3/4/51

Scripture: John 20: 19-29.

Text: John 20: 28b; "My Lord and my God."

How diverse, how differing, are the personal characteristics of the disciples of Christ! Even the apostles are men of widely differing temperament, age, personality, understanding and devotion. There is Judas, whose head-strong determination to have people saved in the way he wanted, a political way, led him to become a terrible traitor. There is dependable Andrew, always ready to take people to the presence of the Master -- his own brother; and who-knows-how-many others? There is Simon Peter: big, blustery, impulsive --- a man of quick action on whom the early Christian church came to depend heavily. There is Nathaniel -- a man of guileless heart and excellent purpose -- and the others.

Today I would like to call attention to a man over whom it is easy to shake one’s head. Doubters are often unpopular -- and Thomas had his doubts --- some of them the same kind of doubts that we entertain. This "man from Missouri" who so often "had to be shown" was called Thomas Didymus. The name Didymus means twin. And so this Thomas was often referred to as "Thomas, the Twin" in order to identify him as differing from some other Thomas.

Thomas had his commendable qualities, which the Master had quickly perceived. He may have been the kind of fellow who is only slowly persuaded. He would be reckoned a decided conservative. But he also had a great loyalty. It was when the going had become rough that Jesus proposed to his friends that they all go again into Judea. They had been there before. The apostles knew it was dangerous. For cunning Judean leaders had made efforts to have Jesus stoned to death. The band of disciples had left Judea for the greater safety of the province of Galilee up north. Now word comes to Jesus that Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, is seriously ill, and the sisters urgently desire that Jesus, with his healing ways, come to Lazarus. No one but Jesus seemed actually to want to go. For they all knew that Judea contained enough people who by now were enemies of Jesus, to make it very dangerous for him and his company to be there. But Jesus determined to go, and told them why. It was Thomas, the Twin, who finally said to the others: "Let us go also, that we may die with him." [John 11: 1-16]. Any leader can use such devoted loyalty as that.

But Thomas was not content to be just blindly loyal. This is a good trait, too. Thomas had an inquiring mind. He could be taught, and he was curious over the proofs of learning. Jesus at one time had been talking to his friends of what was coming. "Let not your heart be troubled," he was saying. "In my Father’s house are many mansions." "I go to prepare a place for you." "Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know." It was Thomas who broke into the Lord’s assurance with a question: "Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?" Jesus went on patiently to explain, as well as words may do, "I am the way, the truth and the life." And the way to know the Father is to know me. Thomas was not the only one who had questions. It was Philip who asked the next question. [John 14: 1-8]. And these men were honest inquirers, even though their slowness must have tried the Master’s patience at times.

There is the account of an incident after the resurrection of Jesus in which Thomas figures again --- in the background. The apostles had not yet received that stirring visit of the Holy Spirit which is often described in the word Pentecost. They had become convinced that Jesus had risen, that the Christ was alive and had been present with some. But they were not yet ready to do anything about it. The big fisherman, Peter, announced one day that he was going fishing. His hands had become hungry for the tug of the nets, and he wanted to get off to old familiar gear and places. There were with Peter at the time: Thomas the Twin, Nathaniel, the two brothers, James and John, and two more disciples. They all said that they would go along. And they did.

They fished through the night, catching nothing. As it became morning, someone on the shore made the suggestion that they throw in the net on the other side of the boat. They had nothing to lose, so they tried. And they soon found that they had surrounded such a large school of fish that they were in danger of breaking the nets with the weight.

Have you been impressed with the mystery of that experience? How did that watcher on the shore know that there were fish on the other side of the boat? I do not know, since we are not told. But I have watched with fascination as a seasoned native lookout scanned the waters of the sea in a bay on a Hawaiian coast, at Hana on Maui. I found that he could tell by the color of the water, and slight ripples, imperceptible to me, when a school of fish had come in close enough to shore to be caught in the nets. He might sit or stand on a high point for hours or days, seeing nothing but the waves of the sea coming in as gentle swells, the color changing with every shift of clouds or slant of the sun’s rays. Then he would see something that excited him and would shout his finding to the fishers that waited. Word spread quickly, and the Hawaiian folk - men and women - would some to the shore. Canoes loaded with the great net would be paddled out on the water, guided by the signaling of the old watcher, paying out the net as they went. Hardy swimmers, often with diving goggles fastened to their faces, dropped off a canoe into the water to watch the nets as the fish were surrounded and those on shore began the slow pull to draw in the net. Frequently a swimmer would disappear, diving beneath the surface to make sure that the fish had found no hole through which to escape (like sheep fleeing through a fence hole following the leader.)

I have seen a net hauled in, gradually pulling together in a small area, just off the beach, so many fish that there was no way to take them but to dip them up out of the water into a large outrigger canoe. To try to lift them in the nets would be to break the nets. To have a chance to see fishermen at work along a seashore is to get light on some of the details of such a story as this one in the gospel of John, that are otherwise sheer mystery to us land-locked lubbers.

When those apostle-fishermen were busy with their big haul, someone (probably John) looked toward the stranger on the shore again and, in sudden, glad recognition, said: "It is the Lord!" The big, impulsive Peter, working away more than half naked, seized his coat and jumped into the water in his eagerness to get to the Master. Thomas was among the others who stayed aboard, easing the boast to the shore, carefully floating the net-load of struggling fish to water shallow enough to take the scaly prize. [John 21: 1-14].

Both temperaments are needed in the Master’s work. The quick, ready, enthusiastic folk who will go overboard and "all out" when it is right to do so; and the patient plodders who bring in the fish so that they can all have breakfast on the shore and something to exchange for people’s mutual necessity.

Probably the best-known reference to Thomas the Twin, however, is in the part of John’s gospel which we had as this morning’s scripture lesson. Certain people had had a vivid experience of the presence of the living Christ. Mary had had that experience as she approached the tomb, finding it empty. Some of those who had walked down to the town of Emmaus had had a similar experience. On the evening of that Resurrection Sunday, the disciples had met with good reason behind closed doors. They felt that Jesus was there. They perceived the pierced hands and side. But even more vividly they received his peace and his commission. Even as the Father had sent him, so the Lord was now sending them out to preach and to do the Father’s will. They were to receive the Holy Spirit.

Thomas wasn’t there. How he chanced to be absent, we are not told. When the other disciples tried to tell him that they had seen the presence of Jesus -- and these precious, stirring spiritual experiences are never easy to put in plain "work-a-day" words --- Thomas was slow to believe. "Unless I see the nail prints of his hands and touch the wound of his side, I am not going to believe it." His doubt is not so much that of defiance as of caution. Thomas had to be shown. Well, don’t we all? It has often been a matter of great benefit that people have to be shown. A new discovery in the field of medicine is announced, and many accept the supposition that it represents factual truth. Generally speaking, the medical profession, to its great credit, is a bit like Thomas, saying, "I want to be shown. Is this treatment really a cure for this disease? I will decide what seems to be the truth about it after I know more about how it works." And then the doctors and other medical scientists study that matter until they know that it does work as expected -- or that it does not.

People have heard for centuries that Jesus Christ revealed and taught the love of God the Father. Those who hold to that belief most strongly are those who have actually lived as though it were true until satisfied that it is one of those truths that is borne out by the testing of honest experience.

The story goes that it was eight days later, when those disciples were together again, Thomas this time being included among those present, and Jesus was again present among them. Again, they knew his customary salutation, "Peace be among you." And he said directly to Thomas, "Come here and touch my hands and my side. It is right for you to test the reports you have heard. Only be not without faith -- a believer." That was enough for Thomas, who said, "My Lord, and my God." Something else, Jesus said to Thomas: "Because you have seen me you believed. Blessed are those who, even though they have not seen, have believed."

I do not know how you wish to interpret that saying of Jesus. But to me it suggests that Jesus accepts the variations in people and uses them all to the glory of God.

It is foolish for us to ignore the tested truths of history, the testimony of sincere experienced people. It is not necessary for each child to burn some fingers off his hand to know the meaning of fire. It is not necessary, and it is evil, if each young man and woman should sow the wild oats of moral delinquency as the only way they can learn the consequences of sin. Part of the basis of our ethical choices is the imported experience of other folk of experience. The Bible is full of this kind of experience to guide the searching mind. Blessed is he who doesn’t have to see, touch and measure, everything in order to learn. The sorrow of one family over rubber ice on a pond ought to be experience enough to keep every other boy and girl off the dangerous stuff. God needs that kind of faith in people.

But God also needs his Thomases who will question, search, test, and demand accuracy -- especially in some unexplored field of knowledge. Human safety, comfort, and advancement, and as well the glory of God, are served by the sincere Thomas -- be he Thomas Didymus -- the Twin -- or Thomas Edison.

I have sometimes sung to music the philosophy of Omar, the Oriental cynic:

Myself when young did eagerly frequent

Doctor and saint, and heard great argument

About it and about; but evermore came out

By that same door wherein I went.

But, believe me, there is vastly more light in the lines:

Strong Son of God, Immortal Love

Whom we that have not seen thy face

By faith and faith alone embrace,

Believing where we cannot prove.

But there is so much that we can prove. We can live as if our faith were warranted -- we can live as though God cares for us --- we can live as if we might know the guidance of the Divine; as if love might really work, until patiently, open-mindedly, expectantly we see the dawn of a faith that has been tested and proclaimed as light to all the world.

God can use many the likes of Paul, Peter, Andrew, James and John, Nathaniel and Philip, Thomas, others. You and me!

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, March 4, 1951.

Also at Waioli Church, March 28, 1976.

[The following prayer was used with the above sermon at Waioli Church 3-28-76, and also on 4-27-75.]

Eternal God, our Father, who art the hope of people to the ends of the earth, we worship Thee because Thou art great. The starry heavens can not contain Thee, much less the temples which we build with our hands. Help us to have no small or narrow thoughts of Thee, but do Thou enlarge us.

1) Enlarge [Make greater] our thoughts. Thou hast set us in so great a universe! We would have our lives and our understanding touched to greatness because we are citizens of the world and of the universe. Lift our horizons; expand our minds; make greater our hopes. Withdraw us from all that is mean or small.

2) Enlarge our sympathies. Give us release from imprisoning selfishness. Help us to live across the boundaries and barriers of class, race, color, language and custom that people build up. Hast Thou not made of us one family of Thine own? Give us freedom from restricted sympathy. Touch us with understanding and pity for the common frailties of mankind. May some understanding service be rendered by us because we have worshipped Thee here.

3) Expand our consciences, we pray. We who easily repent of small sins, do also repent of the large, collective sins which darken the earth-- our iniquities of attitude and neglect that breed war and crime and poverty and despair. Help us to be builders of concerned brotherhood.

See the near and clear interests we lay at Thine altar in our hearts. Be with our homes. Save us from broken households and lonely hearts. Give us the stability of growing with our children. When bitterness springs up, O God of mercy, pluck it out and let love return again. For good homes, and schools, and churches, and all other builders of character, we thank Thee, and we pray for them Thy guiding care.

Look with favor, we beseech Thee, upon our church. Bless all those who join in the worship of family life. Make of us worthy participants in Thy service.

Bless with Thy presence and Thine aid those whom we know to be ill or sore beset and heavily burdened. Give them fresh resources of power to rise above their ills to spiritual victory.

For Thine is the kingdom of life, both here and now, and hereafter and forever.

We want to pray in Christ’s spirit. [Lord’s Prayer]

Amen.