Questions – How Do I Know?
John 20:19-21
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
April 4, 2010 – Easter

Note to reader: This is a manuscript and not a transcript.  While I prepare a manuscript, I don’t preach from it.  All the major points are here, but there are bound to be some small differences from the sermon as it was preached live.  Also, expect some “bonus” material that wasn’t in the live sermon.

Christ is risen, Friends!

That is crazy!  Does anybody wake up from time to time and ask yourself, “Do I really believe that Jesus raised from the dead?”  I’ve been to a lot of funerals, and I’ve seen a lot of people buried in the ground, and once the coffin shuts, they don’t come back up, but here we are on Easter claiming that Jesus did just that: raise from the dead.

Today we begin a series called Questions.  The idea for this series was born out of a conversation I had with the youth of our church.  On the first day that Sarah and I were introduced to SCC, we visited StuRev, the youth meeting at SCC.  I asked the students that day, “What questions do you have about Christianity?”  I didn’t have time that day to answer them, but I wanted to hear what kinds of things they were thinking about.  It was a pretty incredible conversation. In fact, Sarah and I left our first visit of SCC super excited about the church, but even more so about the youth of the church!

So that day we kept track of the questions, and I’ve chosen three of those questions to answer over the next several weeks.  They are: How do I know?  What’s up with heaven and hell?  And why do I keep sinning?  On the fourth Sunday of the series, I’ll be answering questions that you all submit over the next three weeks.

To begin each message, I’ve asked a teenager to make a video asking the question.  They aren’t necessarily the teenager who originally asked the question, but I think they’re broad enough questions that most of us probably have asked them at one point or are asking them now.

So how do you know that Jesus was who the Bible says he was?  Great question.  One I ask myself quite often.  I suspect many of you are asking the very same question this morning.  Maybe you’ve been coming to SCC for many years or maybe you’re here this morning because your mom likes you to come to church on Easter, but if you’re asking this question about how you know, then you’re in good company.   You’re in good company because I, myself, ask this question almost every day, and you’re in good company because just about every person in the story we’ll hear this morning wasn’t so certain about this resurrection thing.  So let’s get to the story.

John 20:19-29 (NLT)

¹⁹ That evening, on the first day of the week, the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. ²⁰ As he spoke, he held out his hands for them to see, and he showed them his side. They were filled with joy when they saw their Lord! ²¹ He spoke to them again and said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  ²² Then he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  ²³ If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you refuse to forgive them, they are unforgiven.”

²⁴ One of the disciples, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin ), was not with the others when Jesus came. ²⁵ They told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he replied, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.”

²⁶ Eight days later the disciples were together again, and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were locked; but suddenly, as before, Jesus was standing among them. He said, “Peace be with you.”  ²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Put your hand into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!”

²⁸ “My Lord and my God!” Thomas exclaimed.

²⁹ Then Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who haven’t seen me and believe anyway.”

This is God’s story for us today.  Thank you, God!

The last line of that story always gets under my skin.  It almost always irritates me.  Jesus tells Thomas, “You believe because you have seen me.  Blessed are those who haven’t seen me and believe anyway.”  Come on Jesus, is this a joke?!  I wonder if it’s a joke because pretty much all of Jesus’ followers had to see him to believe that he was raised from the dead.  And we’re expected to do something that even they couldn’t do!?  You’re blessing those of us who haven’t seen you and have believed when none of your closest followers could do that?  Come on Jesus, you’ve got to be kidding.  Can we get a different blessing?

If we go back to the beginning of the chapter we find that Mary Magdalene had to see Jesus to believe him.  When she shows up at the tomb the day of his resurrection she finds it empty.

We read that “She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, ‘They have taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb, and I don’t know where they have put him!’” (John 20:2, NLT).  Mary thought that Jesus’ enemies had stolen his body.  She had to see Jesus before she would believe, and blessed are those who have not seen and have believed?  Come on, Jesus!

Then there’s Peter and John.  They show up at the tomb at about the same time.  We read first about Peter, “Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there…for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead” (John 20:6 & 9, NRSV).  Peter saw that the tomb was empty, saw Jesus’ burial linens laying on the ground, and he didn’t believe.  Peter had to see in order to believe, and blessed are those who have not seen and have believed?  Come on, Jesus!

John fares a little better in this story.  He shows up with Peter at the tomb and we read that “the other disciple [John] also went in, and he saw and believed” (John 20:8, NLT).  This is sounding pretty good.  Maybe at least some of us can believe without seeing, but John’s believing goes downhill from here.  He too is gathered with the disciples locked in a room for fear of the Jewish leaders.  So much for his belief, and blessed are those who have not seen and have believed?  Come on, Jesus!

Lastly, there’s Thomas.  You know Thomas is always called “Doubting Thomas,” but did you notice that the story never actually used the word “doubt”?  He simply stated what he would need in order to believe.  Doesn’t Thomas simply say what everyone else is thinking?  I need to see in order to believe.  He says, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side” (John 20:25, NLT).  Thomas wants to see for himself before he will believe.

We read Thomas wasn’t there with the rest of Jesus’ followers when Jesus first shows up.  Why not?  Why wasn’t Thomas there?  John doesn’t tell us what Thomas’ motivations were, but I like to imagine why Thomas might not have been there.  I imagine that Thomas probably figured the game was up.  Jesus had been crucified, and his bluff was shown for what it really was: a bluff.  Jesus was no more a revolutionary than any of the rest of us. He was just an average human being who wasn’t able to save anyone, let alone the entire nation of Israel from the oppression of the Roman Empire.  Thomas figured he had seen Jesus for who he really was, and that meant the whole thing was done.  I wonder if Thomas didn’t just go back to his day job.  Forget the other followers of Jesus.  Bills need to be paid.  Family needs have built up.  Time for the real world.

So when the disciples tell Thomas that they have seen Jesus, Thomas naturally wants some proof.  Wow!  Proof he got!  A spark of curiosity in Thomas brought him back to see for himself, and boy did he see.  His uncertainty about the whole thing diminishes when he sees Jesus and gets the proof that he is looking for.

In one sense I am comforted by Jesus’ response to Thomas.  Jesus shows Thomas mercy.  He doesn’t berate him for wanting to see.  He gives him what he needs.  I wonder if Jesus’ blessing to us who have not seen isn’t also a kind of mercy that Jesus shows us.  Surely he recognizes the problem or he wouldn’t have offered the blessing in the first place.  Surely Jesus sees the problem that each of us are in who have not seen and yet have believed or he would not have blessed us too.  Surely Jesus knows the uncertainty we feel and meets that uncertainty with mercy.

In my own spiritual journey I have come to recognize a distinction between uncertainty and doubt that I think is helpful here.  Uncertainty is the state of being human.  To be human is to have finite knowledge.  To be human is to have uncertain knowledge.  If you are human uncertainty never goes away because your knowledge is always limited.  None of us is omniscient, knowing everything.

I used to wrestle more with this state of uncertainty because I would look at science and think, “Now there’s certainty in knowledge.”  But as I reflected further upon scientific knowledge and learned more, I recognized that even science is uncertain.  You can see this just in the development of scientific theory.  First, we began with Newtonian physics.  For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.  But then Albert Einstein came along and introduced the theory of relativity.  The speed of light is always constant and time is relative.  Time is relative? That always blows my mind.  Our ideas about cause and effect just got a lot messier.  Einstein’s theory of relativity is pretty cool but recently quantum mechanics has been taking the stage.  Interestingly enough there’s a principle in quantum mechanics called “The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.”  What we’ve come to notice is that in the subatomic field, we can know either a particle’s speed or direction but not both.  The more we know about one, the less we know about the other.  Einstein was so disturbed by this idea that he felt like it was claiming that God rolls dice with the universe.

So here’s my point.  Scientific knowledge is always finite knowledge.  Our theories of how the universe works are always being updated.  They’re always not quite right.  As we seek to describe reality, we are always reforming our ideas and our language about how to describe it.  Not even scientific knowledge is 100% certain.

So what do we do with this uncertainty?  My own experience with uncertainty is that sometimes I experience it more, and sometimes I experience it less, but it is always at least in the background.  Here’s where doubt comes in.  Doubt is one possible response to uncertainty.  The other is faith.  In the face of uncertainty, we can choose not to act or commit and that’s called doubt, or we can choose to act and commit and that’s called faith.  Doubt is one of two options each of us has in the face of uncertainty.  Unlike uncertainty, doubt can go away as our faith strengthens and grows.

“So you’re telling me that I’ll never be 100% certain about Jesus?”  Yes.  But that doesn’t mean you will always doubt.  Your faith can grow and in the face of uncertainty, you can and will respond more and more in faith rather than doubt.

John Wesley spoke of this very same thing in a sermon he wrote over 200 years ago.  He says:

But how can unbelief be in a believer?” That word has two meanings. It means either no faith, or little faith; either the absence of faith or the weakness of it. In the former sense, unbelief is not in a believer; in the latter, it is in all babes. Their faith is commonly mixed with doubt or fear; that is, in the latter sense, with unbelief. “Why are ye fearful,” says our Lord, “O ye of little faith?” Again: “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” You see here was unbelief in believers; little faith and much unbelief (On Sin in Believers).

Basically what Wesley is saying is that when you are a new Christian, a “babe in Christ,” you will have belief (faith) and unbelief (doubt) mixed together, but as you grow in Christ, you will have less unbelief (doubt) and more belief (faith).

So let’s look further at this idea of faith.  All knowledge requires faith.  Have you ever thought of science as requiring faith?  If scientific knowledge is finite, then it too must require faith.  What about atheism?  Does atheism require faith?  Anne Rice, the vampire novelist, recently came back to the Christian faith of her youth.  She wrote about this journey in her spiritual autobiography, Called Out of Darkness.  As she reflects on her atheism she says, “My faith in atheism was cracking.”  Faith in atheism?  Yes, it takes just as much faith to not believe as it does to believe because knowledge is always uncertain.  Knowledge is just as uncertain for an unbeliever as it is for a believer.

Lesslie Newbigin, a favorite author of mine who was also a missionary to India, writes about this phenomena of human knowing.  He says, “The idea of certainty which relieves us of the need for personal commitment is an illusion…There can be no knowing without personal commitment.  We must believe in order to know” (Proper Confidence, 46 & 50).  In other words, there is no knowing without faith.

This faith-way of knowing is not a “blind faith.”  There are many good reasons to believe, but if you’re looking for 100% certainty about anything, there will never be enough evidence to produce that kind of knowing.  Knowing always requires the personal risk of commitment, faith.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor during Hitler’s reign who was executed for resisting the Nazis, said, “Faith alone is certainty.  Everything but faith is subject to doubt.  Jesus Christ alone is the certainty of faith.”

With this distinction between uncertainty and doubt and the role that faith plays in all knowing, let’s go back and look at this story again.  I wonder if we don’t get a clue about Jesus’ blessing in verses nineteen and twenty-six.  Did you notice the day of the week that Jesus shows up?  First, we’re told that it was the first day of the week, Sunday (John 20:19).  Then we read that he showed up “eight days later” (John 20:26).  Jews count days differently than we do.  They include the current day in their count.  So eight days later is exactly a week later on the same day of the week.  Jesus shows up on Sunday and then Jesus shows up one week later on Sunday again.  Jesus has a habit of showing up on the same day of the week!  I wonder if Jesus isn’t showing us a pattern by which we can see him?  I wonder if Jesus isn’t showing us himself when the community of those who follow Jesus gather for worship on this first day of the week, Sunday?  Yes, in the gathered community we experience Jesus’ presence, we enter into this same story, God’s salvation story.  Newbigin again says, “The business of the church is to tell and embody a story” (Proper Confidence, 76).  When we gather together we enter into the same story that Thomas finds himself in.  We see Jesus and we know Jesus not by 100% certainty, but by faith.

And I wonder if in the same way that Thomas saw Jesus’ wounds and knew that Jesus really had raised from the dead, we don’t know and see Jesus when we share our wounds with one another, our pains, our insecurities, our uncertainties, our fears, and even our doubts.  We see Jesus when we, the Body of Christ, gather together not just in our strength but in our weakness.

Alex, how do you know that Jesus was who he said he was?  The answer to that question is: you can’t ever know (anything) with 100% certainty, but we grasp glimpses in our life together as the church seeking to know more fully through faith.

Perhaps you’re still struggling with this whole thing.  You can pray and ask God for faith.  You can pray and ask God to give you the faith to respond to uncertainty not with doubt but with faithfulness.  Do you need to pray for that kind of faith this morning?  If so, here’s the prayer of St. Thomas that I offer to you to pray right now:

Everliving God, I believe, help my unbelief.   You strengthened your follower Thomas with a firm and proper confidence in your Son’s resurrection: Grant me so perfectly and without doubt to believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God, that my faith and our faith as a church may never be found wanting in your sight.  Give us all this strength through Jesus Christ by the power of your Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Note: Share your questions for Tom to answer on week four in the comments section below.