April 19, Easter 2, Signs and Wonders #1: The Mark of the Nails

Acts 2L14a, 22-32, Psalm 16, 1 Peter 1:3-9, John 20:19-31

For the Easter season my sermon series is called “Signs and Wonders.” The sign we get today is the mark of the nails in Jesus’ hands. This sign leads Thomas to exclaim, “My Lord and my God.” This is the climax of the Gospel of John, that the author has been aiming at from chapter one, verse one.

Right after the climax comes the summation: “These things are written that you may believe.” That’s aimed at you. St. John wants you to believe. But don't think that "belief" is just a given.

Some believing is required by all religions, but only Christianity makes it central. Islam is about submitting, with submitting as a good thing. And Judaism can be practiced without believing in God at all. It is Christianity alone that has creeds beginning with “I believe” and “We believe.”

Can we attribute this to the Gospel of John? The verb for believing is used ten times by St. Matthew, ten times by St. Mark, nine times by St. Luke, but ninety-eight times by St. John. Believing is big in the Gospel of John. And what the Lord Jesus actually says to Thomas is not, “Do not doubt,” but “Do not be unbelieving but believing.”

The issue with Thomas was not doubt, but that he did not want to be a second-hand believer. I mean a second-hand believer like us. First-hand believers are witnesses with their own eyes. Like the other disciples who told Thomas, “We have seen the Lord.” The believing of first-hand believers is not so hard. But we second-hand believers have not seen with our own eyes, and we have to depend on the witness of the first-hand believers, which is more demanding, and takes a leap, and requires our imaginations.

I could say it this way. We second-hand believers have to learn our belief from the Community of Jesus, which Thomas did not want to do. He demanded the privilege of individual truth. This demand for individual truth is thought by some to be noble and even heroic but it isn’t blessed. The blessing comes with getting your truth through the Community of Jesus.

Well, as Thomas is one of the Twelve, with the job of being an eyewitness, he’s granted his demand. Jesus offers it to him freely. But then he doesn’t take it. He does not stick his finger into Jesus’ hands or his hand in Jesus’ side. Rather he says, “My Lord and my God.”

I think Thomas surprised himself. All he’d wanted was the physical proof of a dead man come alive again. But now he leaps past that, with the climax of John’s Gospel. No one has ever called Jesus this before. They’d called him “Son of God,” and “Messiah,” and even “Lord,” but never yet, “Lord and God,” the combination that is the highest title of divinity in the Jewish vocabulary. So then, what signs of God did Thomas see?

None of the normal signs. No fire, no glory, no cloud, no burning bush, no seraphim or cherubim. This was their guy, Jesus of Nazareth, yet not the same. By the marks on his hands he had the body of the one who died, but this person can pass through walls and doors. This person has no boundaries to limit him. His will and his action are the same, his intention is his execution, his desire is what is, and whatever is, is his desire. Like the God of Moses and Isaiah, no less. Does Thomas see all that in front of him, does he see the great “I am”?

I wonder, does Thomas recognize the grace, the grace that judges him without condemning him? Does he see in the marks on his hands the union of grace and truth, the grace that accepts him, in the truth that does not excuse him? The past is not undone when the past is reconciled, the scars are healed but the scars remain, for grace and truth!

Or, was it something else, some other insight that led him to exclaim “My Lord and my God?” We can only wonder at what he saw—we can’t see it directly, we are second-hand believers, but we can wonder and imagine, and even imagine more than Thomas imagined, in the signs that Thomas saw, which is why we are blessed. It was for second-hand believers like us that Jesus appeared to these first-hand believers. It is us whom Jesus wants to believe in him.

What would you look for in someone to see the living God in her? What signs would you be compelled by? If you imagine the mark of the nails, what signs would you see in them? For myself, I’d see the signs of faithfulness, absolute faithfulness, faithfulness unto death, and a faithfulness that is stronger then death. That kind of faithfulness is a work of love, and I would also read love in the mark of the nails, great love, self-giving love, abiding love, and that kind of love and faithfulness I would imagine to be the signs of God.

Did you know that the words “love” and “believe” are descended from the same Old Germanic root? It’s the root-word that means “to esteem, to hold dear, to trust.” You esteem and hold dear and trust when you love, and you esteem and hold dear and trust when you believe.

Well, of course, belief can simply be assent, just saying, “Okay, that’s true.” But belief is also what lovers give each other and parents give their children, when they say, “I believe in you.” In that level of belief is love, and in that kind of love is belief. This is the kind of believing that St. John has in mind in his summation. Relational belief. Self-investment. Not just that you believe that Jesus is somebody special, but that you can say with Thomas, My Lord and my God!

To say it that way is both belief and love. In fact, believing in Jesus is how you love him. That’s why St. Peter can say in his first epistle, “Although you have not seen him, you love him.” Which at first is a little off-putting because you probably don’t feel like you love Jesus. But this love is not a feeling. You can’t love Jesus like you love other people, he is too far away, and as much a stranger as familiar.

How you love him is by your faithfulness to him, and what your faithfulness requires of you. By believing in him is how you love him. That’s the kind of love he wants from you, always in terms of believing, and a belief that’s always expressed by loving.

And that’s why he designed it so that you have to get your belief from the community, instead of with the privilege of individual truth. That’s why you are blessed to be a second-hand believer and why you have to get your signs and wonders from the Community of Jesus, which is the community organized for your love. It’s because your believing has the works of love in it that you are blessed.

Believing as a form of love is why we can be rejoicing even as we suffer various trials. St. Peter wrote to small congregations, at distance from Jesus, who had no social benefits from their belief. He was telling them that their best benefits were for the future of the world, and thus were being kept on hold in trust for them, and that took some believing.

So too for us, especially right now as the world is turning to what we’ve never seen or even imagined. But if our loving each other in this community of Jesus means believing in each other, well, that’s still joyful. Whenever I believe in you it generates joy back to me. And a whole small culture of this is the indescribable joy that St. Peter writes about.

Dearly beloved, I have seen this joy developing among you as you’ve believed in each other these last few weeks. This joy that you have in each other is a sign and the wonder of the love of God that is alive in you.

Copyright © 2020, by Daniel James Meeter, all rights reserved.