The next morning, he woke up on a dirt road at the bottom of a mountain next to a cemetery not having any memory of the drive.

Dorsett cried out to God, “Lord, if you are there, please help me.” 

At that moment, he recognized that the same presence he had met in Birmingham was with him in the car and loved him. The prodigal son had finally, truly come home. He said, “Although I made countless mistakes, the Lord never gave up on me.”

God then called Dorsett to full-time ministry, ordination in the Anglican Church, and eventually to the Billy Graham Chair of Evangelism at Beeson Divinity School, Samford University, where he had first heard God’s call to preach.

He concludes,

“Over the years God has proved to be a gentle Comforter—like when my wife underwent massive surgery for cancer, and when our 10-year-old daughter died unexpectedly. Certainly, the most humbling and reassuring lesson is his persistence in drawing me to himself. And it was he who pursued me and sustained the relationship when I strayed in ignorant sheeplike fashion, doubted his existence, and then like the Prodigal Son deliberately moved to the far country. And it is all grace—unearned, undeserved, unrepayable grace.”

All of our hearts and minds are broken and corrupted by sin. 

Therefore, we all doubt. 

We doubt, like Thomas, if God is real.  

We doubt, like Thomas, if God loves us. 

We doubt, like Thomas, if Jesus is who he says he is—God in the flesh.

We doubt, like Thomas, if Jesus death on the cross can actually forgive our sin.

And, we doubt, like Thomas, if resurrection from the dead is possible.

You may have heard the lie that Christians NEVER doubt God’s existence or power or His Word, the Bible.  You may have been told that you don’t really have faith or trust in God if you raise questions about some of the facts found in the Bible and if find yourself confused from time to time.

It is a very sad reality that people leave their churches because of the way their honest doubts have been dismissed. Fuller Youth Institute (FYI) studied the spiritual progression of five hundred youth group graduates during their first three years of college. Kara Powell, FYI’s executive director, wrote that one of the main reasons Christian youth abandoned their faith after high school was because, at some point in their lives, they’d expressed doubts about what they’d been taught to believe. Instead of providing a safe place to process those uncertainties, well-meaning church leaders told them they shouldn’t even ask such questions in the first place. This led them to conclude that Christianity was a house of cards—the church couldn’t deal with their doubts, and neither could God.

Experiencing doubt can be incredibly scary—especially for Christians who grew up in an environment in which faith was understood to suggest absolute certainty. The message was clear: If you have doubts, it means that your faith is weak or that there is something wrong with you spiritually. In his book Authentically Emergent: In Search of a Truly Progressive Christianity, Dr. R. Scott Smith wrote, “In effect, we tell people to shut up, just take the biblical teaching (which, on some topics, may really just be our own strongly held opinions) at face value as fact and accept it by faith, as though that by itself is a virtue. But biblical faith is not a blind leap; it involves knowledge—that God has spoken and is trustworthy.”[3] False definitions of faith that are so often taught are based on a misunderstanding of the difference between unbelief and doubt. They are not the same thing. Unbelief is a decision of the will, but doubt tends to bubble up within the context of faith.

If more churches would welcome the honest questions of doubters and engage with the intellectual side of their faith, they would become safe places for those who experience doubt.

Today’s Biblical text shows us that Jesus’ grace-driven and grace-filled presence is a safe place for those of us that experience doubt.

Right now, in Jesus’ presence, you are in a safe place.  You are gathered together under one roof, just like the disciples, including Thomas on that second night, where God comes to you in the person and work of Jesus Christ to answer your questions and provide you with the proof you need to have peace today and peace forever.

The peace that Jesus brings to the disciples, with a special focus on Thomas, around the Easter event, is both imminent and transcendent. To say it another way, the peace that Jesus brings surrounding the Easter event is both for the here-and-now and for the eternal. It is a peace for today.  It is a peace for tomorrow. And, it is peace forever. 

The peace that Jesus brings to you is the peace that comes from knowing that Jesus is who he says he is. He is God wrapped in the flesh. He is the fulfillment of every last thing that is spoken about in the Holy Scriptures. And, He is able to do more than you can ask or imagine. 

We receive a divine peace that passes understanding because Jesus lets us know that His life, death, and resurrection was all accomplished so that we could be made right with God.

Here is the beautiful thing that is shared with us in this morning’s text:

Jesus’ care and concern for His followers is incredibly grace filled. 

Jesus knew Thomas’ doubts and questions before Thomas spoke them to Jesus.  So, Jesus preemptively calmed Thomas’ doubts and fears by giving Thomas what Thomas needed to be at peace—the ability to touch the once-again alive Jesus who was marked with the scars of crucifixion. 

And, Jesus’ care and concern for you is the same.  Matthew 6.8 tells you that “your Father in Heaven knows what you need before you ask him.”  God’s intimate knowledge of your life, that only your Creator could have, brings you peace because God is able to provide exactly what you need in moments of doubt.

Jesus knew every last fear that was causing anxiety for the disciples.  He knew every last question and point of confusion in Thomas’ mind. And in all of that, he went to meet them where they were.  He was persistent and pursued them out of love for them. They did not have to find Jesus. Jesus found them afraid, doubting, and hopeless and he gave them exactly what they needed to see, hear, and believe and in turn receive both the forgiveness for their sin and eternal life—Jesus gave them the holes in his hand and the hole in his side from crucifixion, and he gave them his physical presence after death, where he ate a piece of fish from their dinner plate to demonstrate his full bodily resurrection. 

Jesus’ care and concern for you this morning is incredibly grace filled. 

He knows every last fear that is causing anxiety for you.  He knows every last question and point of confusion in your mind. And in all of that, he comes to meet you where you are. Jesus is persistent and pursues you out of love for you. You do not have to find Jesus. Jesus find you. And, sometimes like the disciples in our text, Jesus finds you doubting, and hopeless and he gives you exactly what you need to see, hear, and believe and in turn receive both forgiveness for your sin and eternal life. In the Gospel, the Good News, the Word of God, the Bible, Jesus gives you the holes in his hand and the hole in his side from crucifixion, and he gives you his physical presence after death, to demonstrate his full bodily resurrection. 

In the room, the night of Easter, and in the room 8 days later with Thomas, Heaven met Earth for the disciples and they repented, believed, and moved out into the world sharing the good news of Jesus Christ alive, dead, and resurrected with the world around them so that others could receive the peace that Jesus offers through faith in Him.

Yes, Good Friday and Easter were confusing.

Yes, Good Friday and Easter were wild.

But, Good Friday and Easter were also grace-driven, grace-filled, and glorious.

Good Friday and Easter are the place where Jesus takes all of your sin and disobedience to God and gives you His perfect righteousness which makes you fully ready for life in God’s eternal Kingdom of Heaven.

In this morning’s text Jesus gives the disciples meaning and purpose for their lives when he says to them:

“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

Jesus also gives you this same meaning and purpose right now.

Jude, the writer of one of the letters in the New Testament part of the Bible, understands this all very well when he wrote this exhortation to the Christian Church during the 1st Century A.D. (or C.E. for you scholars out there):

[17] But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. [18] They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” [19] It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. [20] But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, [21] keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. [22] And have mercy on those who doubt; [23] save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. (Jude 17-23, ESV)

Let’s leave this room today, where God has gathered us, after the crucifixion and resurrection, so that Jesus can give us peace, with full readiness to head back out into the world to love others and as God has first loved us all while sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ that will rescue others from unbelief and doubt.

This is the Word of God for you today.

This is the Grace and Peace of God for you today.

Amen.

Pastor Fred Scragg

April 27, 2025

Prayer:

Merciful Father, 

We come to confess our incredible lack of faith in the reality of the resurrection. Like Thomas, we often live in defiant doubt of your resurrection, evidenced by our idolatrous and self-centered lives. It is shocking and almost inconceivable that you would allow your Son to bear the just and holy wrath that was reserved for us, even to the point of death. Yet you have sealed the promise of our forgiveness and perfect salvation by raising him from the grave, victorious over death and hell itself. This amazing truth is what we have doubted. Forgive us, Lord, for this abuse of your priceless gift. We confess that when we sin with our bodies, minds, and spirits, we live as though Christ never left the tomb. We live in the deadness of our flesh as though you too are dead. Deliver us from this living death, we pray. 

Suffering, victorious Savior,

you never doubted your Father. Even as you experienced the agony of being abandoned by him on the cross, you trusted your Father to keep his promise to you and raise you from the dead. Now your perfect faith is ours, and we live confidently in the joy of your obedience credited to us. Although we walk through this life as poor, wretched, and needy sinners, we are clothed with your goodness, and we are participants in your endless victory over death. 

Powerful Holy Spirit, 

help us to be children who live by faith, and not by sight. Impress upon us the reality of what we cannot see—Jesus’ hands in heaven, forever bearing scars that proclaim that the punishment of our sins has been paid in full. Transform us into people who do not doubt you. Help us to believe firmly in the power of the cross. Strengthen us to become people of growing faith who hate our sin and run from it until love’s redeeming work is completely finished. Raise our joys and triumphs high as we wait for that day when we will follow where Christ has led, be made like him, and worship our risen Savior forever. Amen.