( John 20,19-29 ) - [ Deutsch ]
Sermon by Anne-Marie Nybo Mehlsen and Irene Mildenberger
Read by Dr. Mark Rohwer
Dear congregation,
Many of us probably have some stickers on the fridge or cards on a pinboard. They may be Bible quotes or other sayings, or just pictures that are special to me. They are concrete, small doors into the past and also into the future, into dreams and plans and happy reconquests, like a collection of icons, a different kind of "seeing pictures" that both transform their viewers and open doors that have been closed in them.
Thomas also wants to hold on to something concrete, in search of the personal experience of opening the door to what is new and so difficult to understand: the defeat of death. Jesus' death on the cross.
Thomas is called the doubter. Throughout the ages, many a sermon has been held about the doubt of Thomas, about doubt as an inevitable accompaniment to faith, hope and love. We are driven by doubt to search for certainty, for confirmation. Doubt makes some of us seek the church, or nature, or music and books, or prayer.
Some criticise Thomas - they also hear the words here as Jesus criticising or admonishing Thomas. As they criticise Thomas, all sorts of questions come to me - where has Thomas been in the last week? Whose twin brother is he? And are his brothers and sisters still alive? Perhaps Thomas was close to Judas, who took his own life because of what he was guilty of. Perhaps Thomas was the one who took care of the inconsolable, or had he simply gone home to Galilee? Had he walked the road to Emmaus without returning, was he perhaps waiting for Jesus somewhere else?
Who knows? Perhaps Thomas wanted to know that it was the crucified Jesus whom they had encountered - because you can't avoid suffering, grief and death as a person who has been a witness to horror. Perhaps Thomas just didn't want to hear about men in shining robes, angels and experiences on high mountains where he himself was not present?
We realise: Many questions arise when Thomas is portrayed as someone who needs to be rebuked and corrected in order to come to the right faith. Faith is not maths or grammar. You can't turn to page five of the Bible or page four of the dogmatics or the first three hymns of the hymnal and say: "Here it is! Here's the answer!"
If that were the case, we would not be dealing with the living God who has given us body, feelings and reason. Faith is a relationship, a relationship between us and God. That is why he became human in Jesus, that is why he made the painful effort, that is why he insists on walking with us every day here in the midst of our lives, feast days and chaotic everyday life.
Faith is a living thing; like breath, it is something that moves. That is why faith and doubt are closely linked. Faith also means being like Thomas - someone who wants to be convinced, who wants to be persuaded, who wants to realise and feel and know that Christ is there, not least: that he is there for me! For me! That he wants to have something to do with me - because this is where doubt gnaws deepest. We don't know what is going on in Thomas' mind when he so seemingly stubbornly insists on doing it himself. But this could be a fear that the encounter with the risen Christ was only for the chosen ones.
So what if Thomas is the one who is left behind where everything was still just as before - but now without Jesus, without hope, without the light of him who saw everything in the light of love? Being left behind, left to your own devices - that's where doubt strikes deepest.
Once you have been there - in the burial chamber of doubt - you know that the gates cannot be opened from the inside. They can only be opened from the outside, by someone who is stronger. For it is a profound experience of faith to have been in darkness: This is also an encounter with the reality of the resurrection.
Jesus now says to Thomas: "Do not be unbelieving, but believing! Thomas was actually there when Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb. Would it be conceivable for Jesus to call Thomas out now? "Thomas, come out!"
Jesus says unbelief, i.e. non-belief!
Jesus does not comfort, he actually commands.
There is a colossal seriousness in the fact that Thomas insists that he wants to meet and feel Jesus again as the one marked by the cross! Thomas wants the resurrection now, in this world, in this life.
It is therefore a liberation that Christ, the Risen One, stands there and commands Thomas to believe. Thomas is freed from the burial chamber into fellowship with the Jesus he knows. Thomas is not left alone in a world where suffering and darkness continue to exist.
My Lord and my God!
That is why there is good reason for every Christian to insist on feeling this liberation in their own body, in their own heart!
It is not impossible, and it is not reserved for those who have divine visions.
It's just like the fridge stickers and pinboard cards: they remind us to see the world with new eyes, with a new certainty of the fact that Jesus has not abandoned us and given up on us. This means allowing yourself to be pulled out of the tombs of doubt and sometimes being asked to let go of the fear of being abandoned.
This is not just something for those who close their eyes to suffering, loneliness and grief. Faith is the certainty that the risen Christ is still the Jesus we know, the Son of Man with the marks of the cross, the one who knows the horror from within and confronts it.
It could be that this Thomas also has twin sisters and twin brothers among us. We feel the same way again and again. We hear the message, the reports of the disciples' encounters with the Risen One are proclaimed in all Easter services. But that's not enough for us Thomas twins: if I don't see and experience it myself, I can't believe it.
Shortly before the scene of our sermon text, Jesus had said to Thomas during his farewell talks: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you have recognised me, you will also recognise my Father. And from now on you will recognise him and have seen him. But this is precisely Thomas' problem on Easter Eve: he had not even seen the risen Jesus and recognised him as the crucified one by his nails - so how could he see and recognise the Father and thus believe?
And Thomas is not alone in this, nor are his doubting twins. The other disciples had not believed Mary Magdalene either. And even when the resurrected Christ had blown on them with his breath of life and made them new, they still locked themselves in. So the unlamented Thomas twins are in good company with their doubt and despondency.
But they are in doubly good company, you who are perhaps sitting here in church now, because you, like Thomas, remain in the congregation. Because this is where the new birth of Thomas begins. After all, Jesus promised: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. So Jesus comes when the doors were locked and stands in their midst and says: "Peace be with you!
We, as Thomas' twins, may sometimes have to wait longer than eight days, but the Lord also comes to us when we need him. He comes to us in the congregation of brothers and sisters gathered together in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, just as he promised us and just as he came to the disciples gathered together.
We receive his greeting of peace when we hear it at the Lord's Supper: The peace of the Lord be with you all! He lets us see him: Taste and see how kind the Lord is. He allows himself to be touched in his meal and we reach out our hand to grasp and touch him.
Through baptism, we are all born again and belong to the new, Easter creation.
And just as Jesus appeared to the unbelieving Thomas and recreated him as a believing confessor, he will also show himself to all Thomas' twins. Perhaps this will happen in worship. Perhaps there, where God's nearness is revealed to me in prayer. Perhaps he will come to me in an intimate conversation between brothers and sisters. Perhaps where one of the old songs suddenly becomes completely new to me and touches me. Perhaps he will show himself in yet another way that we would never have expected. Jesus Christ is not deterred by the closed doors of our doubts, but comes to us so that we, who have been born again in baptism, can confess with Thomas: My Lord and my God.
Amen.