The Seven Next Words of Christ: Peace Be With You John 20: 19-29

Doubt. At some point in our lives most of us wrestle with doubt, or this sense of uncertainty. I remember for me it came one day on a train platform in Melbourne, Australia. A dear friend and I had just spent most of the day exploring the city, eating good food, and talking about the Trinity. I remember sitting down on the train platform and asking my friend why God wasn’t answering my prayers. 

We had both attended a pretty conservative Christian college, where theology, or God-talk, seeped into our days, not just in our Bible classes, but just in every day conversation. While not something I ever grew up hearing about or believing, I had recently encountered peers who firmly believed that whenever God did not answer the prayers you prayed immediately, and in the way you wanted, it was because you had sin blocking your life and your connection with God.

Through study and prayer, I later would learn that just because God doesn’t give us everything we want when we want it, it does not mean that we have a poor relationship with God or one that is clogged with sin. But I remember in that moment, on that train platform, having serious doubts about who God is, about the power and place of prayer, and even about myself. Doubt creeps into our lives in some of the most unexpected places.

But, for all of that I was not known as Doubting Michelle, nor should I have been. Yet, Thomas, one of Jesus’s disciples, for his doubts has become known as doubting Thomas. Once every few years, pastors preach messages about how we should never have doubts or crisis’s of faith, and look to Thomas as the prime example of what a lack of faith looks like. 

This morning I’m not going to do that. The truth is that I believe that we all have a little bit of Thomas in us, a little bit of doubt. And that doubt actually can help us see how deep our faith runs. 

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the disciples for a moment. A little over a week ago they watched as Jesus was tortured and killed by the government and the religious establishment. They were now leader-less, and had returned to places of safety - behind locked doors, wondering how long it would be before the government and the religious establishment would come after them as well since they were followers of Jesus. 

They had heard rumors that Jesus was alive - from the women who went to the tomb. From the men on the road to Emmaus. But really that just made them more fearful. They were still in shock. Still deep in grief, as their world had been turned upside down. 

And then Jesus showed up. Jesus came, not knocking at the door, but directly into the room where they were hiding and said the strangest thing “Peace be with you”. How could they be at peace! Their hearts and minds were racked with “what ifs” and worst case scenarios and now the one that they thought was dead was standing amongst them. 

At first, we can assume that some of those other disciples had worries and doubts too, because we aren’t told that they rejoiced at the presence of Jesus until after he showed them his hands and his side. Then they rejoiced. Then they could fully celebrate Jesus with them. 

Before Jesus left their promise he gave them a gift - the gift of the Holy Spirit. The gift of a reminder that if they forgive the sins of others then their sins would be forgiven (what a hard challenge after what they had just experienced and seen - the need to now forgive those who killed their Master and Friend). And the gift of being breathed on. Breath that would remind them of God’s creating breath is Genesis, when God formed humans out of the dust of the earth and then breathed into them the very breath of life. This was the life-breath they were in need of. Breath that would remind them of the resurrecting breath of God as told by the prophet Ezekiel, that brought life to dry bones. They were in need of such resurrection.

The problem, however, was that one of the disciples was not present. For whatever reason, Thomas wasn’t in the room the day that Jesus showed up. Sure he was told about it second hand by all of his friends who kept saying that they had seen the Lord. But he wanted the experience. He wanted the life breath. He wanted the gifts and the promises. So he made this statement that has gotten him the label of doubting Thomas - “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later exactly that happens, Jesus shows up when Thomas is there and says the same thing, “Peace be with you.” Then Jesus offers Thomas exactly what he needs,  the proof of seeing and feeling the wounds in Jesus’s hands and side. The gift of being in the presence of the resurrected Jesus, a Jesus who speaks directly to the disciples fears, and offers them peace. 

We often see Jesus as chasticizing Thomas when he says, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe”, but what 

if this statement, too, was not a rebuke but a gift? The gift of the offer of peace. 

Here’s the truth friends, let’s place all of what we struggle with on the table. Sometimes, we have doubts. Sometimes we yearn for that peace that Jesus is describing, because we don’t always have it. In fact, true confessions, sometimes as the church we have screwed up Jesus’s peace. We have made it to look like the peace of the world - the peace of stability and materialism and prosperity. And sometimes we have made the peace into some distant promise that is only brought up at funerals instead of living into the reality of that peace in the presence. But the gift of this passage is tremendous. Int he words of Pastor Shane Stanford, it reminds us that, “Even our failures cannot prevent us from receiving God’s love”. 

This passage also reminds us that Jesus is caring and kind. He cared enough to give Thomas what he needed. So what do we need? That day on the train platform, I needed God to speak to me. And God did. God showed up. Just not in the way I had prayed for. Are we willing to have Jesus show up and say “peace be with you” in unexpected ways? 

What proof, brothers and sisters, do we need. We are now firmly in the season of Eastertide - a season when we celebrate the mystery of our faith. The mystery of Jesus who comes into our lives with these next words and radically loves us, even in the midst of our doubts and demands.

There is a little bit of Thomas in each of us, but that little but can also open us up to moments of God’s peace. Doubt can be one of the Devil’s greatest tools, but doubt can also help us see just how deep our faith really is. What do you need this day and how will Jesus unexpectedly provide? Amen.