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Sermons:

• Peace Be to You,  John 20:19-31, by Rev. Dr. Cynthia Huling Hummel      (see below)
   
• From the 12 Apostles Sermon Series:
   Thomas, the Doubter, or the Brave? John 20:19-31, by Rev. Frank Schaefer
   
• Proof of Life  John 20:19-31, Rev. Karen Goltz
   

• Dealing with Doubt John 20:19-29, by Dr. David Rogne
   

• Where Were You on Good Friday? John 20:19-31, by Rev. Randy L Quinn
   

• No interview John 20:19-31, by Thomas Hall
   

• What a Fellowship! Acts 4:32-35, by Rev. Thomas Hall, 1 John 1-2:1
   

• Doubting or Courageous Thomas? John 20:19-31. by Susan Russel
   

• Believing is Seeing, John 20:19-31, by HW in HI
   

• Taking Doubts to Christ, John 20:19-31, by annonymous

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Peace Be to You
based on John 20:19-31
by Rev. Dr. Cynthia Huling Hummel

One of the things that surprised me when I moved to a small town in upstate New York,  was how many people I’ve met who don’t lock their doors.  It is not at all unusual for someone to say to me,  “Well, Pastor if we’re not home when you get there, just go on in and sit down.  There’s some cold pop in the frig.  So help yourself. And please help yourself to the cookies on the kitchen counter, too.”

I remember going over to a church member’s house not so long ago.  She  told me that she may or may not be home, but that the door would be open.  I had something that I didn’t want to leave outside in the rain and so I tried the door and sure enough it was unlocked.  Not only did I walk in the back door, but her  “watchdog” nearly licked me to death.  Even thinking about that unlocked door gives me the willies.  Imagine, I just walked into that house. 

I’m just not used to unlocked doors. It’s probably because I’m from NJ: the “locked door state”.  When I lived there, we had not one, not two, but three locks on most of the doors to our house.  There was the regular lock that was part of the doorknob.  But we also installed a dead bolt in case someone jimmied the first lock.  And we also installed a chain, so you could open the door a little, but still be safe.  But that wasn’t all.  We also had a peep hole too, so that we wouldn’t have to unlock the door to see who was there.  But there’s more!  We also installed one of those motion lights that come on if anyone approaches the door.  We decided, if we were going to be robbed that we weren’t going to make it easy for the intruder! We’d make them work for it.. 

To this day, I have a  nightly door locking ritual.  I usually check the doors more than once, because I can’t remember if Iocked them or not.  You know how that is.  You’re lying in bed  thinking, “Did I or didn’t I?”  And finally you just get up to check to see if the door is locked, because you cant fall asleep worrying about it.   Now some people might think I’m paranoid- who knows, maybe I  am. But not without cause.  I’ve been robbed.  So thank goodness for locks.  Yes, locked doors give us a great sense of security. 

The reading that we’ve just heard from John’s gospel, the lectionary reading for the day is about locked doors and locked hearts.  It’s about doubt and it’s about faith.  Let’s spend some time together discovering what the text has to say to us about living our lives in doubt and in faithfulness.  John tells us that it was evening on “that day- the first day of the week”.  In other words it was Easter night.  It had been a long and difficult weekend of pain and loss.  Jesus had been crucified and buried on Friday.  That morning, Mary had discovered the tomb empty and she ran to tell Peter and the others and described how she had seen Jesus.  Jesus had even called out her name.  It was all too strange and too wonderful and so difficult to even begin to comprehend. 

But one thing the disciples knew for certain was their fear.  They has seen what had happened to Jesus and were terrified of what might happen to them  and so they hid.  They locked themselves away because they were afraid of what the Jewish authorities might do.  Yes, the doors were locked and the disciples  were locked in fear.   And it’s precisely then, that Jesus comes to them.  He knows that they are terrified and he comes  through the locked doors to unlock their fear and their faith.  And so one of the first questions that comes to us is: What is it that you and I are fearful of?  Where in our lives are we feeling that we are locked up or locked out?  Maybe we’re locked into a bad relationship or locked into a dead end job.  Or perhaps you are deadlocked in an addiction.  And perhaps we’ve locked someone out of our lives who wants to help us.  Where is it that we need Jesus to enter and to bring us peace?  Jesus has the power to unlock our fears!  We need only ask!

When Jesus enters, he greets his disciples with the peace and he shows them his hands and his side.  And when the disciples see these things, they recognize and rejoice,  because they realize who it is!  They have this incredible “aha” moment when Jesus’ resurrection is made real to them.  Isn’t it interesting that Jesus doesn’t come to them healed.  Jesus comes to them wounded.   His resurrection did not erase or eradicate his scars.  Jesus comes to his followers, with the scars of his Good Friday experience.  And He is known to them by his scars.  Jesus is the wounded healer who comes to bring them peace and healing. 

 I’ve been thinking about each of us and the scars that we each carry.  Some of the scars are on the outside and some are on the inside.  I would say most of us, have known the pain of a “good Friday experience in our lives” and we can’t erase those experiences that have wounded  us deeply.  But somehow with God’s help and the help of others, we get to our Easter and to our resurrection experience .  Yes, each of us is scarred.  We carry the memories of where we’ve been and what we’ve been through.  If we can learn to live with our scars, we may discover that they can bless us in some unexpected way.  Our scars are part of who we are and whose we are.  And in spite of our brokenness, we can be whole people of God. 

             I was thinking about “Megan” who discovered a few years ago, that she had breast cancer.  She had a double mastectomy, chemo and radiation.  It was devastating. Well Megan recently celebrated a special anniversary as a cancer survivor and she visits other women who are facing the same diagnosis she faced.  She shows them her scars and brings them hope and healing.   Megan remembers the pain of her Good Friday  and the joy of her Easter.

            Jesus entered into the locked room where the disciples were hiding.  He unlocked their fear and he commissioned them with something as simple as his breath.  He breathed God’s Holy Spirit into them  and gave them the power to forgive or retain sins.  Unlike the account that we hear in Luke /Acts, they receive God’s Holy Sprit that first Easter evening.  The disciples through their experience of seeing Jesus and experiencing this spirit-filled event- moved  from fear to faith.  Well all but one.  Thomas wasn’t  there on that Easter evening and Thomas wasn’t gonna buy it.  And because Thomas questioned the others, he has been nicknamed doubting Thomas, as if it were a bad thing to have doubts.

            I  think that we’ve been too hard on Thomas all these years.  I think that maybe a better way to frame the story is to consider that the story of Thomas is a story that encourages us to ask our questions.  It’s okay to express our doubts.  Someone once said that open doubts make for open minds and opened doors.  It is good and even healthy to express our confusion and our uncertainties and maybe one place that it should be encouraged is the church.  I think of that wonderful gospel hymn: Just as I am though tossed about,  with many a conflict, many a doubt.  Fighting’s and fears within, without.  O lamb of God I come, I come! 

Some who have doubted have changed the course of history and have brought us truth.  Look at Galileo, who doubted that the earth was at the center of the universe.  I love Thomas  because he asks for what he needs to move forward in his faith journey.  Thomas speaks up.  He says, “I need to touch Jesus’ wounds to believe.”  I don’t think that Thomas should be a pariah, but a role model for all of us in the faith community.  What’s really interesting is that Jesus returns so that Thomas can have the same experience that the others had.  And it appears from the gospel account that that is precisely why Jesus came again: to help Thomas move from doubt to faith. 

What doubts do you have?  What questions of faith are you wrestling with?  Maybe we need to be more like Thomas and ask for what we need that will move us along that doubt/faith spectrum!  When Thomas touches Jesus and believes, Jesus says to him, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to believe.”  It is not a put down, but a reality.  Those folks are indeed blessed. 

            Finally, John tells us that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples and not all of them were written down.  But these things were written so that we might come to believe in the Lordship of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God- that though believing, that we all might have life in his name!   Yes, Jesus came through the locked doors to unlock the disciples fear.  He breathed God’s peace upon them  and commissioned them.  And Jesus returned again, like the shepherd looking for the lost sheep, like the woman looking for her lost coin, like the Father looking for the prodigal, Jesus came to Thomas that he might not be left behind , but would be able to experience the joy of the resurrection experience.  Amen!