Whatever it takes...

If you ask my children about their granddad they will tell you about his beard and glasses.

They will tell you lots of stories, like the time he almost caught a shark when fishing in Jamaica, or when he tried to make my brother a homemade skateboard. They will tell you about the pocketful of sweets that he would always share.

If you ask any of them they will tell you that they love their granddad and if you come to my house you will hear them talk about him most days.

So it might surprise you when I tell you that they have never met their granddad. Unfortunately, he died two years before my eldest was born.

And, although he had prayed for me to have children, he never lived to see God’s answer to his prayers. Yet, while he was alive, he believed these children would come and saw them through faith.

And even though my daughters have never met him, and have only seen him in photographs. He is very real and tangible to them because of the stories I have told them about him. They love him because they have heard me speak about how loving he was and how much he loved children, they believe in his love for them and they love him back.

In fact, the other day I heard my toddlers discussing his whereabouts very earnestly as they played together. Anais suddenly had a revelation and told her sister: “I think granddad is in this teddy bear!”

In today’s gospel passage, we hear Jesus commend people like my daughters. People who have not seen and yet have come to believe.

As I read the text I asked myself the question, How do you come to believe something that you have never seen?

(i.) Through books written by people who have seen or observed something

(ii.) Through pictures. Taken by people who were there to capture the image.

(iii.) Through spoken testimony of those who have encountered something or someone.

(iv.) Through reports on the television, radio or newspaper.

We put these things together, determine whether we trust the source, and believe when we examine the evidence available to us.

From today’s gospel I found two encouraging thoughts:

1) Jesus wants us to believe and gives us what we need to come to believe… and 2) Jesus commissions us to share what we believe with others.

Jesus gives us what we need to believe

For the disciples in today’s gospel, it took an encounter for them to believe. They had heard the report from Mary that she had seen the resurrected Jesus. They had heard Peter and John’s eye-witness testimony that they had seen an empty tomb.

But as they gathered in the upper room behind locked doors. As they sat in fear of the people outside who had killed their leader a week ago, the disciples needed more than an eye-witness testimony and more than reports of an empty tomb in order to convince them. They needed to see and touch Jesus for themselves. I feel history has been a bit harsh on Thomas. It wasn’t only ‘doubting Thomas’ who needed to be convinced by seeing Jesus in the flesh. They all needed this proof.

And we see that Jesus gives them what they need - twice. He comes back a week later to reveal himself to Thomas who had missed the first encounter. He wants them all to be sure. He knows that they are going to go out there and face real persecution, torture, religious opposition and even death.

He knew that they needed to be 100% sure of what they believe in order for them to stay the course and carry out His great commission of taking the message of his death and resurrection to the world, to those who had not seen him. These disciples needed to be convinced.

When he had heard that Jesus was alive, Thomas had said: “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.”

So when Jesus appears he says to Thomas: “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe. “

Jesus presents his hands and his side and lets them touch the wounds there so they can know without a shadow of a doubt that God has raised him from the dead as a sign that salvation is available to all. That Jesus’s sacrifice has made peace between God and humanity.

Jesus doesn’t judge or rebuke them for needing this level of proof but meets them where they are. The disciples needed to see Jesus as not just a man, not just the teacher they had followed around for three years, not just as someone, like Lazarus, who had been raised from the dead. But as their Lord and God!

Jesus knew it would take them touching him and seeing him physically in order to believe and so he gives that proof to them.

But Jesus also knows what those coming after the disciples will need. So, within this gospel passage he looks out of the pages of the bible, looks directly at us, and gives us the encouragement we need. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.

The Gospel writer John adds: “These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

John’s text is written to speak to people who had never been to Jerusalem, to Jews and Gentiles born after the death of Jesus. This text is written to us here in 2023.

Jesus and John know that the further removed people are from an event, the more difficult it may be to come to believe in its truth. The saying, seeing is believing exits for a reason.

But the great thing is that Jesus wants us to come to believe in him and provides us with ways to encounter him, with evidence and testimonies that help to make him tangible enough for us to put our faith in.

Can you think back to how you came to believe?

Was it through reading the Bible? Did you see Jesus in a passage, in a verse? Did something strike you one day that helped you come to believe?

Or perhaps it was through the witness of a Christian parent, Sunday School teacher, vicar, friend? Who lived their life and shone their light in such a way that you saw Jesus in them and came to believe in the God who lived inside them?

For some people it was a dramatic encounter, a supernatural experience that helped to cement their faith.

And many others became quietly convinced that the claims of the Bible are true.

Today’s gospel passage encourages us that however you come to believe doesn’t matter. What matters is that you come to believe. And Jesus is willing to give you what you need in order to come to belief in Him.

We are called to be witnesses to what we have not seen.

Jesus commissions the disciples in that room to spread the message to the very people that they are hiding from within that upper room.

He also calls us to do the same. He has given those of us who believe a great commission to go into all the world and share the Gospel. To be witnesses of Him.

We are called to go out and not to cower within the walls of this church or the walls of our houses.

We are called not to see this commission as something that the vicar does in here on a Sunday or during their parish visits.

We are called not to see our role as church members and attendees to wait inside here for those who have not yet come to believe to turn up.

No. We are called to leave these doors and leave our houses and live our lives as witnesses to what we say we believe.

When we chat with our neighbours and work colleagues we should be sharing the gospel with the way we live our lives.

Are we living generously in a time of austerity when the temptation is to think of only your own interests? Do people know us as joyful people, trustworthy friends, full of hope at times when it would be easier to be negative and fearful.

When people around us are gossiping and saying cruel things about other people, do we join in or do we dare to be different?

We don’t need to get pulled into the politics of division and scapegoating that is so prevalent in these difficult times.

God calls us not to get distracted from our commission, which is to let people know that their sins can be forgiven and that there is access to God the Father through Jesus’s Passover Sacrifice.

As Jesus says, we are blessed witnesses of him. Although we have not seen him, we love him; and even though we do not see him now, we believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for we are receiving the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls. (1 Peter 1;8-9)

Jesus calls us to share the source of that joy with the people who are outside these doors. We are commissioned to share a message that cuts through politics, ethnicity, gender, or culture. A message about a person who is LOVE. A God who loves us and is so beautiful that when we encounter Him we can’t help but love Him and worship Him.

We, who believe, are called to let people know that Jesus is alive. That Easter is more than a bank holiday, more than Easter eggs and bunnies. But that the message of the cross and the empty tomb speaks of a God of love who so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have eternal life.

We are blessed

We can be encouraged by Jesus’s words to us today. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to believe.

We are currently without a vicar and it can be difficult to see the vision of our church clearly without a leader. Maybe we’re feeling a little like those disciples, huddled in the upper room. Their leader no longer with them. Afraid of what the future holds for our church, our community, our country. Afraid of what is outside the doors.

We can be encouraged that our faith has survived the lockdown and church closures. Our faith has survived losing our parish priest and organist. We are still here and Jesus has given us what we need to continue believing and he invites us to join him in the continued mission of our church. To take His message outside these doors so that others who have not yet seen will come to believe and be blessed.