Acts 4:32-35; John 20:19-31

In previous sermons and conversations around various tables with you I have told you that during my career as a teacher in England I worked with students who wore the label “EBD”. The letters “EBD” stand for “Emotional Behavioural Disorder”. These were kids, (my students were actually teenagers in years seven to eleven at school), whose disability was not physiological in that they had brain damage or a missing limb, but emotional in that they experienced mental illnesses or simply displayed anti-social or asocial behaviour. My students had been expelled from other schools because they had taken a gun to school, or had been involved in repeated fights, or were chronic non-attenders, or had been caught smoking and dealing marijuana to their classmates. In other words, “EBD” quite often stood for “every bloody day” because that is how often they were naughty in class (or not in class as the case may be). These weren’t the special children in wheelchairs you might feel sorry for; no, these were the special children who would spit at you because you wished them good morning, and for whom no one ever felt sorry.

In other words, these were children with a reputation, and specifically a reputation that they were each and every one of them irredeemable.

In today’s reading from the gospels we came across a man of irredeemably poor reputation, the apostle Thomas. When I say the name Thomas I am sure you don’t immediately think of the ambassador in chains, that apostle to the East who was the first man to live and die for the sake of the gospel in the lands of India. I am sure you aren’t immediately put in mind of the Thomas Christians who even to this day worship Christ across the subcontinent because of Thomas, and who have a tradition of faith that is as old as the Petrine and Pauline Christianities of Roman and European churches. No, when I say Thomas you say, “ah, Doubting Thomas”.  Poor Thomas.

Well, let’s have a look at that story and see whether history has been fair to him. The lectionary dumps us in John’s story of the twelve on the evening of Easter day, and the time when ten of the twelve, (plus some of the women no doubt), were gathered together in shell-shock. Jesus appears in their midst and these gathered disciples are given Christ’s divine authority as apostles, given the right and power to reveal Jesus and make him known to those who did not yet believe. Jesus delegated this holy power personally through his breathing on them and conferring the infilling of the Holy Spirit; we read that in John 20:22-23. There is no seven weeks wait for Pentecost according to John, this is the time, on Easter Sunday evening, when the Spirit is conferred and the ten are blessed with power from on high. The power they are given, (alongside the task of preaching for which they are empowered), is authority as power and the right of command over sin which they are authorised to forgive or not forgive. “Now that you have seen me again,” says Jesus, “and you know me as the risen one and have received the Holy Spirit, go and meet unbelief in the world with grace and enthusiasm.” That’s what they’ve been told to do: tell people that Jesus is LORD, proven by his resurrection, and help them to believe him and follow him as disciples. If the apostles speak of faith, then the rumour of God will be in the world and people will be able to respond; but if the apostles do not speak of faith then The Word will remain hidden and the people living in darkness will never have the opportunity to respond. The future of the Christian story, as we heard last Sunday in the story of the frightened women, is up to the witnesses of Christ. Jesus isn’t going to preach any more, the duty and authority to speak and to keep silent is up to them, the apostles.

Jesus made it quite clear: whether people live in the sin of unbelief or in the sun of understanding is up to us because we have the job of telling them the story which leads to hope and belief.

Now John 20:24 tells us that Thomas wasn’t there, so he missed out on the empowering sight of the risen Christ and the impartation of the Holy Spirit; it’s no wonder that he’s doubt filled. Thomas was where the other ten had been seven days earlier, they’d not believed the women returned from the tomb, so how can they judge him for not believing their story? They had seen Jesus, so how can they begrudge him the same evidentiary experience? And, most importantly, how ineffective must their preaching have been that Thomas was not convinced? Here are the apostles charged with all of the authority and resource of Heaven’s Christ to declare new life to the world, and they can’t even sell it to one of their own?

Psh, “doubting Thomas!” Gah, more like “dubious apostolic preaching from the other ten”.

When the resurrected one appears a week later and speaks to Thomas, Jesus does not breathe on him; rather, as written in John 20:27, Jesus addresses the area of Thomas’ unbelief which was Thomas’ desire to have touchable proof, as recorded in John 20:25. Thomas, having been offered the chance to put a finger in Jesus’ wounds, but without actually doing so, worships Jesus, recorded in John 20:28. Jesus’ words recorded in John 20:29 are probably not what he actually said to Thomas, after all Thomas has done more than the ten with the evidence he was given; more likely John later put these words in Jesus’ mouth as encouragement to those who read the gospel. Thomas is no more doubting than the ten, and a week later he worships Jesus as LORD which indicates to me that he was far more convinced, and therefore far less doubting of Jesus than the other ten.

No wonder it was Thomas who Jesus and the Holy Spirit sent to India, and it was less effective Peter and James whom Jesus left at home in Judea. As with my EBD-labelled kids in England reputations can be undeserved, but they stick once stuck, and they mislead terribly and label unfairly.

In both of our portions from the Jewish Traditions today, one of which comes from Acts 4 in that strange way the lectionary provides for our history lesson in the liturgical season of Easter, the theme is unity. Better said, the theme is the opportunities that congregations of believers provide for God to bless the world through our single-minded devotion to each other in The LORD’s name. Unity is not enough; I mean even as ten-against-one the ganged-up apostles still could not convince Thomas of the resurrection. So not only unity, but unity with devotion is what God requires. How good it is when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity we heard from Psalm 133:1. Now, the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul we read in Acts 4:32, such that with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and great grace was upon them we read in Acts 4:33. The spoken out witness of the apostles as individuals was supported by the lived out witness of the loving fellowship in which all lived, including the support of all from the common wealth of resources. Everyone has a bed under a roof, everyone has food and clothes enough, everyone has love and comfort as part of the family, everyone has encouragement and good cheer from the testimony of the others. No wonder they saw three thousand added to their number in one day, and others added daily because of the apostles’ testimony: who wouldn’t want to be part of such a loving community with a profound and delighted sense of hope in the world.

Thomas was part of that Acts 4 action, and then he went alone to India and spoke of Christ, and established a community of faith that is still thriving today.

So, what does this mean for us?

We must hear the message and take it to heart. Like Thomas we must believe and know that Jesus once dead has been raised by God in vindication of his message of the Kingdom of God, the forgiveness of sins, and the assurance of salvation.
We must proclaim the message and take God’s appointment to heart. Like Thomas we must go where God draws us and filled with the Spirit and the authority of God to do so we must proclaim the Kingdom of God, the forgiveness of sins, and the assurance of salvation.

Our evidence that the gospel is truth is that we have met the risen Christ. Like those who came after Thomas we have not seen Jesus in the flesh, but like Thomas we don’t have to touch the resurrected one to believe; we believe without seeing because we believe by having known Christ. The world’s best source of evidence that the gospel is truth is that we who have met the risen Christ live in harmony, unity, peace, and mutual enjoyment.

Where our reputation is one of love and peace the world will believe that we have the life-giving words of faith. Every.  Blessed.  Day.

Amen.