Sermons
April 12, 2026 (2nd Sunday of Easter)
Show me.
John 20:19-31
This is one of those passages in the Bible that contain the makings of several sermons.
I could talk this morning about how, in the first five verses, Jesus fulfills several of the promises he made in the long conversation he had with the disciples at the Last Supper, back in chapters 14 through 16 of John’s Gospel. Or I could talk about the change in the disciples between verse 19—where they’re hiding in fear behind locked doors—and verse 26, in which they’re in the same place but seem no longer to be afraid.
Or we could consider how this Gospel has the Resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirit happening on the same day. That’s different from Luke’s Gospel, on which our church calendar is mostly based, in which the Spirit doesn’t come until Pentecost, fifty days after Easter. I think we’ll come back to this passage to look at that issue on Pentecost, which is the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.
We could even look at the last two verses, which seem to give the reason for the Gospel’s being written. (I’ve mentioned that a few times over the course of this season when we’ve been looking at the Fourth Gospel.) These verses sound for all the world like the conclusion to the book, even though there’s another entire chapter yet to come.
I don’t know if that would make a good sermon, but it might be something intriguing to discuss in a Bible study group.
But of all the different topics in this text, there’s one that overshadows them all: Thomas. For good reason, too; it’s a very compelling story. But Thomas has a bad reputation as a result of this story. His name has become a byword to us: Have you ever heard someone say to someone else who’s a little skeptical about one thing or another, “You’re such a Doubting Thomas”? Some Bible teachers even claim Jesus rebuked Thomas for his lack of faith.
I just don’t think the text justifies the reputation Thomas has gotten. There are a couple things worth noting: First, Thomas isn’t any more skeptical, really, than the other dsiciples are described as being. When Mary Magdalene runs to tell the disciples she’s seen the risen Jesus, what do Peter and John do? Do they just take her word for it? No: They go to the tomb to see for themselves that it’s empty.
For goodness’ sake, at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, some of the disciples doubt, even with Jesus standing right in front of them!
Second, what Thomas asks for is only what the other disciples already received. When Jesus appeared to them on Easter evening, and Thomas wasn’t there, Jesus showed them his hands and side. All Thomas asks is to have the same experience the rest of the disciples had. Jesus offers him exactly that.
And you know what? It doesn’t say that Thomas actually did touch Jesus’ hands and side. It may well have just been the invitation to do so that prompted Thomas—the one we call “Doubting” Thomas—to make the most profound profession of faith in the entire Fourth Gospel: “My Lord and my God!”
Do you hear what Thomas said?
Remember how the disciples were confused at the Last Supper, didn’t understand what Jesus meant when he said, “If you know me, you will know my Father also”? Well, here, “Doubting Thomas” gets it! And what he gets is precisely what John is talking about in the Prologue when he says, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”
After that comes what some have interpreted as Jesus’ rebuke of Thomas: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
I’ve heard sermons on this text in which the preacher said this means it’s not okay to ask questions, to want some evidence before one can believe. But is this really what Jesus means?
This verse can be used to advocate a blind, unthinking faith, which certainly isn’t something we Disciples prefer. I just don’t think that’s what Jesus is saying, any more than he was rebuking Thomas for wanting to see what the other disciples had already seen before he would believe the impossible.
The Jesus Seminar folks—the ones whose work was popularly described as “voting on whether they think Jesus really said what the Gospels say he said,” although what they actually did was quite a bit more complicated than that—didn’t believe Jesus really said most of what the Fourth Gospel quotes him as saying.
There are some folks who find that pretty hard to hear…If Jesus didn’t actually say, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,” what else ight we have to throw out: The Golden Rule? The parables—the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan, for example? The Lord’s Prayer?!
But others, including Marcus Borg, who was at one point part of the Jesus Seminar, and who was a devout Christian married to an Episcopal priest,[1] look at it differently. Dr. Borg says the Fourth Gospel, which was likely written much, much later than the other three, reflects the church’s ongoing experience of Jesus’ presence. The church continues, in some way, to hear Jesus’ voice, to learn from Jesus, to believe in Jesus, even though he doesn’t necessarily walk among us in the flesh anymore.[2]
I agree with Dr. Borg, and I don’t see it as a threat to faith—as a matter of fact, I think it demonstrates the truth of what Jesus says in verse 29 of our text: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
If only those who actually saw Jesus when he walked on earth, actually heard his voice and followed him, actually saw him crucified—or ran away in fear when he was being crucified—actually saw him after he was raised, could believe in him and be his followers, then everyone from the apostle Paul on down is in a world of hurt. Paul, of course, encountered the risen Christ on the Damascus Road,[3] but it wasn’t the same kind of encounter that Mary Magdalene or Thomas or the other disciples in that upper room had. And this far down the road, there’s not a single Christian who has had a literal, physical encounter with Jesus Christ.[4]
Jesus wasn’t really rebuking Thomas; he was commending those of us who come after, who are able to come to belief in him even though we’ve never seen him in the flesh. How do you suppose that can happen? How is it that we who’ve never seen Jesus are able to believe in and follow him?
It’s quite possibly because we’ve encountered Jesus Christ here at church, maybe as we’ve studied the Bible, in worship, or at the Communion Table. (That’s part of the reason, as a matter of fact, why we Disciples insist on an open Table—this is a place where folks can encounter Jesus, and what right do we have to fence him off?)
In a lot of cases, we encounter Jesus becomes someone shows us—by being a “little Christ” to us. That’s actually what the word Christian means, by the way, “little Christ.” Maybe they’ve offered us a helping hand when we were in trouble, or prayed with us, or helped us recognize God’s grace and forgiveness when we’ve messed up our lives.
There’s a challenge in what Jesus says to Thomas—and by extension, to the church throughout history: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” The challenge is that we who have come to believe in Jesus are now called to be “little Christs” to others who don’t yet believe.
[1] I had the honor of meeting and breaking bread with Marcus Borg and his wife Marianne, the Canon at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, in the context of a lectureship series featuring world-religion expert Huston Smith. All three were (in the case of Marcus Borg and Huston Smith; I do not know whether Marianne Borg is still with us) lovely people.
[2] …except, perhaps, in the Matthew 25 sense.
[3] Acts 9:1-22; 22:4-16; 26:9-18; Galatians 1:13-17; 1 Corinthians 15:3-8
[4] …except, again, in the Matthew 25 sense.