Do we have anybody here from Missouri here today?  Maybe you were born there?  Well, that’s good because I was going to make a comment about people fro Missouri.  You know, they kind of get branded with something, don’t they?  They get branded with a slogan.  How many of you know what people from Missouri are famous for?  Show-Me, the Show-Me state!  Do I have anybody here from Texas?  Is Wes here this morning?  Hi there!  Texas—and what is Texas known for?  Everything’s “bigger” in Texas.  That’s right!  Except one guy that I dated; he tried, had a big 10-gallon hat.  There is a story told about a Texas rancher.  He wasn’t actually from Texas; he was from New York.  And he wanted to make sure that he had the nuances of the culture so he went down there and he had his own ranch.  He said, “You know, if everything is bigger in Texas, I probably need a bigger ranch.”  So he started accumulating different property and ranches and eventually he merged ten ranches into his and had this huge, big spread.  A friend of his went down and said, “Wow, you must have a lot of cattle.”  He said, “Well, no not really.  You see, not many survive the branding with Broken Arrow, Crooked Creek, Bar-O, etc. etc. etc.”  Branding—branding is something that even economics has gotten in to.  Brand names—how many remember Elsie?  Yeah, Borden!  Well, Elsie is an example of a time gone by now.  See, Borden didn’t do so well with Elsie.  They didn’t adapt Elsie to the new times.  And so you don’t see Elsie too often now unless you are one of those who is given to nostalgia. 

            Something happened to Thomas.  He had to choose—would he be transformed or would he stay the same?  Let’s read the Scripture this morning that comes to us out of the Gospel according to John beginning with verse 19.  Here these words, “When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, (this is Easter—Easter evening, first day of the week) and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews.  Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you’.  And after he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.  And then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’  And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven then.  And if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”  

            But Thomas wasn’t there.  Thomas was out of the room.  Thomas was who knows where?  Last night I said, you know, I like to think he was visiting Lazarus.  He said, “You know, Lazarus, you got called out of the grave and Jesus told us that he was going to resurrect.”  That was, maybe, one of the closest things they had of a concept.  I don’t know that was where Thomas was; I just know he was not with the disciples in the Upper Room.  And I also know, perhaps as well as you, that some folks deal differently with grief than other folks.  And there is no wrong way to deal with grief.  Thomas may have been like some of us, a private person, and he couldn’t be with a lot of people right after three days of witnessing what had happened to his leader when it happened to the one he loved.   

            “But Thomas (who was called the Twin, one of the twelve) was not with them when Jesus came.” And so he is dependant upon these other disciples.  “So the disciples told him, ‘We’ve seen the Lord!’  But he said to them,” (as one from Missouri might say), “unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and I put my finger in his side, I will not believe.  A week later…”  What happened in that week—those seven days?  It reminds me, this Scripture does, of when we fast forward or when a soap opera or when a drama happens on TV and immediately it’s the next scene and you are thinking, “Now just a few minutes ago they were in the hospital and now they are up walking around”!  That’s what happened!  We don’t have it.  From one period to the next sentence there is a week gone.  Do you ever feel like that?  I think sometimes in the throes of grief we lose time.  I know I do.  Have you had that experience?   

            “A week later his disciples were again in the house and Thomas was with them.”  See they were meeting, as became their custom, on the first day of the week for worship in a house church.  And Thomas was there.  “Although the doors were shut,” (read that “locked”) “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you’.  And then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and look at my hands; then reach out your hand and put it in my side.  Do not doubt, but believe.’  And Thomas answered him” (and this is the only explicit confession found in the 4^th Gospel of who Jesus is.  And what does Thomas say?   “My Lord and my God!  Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blesses are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  Any body here like that? 

            Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book.  But these are written; these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God and that through believing you may have life in his name.  I love that phrase, “that you may come to believe”.  How do most of us get anywhere?  Little by little, just like Channing; we get there little by little.  Either somebody else carries us or we take baby steps.  Before we run, we learn to walk; before we walk, we learn to crawl.  Very few of us came to a place where we have yet 101% pure “ivory soap” faith—all the time, steadfast, filling on the top.  I think ivory soap is like 99.8%; we might have that. 

Most of us have experiences though like Thomas.  We feel like we are out of the room when something happens and we miss the answer to the question.  In fact, in religious circles and our language of faith we probably don’t say three words enough.  We don’t say, “I don’t know”.  We’d rather have all the answers.  And we know Jesus is the answer, but when someone confronts us with a question too often about faith, we feel that I just don’t know that.  I don’t know.   I hope you like a preacher that sometimes can say, “I don’t know”.  See, I have a certainty that’s not failing.  I know who my heart believes, as the song says, but I know that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him. 

But I’ve got to confess, as much as I try, there are a few things in my life (maybe you’ve had this experience) that you haven’t quite given over.  That you haven’t quite committed.  And sometimes that comes up to you in your daily talk and you say, “Well, I thought I’d given that up to you Lord, but I guess not because that is still very important to me.”  And when do those kinds of instances come up?  Well, it comes up for us like it did for Thomas.  Thomas says, “I’ve got to see it to believe it.”  And when Jesus walks into the room, he doesn’t say, “Why do you all need to see my nails, friends?  Why do you need to see my side?”  He doesn’t chastise them; he doesn’t say, “It’s ok.  I know.”  Nor does he swagger in. He doesn’t swagger in and say, “I told you I would be back.”  He doesn’t say, “Why didn’t you believe me?”  He instead says to Thomas, “Hi, how are you.”  He makes communion with Thomas, the one that we know as what?—the doubter.  Why do you think of all the things that John could have written that he picked out Thomas?  But he didn’t!  You notice a few verses before this, the other disciples didn’t confess Jesus until they also saw the marks and the side.  Thomas kind of gets a rap here and we carry that forward. 

But I want to also show you that Thomas, like the rest of us, came to faith.  This was his crowning moment.  Thomas changed; Thomas was transformed in this moment.  John, Chapter 11, tells us that Thomas was one of those who, when Jesus was ready to go to Bethany and called Lazarus out of that grave, Thomas was not like the rest of the disciples.  The rest of the disciples they were all going, “Oh, Jesus, don’t go.  We know they are going to try and stone you.  Your life will be in danger.”  Thomas was the one, not Peter, Thomas jumped up and said, “Let’s go with him and die!”  Well, you could question his courage, you could question his impulse, but you can not question his loyalty.  He wanted to be with Jesus to the end.

            And that’s the Thomas that is in John 11.  And then there is John 14 where Jesus, right before he prays for the disciples, there is the Thomas that when Jesus is giving his explanation as to where he is going and he says to the disciples, “I’ve said these things when I am with you so that when I am gone you will remember them.  And you know that I go to prepare a place for you.”  And the other disciples are like many of us in church going, “Oh yeah, right.  Yeah, got that.”  Thomas says, “You know, I don’t know.  I don’t know!” Be honest!  “I don’t know where you are going Lord.  Am I supposed to?  But I think I need a remedial course.  I don’t remember.  I never knew.  How many times would it make our gospel perhaps a little bit easier for folks to grasp if we said, “I have an inkling.  I can tell you what I believe, but I’m not exactly sure about that particular issue and where God might work in your life in that particular issue.” 

Because though God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, he does things somewhat differently.  Because look at us.  I mean, if we have any question about how God does things differently, look at us!  I don’t have a twin here, I don’t think.  Do you have a twin?  But even a twin is a little different, their personality.  And sometimes we see that God does things because he knows who we are.  There is uniqueness to us.  And there was uniqueness to Thomas.  Thomas, the one who stood aside from the disciples.  This wasn’t the first time that he stood aside.  But it was because he stood aside that his words, “My Lord and my God,” explicitly confess who Jesus is.  One week, just like Mary did when she saw Jesus in the garden, an instant of recognition and he is pointed out. 

Why is it that when we have unresolved issues of faith and belief that we can not admit them?  When we are alone and feeling lonely, when we are afraid and locked behind doors if not physically in our spirit because we are afraid, that’s what we do.  We are like the disciples, we are afraid of being challenged, when we are afraid of having to change, when we are afraid of having to adapt ourselves to different ways of life.  Many times we become isolated and we cut ourselves off.  And why do we lock our doors at night?  Because we are afraid!  When we are confused, when we feel unloved, we need revitalization.  We know that only God can help us in those times.  Or maybe we don’t know that. 

I want you to think this morning, as I asked you during the prayer time, where did you see Jesus in a new way this week?  Ask yourselves in the next seven days, where would I like to be transformed?  And what fear that I am holding on to that I haven’t admitted that I need to see God in?  What crisis in my life is there that I need to witness some transformation?  Where do I need stability and direction that only God can give?  And where do I need for Jesus to come to me not so I can touch his foot and his hand, but where do I need Jesus to come into my life so that I too might say, “My Lord and my God”.  Where am I experiencing unbelief that He is able to keep that?  Where do I expect Jesus to transform my life?  What in my life needs transforming? 

That’s the question that Thomas leaves with us.  A sense of wonder; a sense of unknowing what the next question might be.  He only knows that Jesus has asked him to go and tell.  So go tell, go tell.  Not all tell, not Nextel—go tell.  You too are being sent.  You can be a transforming influence.  The question is, “Will you be?”  Amen and Amen

E-mail Comments to: Pastor Nancy Blevins

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