John 20:24
St. Thomas’ Day, Apostle & Martyr/Advent 4, Hope-Leander TX
“MY LORD AND MY GOD”
Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus: We thank You for calling us so that we may be Your own. We also thank You for calling Thomas. If You brought him, despite his doubts, to confess You as his God and Lord, and to be a great missionary filled with deathless courage, You can also keep us in faith to the end, so that we bravely confess You and stay with You. As You came back to Thomas, continue to come to us and so let our faith and conscience rest in Your wounds. Amen!
Sermon Text, St. John 20:24-29. Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blesséd are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. Make us Yours by means of the truth. Your Word is truth. Amen!
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ, who is Himself our peace: Grace and peace be unto you from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Saints’ days appear with their dates on the calendar because it’s believed that this person died on that date. So today, December 21, is St. Thomas the Apostle’s Day because it’s believed that he died on December 21 in the year 72 A.D. This puts it just 4 days before Christmas. It also puts it right around the date for the winter solstice, the day with the least daylight the whole year.
Some church traditions have re-assigned St. Thomas’ Day to a date in July, to take it out of Advent. Is it because it’s uncomfortable to talk about martyrdom right before Christmas, or that this Easter text seems out of season, or that this would take attention away from Christ and Christmas?
But really, what could be more Christmas-y than to learn from Thomas to say of Jesus, who comes as a Baby: “[This is] my Lord and my God!”
But how we get there with Thomas is the interesting part. It’s a bumpy road. It’s rough. It isn’t pretty. If Thomas’ story were your story, you might feel embarrassed or ashamed. His big scene in the gospels is one where he doesn’t look good. Imagine if that was all anyone saw of you, and heard Jesus rebuking you about needing to see first in order to believe. Wouldn’t you want to hide that. You might want to pay John not to put that in his gospel.
He’s known as “doubting Thomas,” from this text in John 20. And speaking of winter solstice and the least amount of sunlight, Thomas is in the dark here; the light of Jesus’ resurrection isn’t shining on him, Thomas won’t let it.
The background to this is that Thomas wasn’t with the other ten apostles the day Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them. It says they “rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” They had joy, he didn’t. They told him, “We have seen the Lord!” – inviting him to have this same joy. He refused to believe it, he dismissed their “good news.” How sad it must have been for them! It couldn’t be dark for him without a gloom descending on them too.
You have to be impressed with the ten, they wouldn’t give up on Thomas but made sure he was with them the following Sunday, when Jesus again appeared to them. I think John must have been the one leading this effort; he and Thomas grew up in the same town, were both fishermen, and where Thomas has a few scenes in the gospels, it’s in John. John highlights Thomas.
Thomas’ words show the problem with his faith. Faith lives from the promises, as we hear in Romans 8: “Hope that is seen is not hope.” Instead of trusting what it sees, faith trusts God’s promise, that which it doesn’t see. But Thomas says instead: “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” The “unless” is the troubling part. Thomas demands proof. He makes his faith conditional. “Unless this happens, I will not believe. If … then I will believe. If not, then I won’t.”Thomas says, “I will not believe.”
So it seems Thomas is without faith at this point, and so also without hope. This is such a darkness, such a gloom and pessimism. Dear Christian, do you find that this washes over you sometimes? The Thomas story is important to learn what this is. It isn’t what it seems. It’s tempting to draw big conclusions about Thomas, such as “he didn’t have faith anymore,” just as it’s tempting to draw big conclusions about whether you have faith – or good enough faith –when you feel this gloom or you have doubts. So you condemn yourself for not believing better. What you’ve said in the midst of a struggle can terrify you later, as Thomas’ “unless …” statement surely troubled him later.
But that’s not actually what’s going on. Do you think Thomas wanted to not believe Jesus was alive? He wanted desperately to believe it. That’s why he said things so strongly. That’s where the emotion came from. This wasn’t a faith crisis, as much as it was a temptation crisis. He was being tempted.
Martin Luther talks about this in the Large Catechism, under “Lead us not into temptation.” He says the temptation particular to Christians, to people who are concerned about their spiritual life, people to whom their faith matters, is this kind of despair or doubt being seen in Thomas. In other words, being tempted about your faith only comes because you HAVE faith! It’s not that you don’t have faith, or are losing it; this temptation proves that you do have it; otherwise the devil wouldn’t be tempting you this way.
There is a happy ending in the Thomas story. Jesus didn’t leave Thomas this way. He came back a week later just for Thomas.
What Jesus didn’t do was say, “Well, that’s too weak of a faith and you will just have to believe in Me before I show you My hands and My side.” No, Jesus first addresses the entire group now including Thomas with the same words He had said to the 10 apostles on Easter Sunday, “Peace to you!” – since it’s due to the devil’s attacks that Thomas – or anyone – lacks peace in the conscience.
Jesus then addressed Thomas individually. He shows him the wounds. This is what defeats the devil, every time: to rest in His wounds. “Reach your finger here,” Jesus said, holding out His hands with the nail marks; and, “Reach your hand here,” pointing to the spear wound.
Jesus shows that He is God, for He is all-knowing and shows in His words that He knew what Thomas had said. Jesus has Thomas not only see Him as Man, in His crucified and risen body – that was all Thomas asked – but Jesus did more: He tells Thomas to touch Jesus’ body in the very place where He was wounded for our transgressions. Jesus shows him His wounds; then comes Thomas’ “my Lord and my God” faith.
What would we do without the Thomas story? We see that the true faith is not faith in some pretend or idealized Jesus but the real Jesus, the real God, who really became a real flesh-and-blood Man, who really was born of a virgin in a humble stall, who really shed His blood and died, and really rose.
So also Jesus is not looking at you as some pretend sinner or idealized Christian, but He sees you as He saw Thomas, a real sinner with real trouble believing sometimes – being under attack by the devil – and as He came back for Thomas He comes back for you. So faith doesn’t come from us. It can’t. Victory over temptation doesn’t come by our own power. It comes from resting in Jesus’ wounds and is kept that way. Where does He show us His wounds? In His Word, the unconditional Gospel; and in His Supper as He gives His body with these tokens of His Passion, and His blood to drink for cleansing.
All of this is a very orderly way of thinking about it. But the devil throws us into chaos in our struggles to believe. You can feel like the wandering soul that Thomas was during that week. You can feel that you’ve utterly failed the Lord. Your conscience is like a ship being tossed around at sea.
It isn’t that you don’t have faith. Like Thomas you’re being tempted.
What do you need? You need for Jesus to come back for you too. The good news is that He does so, whenever His Word is preached and His Sacrament is being given for you to receive. It is Jesus Himself, very God and very Man, who comes to you. Imagine that! We can believe that Thomas was important enough, Jesus needed him as one of the apostles. But are you that important? The preaching of His Word, the giving of His Supper, says yes. The same risen Jesus who came to Thomas and showed him His wounds, is the same risen Jesus who comes to you to join you to His body and cleanse you with His blood. He wants you to rest in His wounds, and receive peace for your conscience; and to hide in His wounds, where you are totally safe.
The other thing you need is your brothers and sisters in Christ. Satan tries to catch you alone. Then he can make your fears worse, your sadness more debilitating, your guilt into a mountain. When Christ calls you individually, you are being put into an “us,” into His Church. He puts you with others for whom faith is a struggle, who desire God’s forgiveness, and know where to receive His forgiveness and find joy. When you’re in need spiritually, reach out to your brothers and sisters in Christ; and do the simple thing: come to church. We can all tell each other where to come see the Lord and receive joy.
His Church is also going somewhere together. Many histories outside the Bible tell us what happened to Thomas. He went to Babylon and then to India, already at the time of Paul’s first missionary journey! He was in India more than 20 years. He built many churches; and finally, his preaching – not with any uncertainty about Jesus – caused someone to run him through with a spear. They only sent him to Jesus. That’s where Christians are going.
By coming back for Thomas that day, Jesus had restored him to the fellowship, His Church, His forever kingdom. You and I are restored to this fellowship constantly through the Gospel. We have the same confession of faith. We say with Thomas, to Jesus, “My Lord and my God.” Amen!