The Antiphon Of Faith
Sermon
CALLED TO JERUSALEM: SENT TO THE WORLD
Sermons For Lent And Easter
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
I. "Filled With New Wine"
Though I may have been only six or seven years old at the time, I remember it so well. It was noonday in the days before the supermarkets, the family freezer and the once-a-week grocery run. Mom had sent me, coins in hand, to buy lunch-meat for sandwiches.
It was the son of the neighborhood grocer - in his early 20s, I think - who said it. He was laughing with the customer ahead of me, perhaps making light of a question about his future. "Me?" he said, "I'm going to be a preacher! All you need to do is have a few good drinks on Saturday night, and then just cut loose on Sunday morning!"
It was not the first time that those filled with the Spirit had been accused of being "inebriated with the spirits." On the day the Spirit came upon the church, recorded in the second chapter of Acts, people wondered aloud what it all meant - the wind, the fire and the speaking in such tongues that these pilgrims from many nations could all understand. Some shrugged their shoulders, wagged their heads and passed the whole thing off. "They're filled with new wine!" they said (Acts 2:13). And they laughed!
Instantly, Peter was on his feet, shouting! "Men of Judea, and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words (Acts 2:14)." With this instant response to their laughing, Peter's sermon begins. So too does our first lesson for this second Sunday of Easter. When Peter had finished, 3,000 souls had been converted. It is written: "So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls (Acts 2:41)." When our meditation is completed, I hope we too shall have moved from doubt to declaration.
II. Doubt Dances Its Duel
People have always doubted. Not a few have laughed. Even among the faithful, doubt seems to sing a duet - or maybe dance a duel - with faith. Among the faithful who see and desperately want to believe, doubt dances its duel for no other reason than that the gospel sounds just too good to be true. Doubt is a defense mechanism we have found to be useful in keeping ourselves level headed - and just slightly resistant to the scams of this life. How else can we read the words of Luke as the resurrected Jesus stands in the midst of the disciples? "They still disbelieved for joy, and wondered (Luke 24:41)."
On the other hand, doubt is considerably more deadly than the little voice of good judgment that quiets unfounded - and tests unexpected - exhilaration. Something inside us rightly says that in the matters of faith and life, doubt cannot be wholly domesticated. It can become a cancer that eats at the spiritual health of the body of faith. Doubt can become a synonym for spiritual. Or, so it seems!
Perhaps this is why our Revised Common Lectionary and virtually all of its denominational revisions appoint for this second Sunday of our Easter celebration the gospel lesson just read from John (20:19-41). Moreover, they appoint this lesson on this Sunday for each of the three years of the series. This day is, across much of the church, Doubting Thomas Sunday.
There, now! We've said it. Doubting Thomas. We treat Thomas just a tad better than Judas who, curiously enough, has never had the title "betrayer" placed either before or after his name. There is something particularly judgmental about placing the modifier before one's name. Who ever heard tax collector placed in front of Matthew's name?
As every new student of psychology quickly learns, we do tend to judge harshly in others the faults we perceive to be in ourselves, projecting (and venting!) upon another the anger and disappointment we have for ourselves. The truth we both know and fear in our faith-life is that Thomas has no private corner in the marketplace of doubt.We keep a fairly well stocked shop there ourselves. So too have some of the giants of the faith.
Consider Peter, last Sunday's inspired missionary to a gentile military officer in Caesarea and today's courageous witness to the resurrection in the midst of a mass of pilgrims in Jerusalem. He was the preacher at a crusade that converted 3,000 souls.
Peter could soar to the mountaintops of faith like an eagle, looking out over all the eternal probabilities of God. In Philippi he would step into the quiet void created by Jesus' questions of the disciples. "Whom do you say that I am?" Jesus had asked. It was decision time ... and it was Peter who spoke. "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:15-16)." There's no doubt. Peter was a giant because of the gift of faith.
Yet, even for Peter, doubt dances that fearful duet with his faith. Earlier, much earlier, we heard the terrified voice of Peter as his doubt caused him to sink into the sea: "Lord, save me!" Jesus answers Peter: "Man of little faith, why did you doubt (Matthew 14:28-33)?"
But that was then. This is now. Peter is clearly on the way up, we say. At Caesarea Philippi he came into his maturation. Perhaps. Nonetheless, this Peter who could soar to the mountaintops could just as swiftly plunge into the depths of the seas of sinking doubt, cowering fear and vulgar denial. Such a moment will forever be enshrined for Peter and for all who know and love him in the sound of the cockcrow at dawn. "Peter, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times (Matthew 26:34)." And he did! This man whom Jesus called Rock went out and wept bitterly.
That's why we are so hard on dull and doubting Thomas. Not many of us ever claimed to be a Peter. But in Thomas we see ourselves. We fear it. We hate it. Doubt cannot be domesticated to be our quiet little voice of level headedness. It can suddenly rear up and snatch away our Lord, our faith and our eternity. At least, so it seems. Even though we know Thomas to be us, we can never make friends with him. Or can we?
III. A Solid Biblical Perspective
God is God! No one can preempt or prevent him, not even the devil and his henchman demon named Doubt. The Old Testament prophets looked up on the heathen nations - especially Assyria, Syria and Babylon - as the instruments of God, bringing the judgments of the righteous God of Israel upon Israel and Judah. The New Testament writers agreed: "Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap (Galatians 6:7)." In the mind of the Old Testament prophets, Babylon, in spite of itself, did the bidding of Israel's God, bringing the unwelcome harvest. God's righteous will prevails.
God's will may prevail in doubt as well. The Rev. Dr. Leslie Conrad, Jr., tells the story of Professor John Herr of Temple University who would begin his lectures on heresies in the Christian Church with these words: "Each one of you in this classroom today should thank the Lord every day for the heretics of the Christian Church."1 Doubt, argumentation and debate force the church and all believers to define their faith.
The first ecumenical Council of Nicea was convened by Emperor Constantine in 325 C.E. to bring unity to the church. Among other things, it dealt with the teachings of Anus that denied the full divinity of Christ; and it determined these teachings to be heresy, outside the bounds of Christian orthodoxy.2 From that Council came the Nicene Creed, a teaching and confessing statement of the church's faith that is revered almost universally across the church to this day.
The Augsburg Confession and all the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church, for example, came out of the lack of ecclesiastical and doctrinal credibility and the heated debates that marked the life of the church in the 16th century C.E.
These events and others like them are the anvils against which the church and believers hammer out the difficult questions, decisions and definitions of faith itself.
It is not doubt that Christians need to fear, but rather dishonesty in the face of doubt, of complacency and ambivalence in things spiritual, and of the unexamined and untested faith. There is a curse to the commonplace and a rut to the routine that can lull us into spiritual numbness and moral turpitude. A question honestly asked enlightens all who experience the concern and have access to the answer the question brings.
Thomas did us some lasting favors. When Jesus talked of the Father's house with many mansions, Thomas insisted on details. When the announcement came of the return to Jerusalem, Thomas remembered the near rock-throwing fervor of the crowd and questioned the necessity of the trip. Doubter? Perhaps. Useful? Absolutely. People were better prepared -or they should have been - because of Thomas' earthly honesty and political savvy. Finally, we have no need to ask about the nail holes and the spear, nor about the resurrection. We have it from the doubter himself. "Thomas answered him, 'My Lord and my God' (John 20:28)."
The Holy Spirit can use everything, even the doubt -honesty stated and honestly pursued - of one who hungers to believe. Faith is at every stage God's doing anyway. More about that in a moment.
IV. God Raised Him Up
There's that phrase again. We kept hearing it over and over again last Sunday as we looked into the Easter message of God's steady work for our redemption. "God raised him up."
It is not that doubt dances a duel with our faith that is all that important here. Nor is the intent to eulogize doubt into goodness. It cannot be safely cultivated and domesticated. It does mean to challenge the household of God. It would erect a fence at the edge of the boundary line of reason that would forever forbid the leap of faith.3 Faith does not begin until we leap. After all, "... faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1)!"
I once knew a pastor who loved to say how much he wished that every member of his congregation had the faith of Thomas. That statement always caused a few eyebrows to arch. Everyone knows that Thomas was not the paragon of faith, but rather the disciple of doubt. And that's too bad, because that is a reputation about which there is and has always been some justified doubt - if not outright historic denial. Scriptures, tradition, legend and some enticing evidence in India tell another story. This doubter is the first to confess the full divinity of Christ. "My Lord and my God!" Later, tradition says Thomas went to India and planted the church there before his martyrdom. To this day Syrian Christians of Malabar call themselves Christians of Saint Thomas. There is archaeological evidence supporting a very early date for this group's origins.4 It looks as though Thomas' honest determination hammered out some solid answers. Would that modern "believers" were as productive.
The key is this: Jesus raised Thomas up! On Easter morning God raised Jesus Christ from the tomb. A week later, Jesus came looking for Thomas. "Thomas, come here! Do not be faithless, but believing!" Instantly he was on his knees. "My Lord and my God." God, in Christ, raised him up, for "in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:16)."
Remember Peter? At one moment he was nearly drowned in his doubt. In yet another his witness was a cowering, profane, terrified and multi-tiered denial of everything he had seen and heard. Today he is our preacher, twisting and turning with the excitement of faith and the courage to speak to Pentecost pilgrims and gentile converts who made the journey to Jerusalem for the holy day. These were the cream of the orthodox in Judaism, and Peter is speaking in Jerusalem, a town given to fanaticism and crucifixions now and again.
From the Scriptures he calls upon David's Psalm. "He will not let [His] Holy One see corruption." From the world and scripture of the orthodox, Peter proclaims Christ to be the fulfillment of the prophetic hope. He calls from the past and interprets the present to amplify and give credibility to the resurrection witnesses. Obviously, Peter notes, David was not speaking of himself when he celebrates that his flesh shall not see corruption. David died, Peter reminds them, and his tomb was with them to that day.5 So, reasons Peter, since David died and that evidence is close by for all to see, clearly David predicted the resurrection of the King who was from the house and lineage of David, Jesus the Christ.
Note that in Peter's preaching we hear an important element of first-century preaching and teaching. "The Scriptures of the Jews are the primary context in which Jesus' life is comprehended."6 The goal is to link clearly the history of Israel with the life of Jesus. Israel itself exists as the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham, a promise often repeated. Jesus is proclaimed as a fulfillment of the promises to both Abraham and David. It is not possible for death to contain or to resist the power and purposes of God. His creative power and lively resolve cause Jesus, whom the leaders allowed to be killed at the hands of lawless men, to be free and alive.7
The key, then, is this: On Easter morning, "this Jesus God raised up." Later, along the Sea of Galilee, Christ came looking for this Peter who had gone out and wept so bitterly, this "Rock" who had been shattered in his doubt. Though Peter is no longer "Rock," Jesus addresses him gently and lovingly, beginning his resurrection. "Simon, son of John, do you love me? Tend my sheep." On that day and in that moment, God raised Peter from the dead, too.
Tend the sheep he did! In an instant, that terrifying sound of cockcrow in the raw conscience of one who had deserted a friend was transformed into a sermon illustration of salvation that Peter would preach powerfully over and over again. If anyone should have had any doubt, it was Jesus! Yet, Jesus knew Peter at his worst and loved him into his best. Legend tells us that Peter also died a martyr's death in Rome during the first persecution of Nero. Some say he was crucified upside down because he deemed himself unworthy to die as his Lord had died.8
In today's lesson there is no doubt in Peter's mind or in his heart. The people had begun to laugh at the Pentecost sight. Instantly Peter is on his feet. He can neither tolerate laughing nor miss an opportunity to tell the story. He shouts: "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know - this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up!"
VI. The Antiphons Of Faith
Peter's wet feet and cursing denials, along with Thomas' threat to know no satisfaction lest he thrust his hand and fingers into the wounds of his friend are, as it were, simply antiphons to the hymn of faith. There is no doubt in this: Peter and Thomas both desperately hungered to believe. That's all God asks. He does the rest. He gives us faith. We only need to call. Then, in a moment, in an upper room or in the close of a workday when we're pulling in the nets ... he comes!
The moments of doubt for those who hunger to be faithful are like antiphons to an anthem God writes and the angels never tire of singing. Faith, finally, is God's gift anyway. We can neither manufacture it nor reproduce it. We only pray for it. "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:26-27)."
Martin Luther, in words simple enough to be taught by fathers and mothers to their children, wrote: "I believe that by my own reason or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in true faith ..."9
"This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses (Acts 2:32)." "God raised him up indeed." There were in those early days at least three resurrections. He offers a fourth: "On Easter Day, God raised up Jesus. He raised up Thomas. He raised up Peter."
And in baptism, he has promised us the same gift. Let's put God to the test. Let's carry our doubts to God in honest prayer and hungering study of the scriptures. To those who search, doubt is but an antiphon to the hymn of faith.
Thou didst reach forth thy hand and mine enfold,
I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed sea.
T'was not so much that I on thee took hold,
As thou, dear Lord, on me!"10
Can it be true? Is this the same Peter who a few weeks ago ...? How now this certainty?
God raised him up!
Amen.
End Notes
1. Leslie Conrad, Jr., "Thank God for Doubting Thomas," The Minister's Annual Manual, Lois and Manfred Hoick, Jr., Editors, (Austin, Church Management, Inc., 1990), p. 295.
2. "First Council of Nicaea (325)," The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2nd Edition, F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, Editors, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 967.
3. Gustav Aulen, The Faith of the Christian Church. The phrase "boundary line of faith" belongs to this fine work by Bishop Aulen. Unfortunately, the work is out of print and my copy long ago went home with a parishioner ... and remains there! I regret that I cannot give publisher and page reference.
4. "Saint Thomas, Apostle," The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, op. cit., p. 1369.
5. Martin Lev, The Traveler's Key to Jerusalem, (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), p. 173. Nehemiah 3:16 tells us of the "tombs of David" in Jerusalem after the exile. Josephus mentions it in his late first-century history, Antiquities VII. There clearly was a site so identified to which Peter refers. It most likely would have been on the Kidron Valley side of the Ophel Hill. Unfortunately, when rebuilding the city of Jerusalem in the second century C.E., the Romans quarried that hillside and the tombs of the kings - the authentic ones - are not likely ever to be found. The "Tomb of David" shown today dates rather late, perhaps the time of the Crusades and later (12th Century, C.E.).
6. William H. Willimon, "Acts," Interpretation Commentary Series, (Atlanta, John Knox Press, 1988), p. 36.
7. Walter Brueggemann, "Easter," Proclamation 4, Series A, (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1989), p. 23.
8. "Saint Peter," The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, op. cit., pp. 1067-1068.
9. Martin Luther, "The Small Catechism," The Book of Concord, Theodore G. Tappert, Translator and Editor, (Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1959), p. 345.
10. "I Sought the Lord," Anonymous, 1880, The Service Book and Hymnal, (Minneapolis, Augsburg Publishing House, 1958), Hymn No. 473.
I. "Filled With New Wine"
Though I may have been only six or seven years old at the time, I remember it so well. It was noonday in the days before the supermarkets, the family freezer and the once-a-week grocery run. Mom had sent me, coins in hand, to buy lunch-meat for sandwiches.
It was the son of the neighborhood grocer - in his early 20s, I think - who said it. He was laughing with the customer ahead of me, perhaps making light of a question about his future. "Me?" he said, "I'm going to be a preacher! All you need to do is have a few good drinks on Saturday night, and then just cut loose on Sunday morning!"
It was not the first time that those filled with the Spirit had been accused of being "inebriated with the spirits." On the day the Spirit came upon the church, recorded in the second chapter of Acts, people wondered aloud what it all meant - the wind, the fire and the speaking in such tongues that these pilgrims from many nations could all understand. Some shrugged their shoulders, wagged their heads and passed the whole thing off. "They're filled with new wine!" they said (Acts 2:13). And they laughed!
Instantly, Peter was on his feet, shouting! "Men of Judea, and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words (Acts 2:14)." With this instant response to their laughing, Peter's sermon begins. So too does our first lesson for this second Sunday of Easter. When Peter had finished, 3,000 souls had been converted. It is written: "So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls (Acts 2:41)." When our meditation is completed, I hope we too shall have moved from doubt to declaration.
II. Doubt Dances Its Duel
People have always doubted. Not a few have laughed. Even among the faithful, doubt seems to sing a duet - or maybe dance a duel - with faith. Among the faithful who see and desperately want to believe, doubt dances its duel for no other reason than that the gospel sounds just too good to be true. Doubt is a defense mechanism we have found to be useful in keeping ourselves level headed - and just slightly resistant to the scams of this life. How else can we read the words of Luke as the resurrected Jesus stands in the midst of the disciples? "They still disbelieved for joy, and wondered (Luke 24:41)."
On the other hand, doubt is considerably more deadly than the little voice of good judgment that quiets unfounded - and tests unexpected - exhilaration. Something inside us rightly says that in the matters of faith and life, doubt cannot be wholly domesticated. It can become a cancer that eats at the spiritual health of the body of faith. Doubt can become a synonym for spiritual. Or, so it seems!
Perhaps this is why our Revised Common Lectionary and virtually all of its denominational revisions appoint for this second Sunday of our Easter celebration the gospel lesson just read from John (20:19-41). Moreover, they appoint this lesson on this Sunday for each of the three years of the series. This day is, across much of the church, Doubting Thomas Sunday.
There, now! We've said it. Doubting Thomas. We treat Thomas just a tad better than Judas who, curiously enough, has never had the title "betrayer" placed either before or after his name. There is something particularly judgmental about placing the modifier before one's name. Who ever heard tax collector placed in front of Matthew's name?
As every new student of psychology quickly learns, we do tend to judge harshly in others the faults we perceive to be in ourselves, projecting (and venting!) upon another the anger and disappointment we have for ourselves. The truth we both know and fear in our faith-life is that Thomas has no private corner in the marketplace of doubt.We keep a fairly well stocked shop there ourselves. So too have some of the giants of the faith.
Consider Peter, last Sunday's inspired missionary to a gentile military officer in Caesarea and today's courageous witness to the resurrection in the midst of a mass of pilgrims in Jerusalem. He was the preacher at a crusade that converted 3,000 souls.
Peter could soar to the mountaintops of faith like an eagle, looking out over all the eternal probabilities of God. In Philippi he would step into the quiet void created by Jesus' questions of the disciples. "Whom do you say that I am?" Jesus had asked. It was decision time ... and it was Peter who spoke. "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:15-16)." There's no doubt. Peter was a giant because of the gift of faith.
Yet, even for Peter, doubt dances that fearful duet with his faith. Earlier, much earlier, we heard the terrified voice of Peter as his doubt caused him to sink into the sea: "Lord, save me!" Jesus answers Peter: "Man of little faith, why did you doubt (Matthew 14:28-33)?"
But that was then. This is now. Peter is clearly on the way up, we say. At Caesarea Philippi he came into his maturation. Perhaps. Nonetheless, this Peter who could soar to the mountaintops could just as swiftly plunge into the depths of the seas of sinking doubt, cowering fear and vulgar denial. Such a moment will forever be enshrined for Peter and for all who know and love him in the sound of the cockcrow at dawn. "Peter, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times (Matthew 26:34)." And he did! This man whom Jesus called Rock went out and wept bitterly.
That's why we are so hard on dull and doubting Thomas. Not many of us ever claimed to be a Peter. But in Thomas we see ourselves. We fear it. We hate it. Doubt cannot be domesticated to be our quiet little voice of level headedness. It can suddenly rear up and snatch away our Lord, our faith and our eternity. At least, so it seems. Even though we know Thomas to be us, we can never make friends with him. Or can we?
III. A Solid Biblical Perspective
God is God! No one can preempt or prevent him, not even the devil and his henchman demon named Doubt. The Old Testament prophets looked up on the heathen nations - especially Assyria, Syria and Babylon - as the instruments of God, bringing the judgments of the righteous God of Israel upon Israel and Judah. The New Testament writers agreed: "Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap (Galatians 6:7)." In the mind of the Old Testament prophets, Babylon, in spite of itself, did the bidding of Israel's God, bringing the unwelcome harvest. God's righteous will prevails.
God's will may prevail in doubt as well. The Rev. Dr. Leslie Conrad, Jr., tells the story of Professor John Herr of Temple University who would begin his lectures on heresies in the Christian Church with these words: "Each one of you in this classroom today should thank the Lord every day for the heretics of the Christian Church."1 Doubt, argumentation and debate force the church and all believers to define their faith.
The first ecumenical Council of Nicea was convened by Emperor Constantine in 325 C.E. to bring unity to the church. Among other things, it dealt with the teachings of Anus that denied the full divinity of Christ; and it determined these teachings to be heresy, outside the bounds of Christian orthodoxy.2 From that Council came the Nicene Creed, a teaching and confessing statement of the church's faith that is revered almost universally across the church to this day.
The Augsburg Confession and all the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church, for example, came out of the lack of ecclesiastical and doctrinal credibility and the heated debates that marked the life of the church in the 16th century C.E.
These events and others like them are the anvils against which the church and believers hammer out the difficult questions, decisions and definitions of faith itself.
It is not doubt that Christians need to fear, but rather dishonesty in the face of doubt, of complacency and ambivalence in things spiritual, and of the unexamined and untested faith. There is a curse to the commonplace and a rut to the routine that can lull us into spiritual numbness and moral turpitude. A question honestly asked enlightens all who experience the concern and have access to the answer the question brings.
Thomas did us some lasting favors. When Jesus talked of the Father's house with many mansions, Thomas insisted on details. When the announcement came of the return to Jerusalem, Thomas remembered the near rock-throwing fervor of the crowd and questioned the necessity of the trip. Doubter? Perhaps. Useful? Absolutely. People were better prepared -or they should have been - because of Thomas' earthly honesty and political savvy. Finally, we have no need to ask about the nail holes and the spear, nor about the resurrection. We have it from the doubter himself. "Thomas answered him, 'My Lord and my God' (John 20:28)."
The Holy Spirit can use everything, even the doubt -honesty stated and honestly pursued - of one who hungers to believe. Faith is at every stage God's doing anyway. More about that in a moment.
IV. God Raised Him Up
There's that phrase again. We kept hearing it over and over again last Sunday as we looked into the Easter message of God's steady work for our redemption. "God raised him up."
It is not that doubt dances a duel with our faith that is all that important here. Nor is the intent to eulogize doubt into goodness. It cannot be safely cultivated and domesticated. It does mean to challenge the household of God. It would erect a fence at the edge of the boundary line of reason that would forever forbid the leap of faith.3 Faith does not begin until we leap. After all, "... faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1)!"
I once knew a pastor who loved to say how much he wished that every member of his congregation had the faith of Thomas. That statement always caused a few eyebrows to arch. Everyone knows that Thomas was not the paragon of faith, but rather the disciple of doubt. And that's too bad, because that is a reputation about which there is and has always been some justified doubt - if not outright historic denial. Scriptures, tradition, legend and some enticing evidence in India tell another story. This doubter is the first to confess the full divinity of Christ. "My Lord and my God!" Later, tradition says Thomas went to India and planted the church there before his martyrdom. To this day Syrian Christians of Malabar call themselves Christians of Saint Thomas. There is archaeological evidence supporting a very early date for this group's origins.4 It looks as though Thomas' honest determination hammered out some solid answers. Would that modern "believers" were as productive.
The key is this: Jesus raised Thomas up! On Easter morning God raised Jesus Christ from the tomb. A week later, Jesus came looking for Thomas. "Thomas, come here! Do not be faithless, but believing!" Instantly he was on his knees. "My Lord and my God." God, in Christ, raised him up, for "in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:16)."
Remember Peter? At one moment he was nearly drowned in his doubt. In yet another his witness was a cowering, profane, terrified and multi-tiered denial of everything he had seen and heard. Today he is our preacher, twisting and turning with the excitement of faith and the courage to speak to Pentecost pilgrims and gentile converts who made the journey to Jerusalem for the holy day. These were the cream of the orthodox in Judaism, and Peter is speaking in Jerusalem, a town given to fanaticism and crucifixions now and again.
From the Scriptures he calls upon David's Psalm. "He will not let [His] Holy One see corruption." From the world and scripture of the orthodox, Peter proclaims Christ to be the fulfillment of the prophetic hope. He calls from the past and interprets the present to amplify and give credibility to the resurrection witnesses. Obviously, Peter notes, David was not speaking of himself when he celebrates that his flesh shall not see corruption. David died, Peter reminds them, and his tomb was with them to that day.5 So, reasons Peter, since David died and that evidence is close by for all to see, clearly David predicted the resurrection of the King who was from the house and lineage of David, Jesus the Christ.
Note that in Peter's preaching we hear an important element of first-century preaching and teaching. "The Scriptures of the Jews are the primary context in which Jesus' life is comprehended."6 The goal is to link clearly the history of Israel with the life of Jesus. Israel itself exists as the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham, a promise often repeated. Jesus is proclaimed as a fulfillment of the promises to both Abraham and David. It is not possible for death to contain or to resist the power and purposes of God. His creative power and lively resolve cause Jesus, whom the leaders allowed to be killed at the hands of lawless men, to be free and alive.7
The key, then, is this: On Easter morning, "this Jesus God raised up." Later, along the Sea of Galilee, Christ came looking for this Peter who had gone out and wept so bitterly, this "Rock" who had been shattered in his doubt. Though Peter is no longer "Rock," Jesus addresses him gently and lovingly, beginning his resurrection. "Simon, son of John, do you love me? Tend my sheep." On that day and in that moment, God raised Peter from the dead, too.
Tend the sheep he did! In an instant, that terrifying sound of cockcrow in the raw conscience of one who had deserted a friend was transformed into a sermon illustration of salvation that Peter would preach powerfully over and over again. If anyone should have had any doubt, it was Jesus! Yet, Jesus knew Peter at his worst and loved him into his best. Legend tells us that Peter also died a martyr's death in Rome during the first persecution of Nero. Some say he was crucified upside down because he deemed himself unworthy to die as his Lord had died.8
In today's lesson there is no doubt in Peter's mind or in his heart. The people had begun to laugh at the Pentecost sight. Instantly Peter is on his feet. He can neither tolerate laughing nor miss an opportunity to tell the story. He shouts: "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know - this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up!"
VI. The Antiphons Of Faith
Peter's wet feet and cursing denials, along with Thomas' threat to know no satisfaction lest he thrust his hand and fingers into the wounds of his friend are, as it were, simply antiphons to the hymn of faith. There is no doubt in this: Peter and Thomas both desperately hungered to believe. That's all God asks. He does the rest. He gives us faith. We only need to call. Then, in a moment, in an upper room or in the close of a workday when we're pulling in the nets ... he comes!
The moments of doubt for those who hunger to be faithful are like antiphons to an anthem God writes and the angels never tire of singing. Faith, finally, is God's gift anyway. We can neither manufacture it nor reproduce it. We only pray for it. "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:26-27)."
Martin Luther, in words simple enough to be taught by fathers and mothers to their children, wrote: "I believe that by my own reason or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in true faith ..."9
"This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses (Acts 2:32)." "God raised him up indeed." There were in those early days at least three resurrections. He offers a fourth: "On Easter Day, God raised up Jesus. He raised up Thomas. He raised up Peter."
And in baptism, he has promised us the same gift. Let's put God to the test. Let's carry our doubts to God in honest prayer and hungering study of the scriptures. To those who search, doubt is but an antiphon to the hymn of faith.
Thou didst reach forth thy hand and mine enfold,
I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed sea.
T'was not so much that I on thee took hold,
As thou, dear Lord, on me!"10
Can it be true? Is this the same Peter who a few weeks ago ...? How now this certainty?
God raised him up!
Amen.
End Notes
1. Leslie Conrad, Jr., "Thank God for Doubting Thomas," The Minister's Annual Manual, Lois and Manfred Hoick, Jr., Editors, (Austin, Church Management, Inc., 1990), p. 295.
2. "First Council of Nicaea (325)," The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2nd Edition, F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, Editors, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 967.
3. Gustav Aulen, The Faith of the Christian Church. The phrase "boundary line of faith" belongs to this fine work by Bishop Aulen. Unfortunately, the work is out of print and my copy long ago went home with a parishioner ... and remains there! I regret that I cannot give publisher and page reference.
4. "Saint Thomas, Apostle," The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, op. cit., p. 1369.
5. Martin Lev, The Traveler's Key to Jerusalem, (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), p. 173. Nehemiah 3:16 tells us of the "tombs of David" in Jerusalem after the exile. Josephus mentions it in his late first-century history, Antiquities VII. There clearly was a site so identified to which Peter refers. It most likely would have been on the Kidron Valley side of the Ophel Hill. Unfortunately, when rebuilding the city of Jerusalem in the second century C.E., the Romans quarried that hillside and the tombs of the kings - the authentic ones - are not likely ever to be found. The "Tomb of David" shown today dates rather late, perhaps the time of the Crusades and later (12th Century, C.E.).
6. William H. Willimon, "Acts," Interpretation Commentary Series, (Atlanta, John Knox Press, 1988), p. 36.
7. Walter Brueggemann, "Easter," Proclamation 4, Series A, (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1989), p. 23.
8. "Saint Peter," The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, op. cit., pp. 1067-1068.
9. Martin Luther, "The Small Catechism," The Book of Concord, Theodore G. Tappert, Translator and Editor, (Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1959), p. 345.
10. "I Sought the Lord," Anonymous, 1880, The Service Book and Hymnal, (Minneapolis, Augsburg Publishing House, 1958), Hymn No. 473.
