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What a week it had been for the disciples. Everything had
happened so fast! One moment the crowd welcomed Jesus into
Jerusalem with shouts of hosanna, palm branches, and a hero's
welcome. And then suddenly, a couple of days later, he was
arrested, taken to the cross and crucified. The disciples must
have been shell-shocked. They had been taken to the heights of
joy and expectancy, only to have their hopes and dreams crushed
with Jesus' death. It's no wonder that they hid out. They were
afraid. They thought they were next. If Jesus could be killed
in such a cruel and unfair manner, what about them? So it's no
wonder that they gathered behind locked doors. It's no wonder
they doubted the news of Jesus' resurrection.
And what a day it had been! It began with Mary first. She
had gone to the tomb early in the morning and found it empty.
Peter and one of the other disciples went racing to the garden.
They returned with mixed reports. Later Mary came and told them
that she had spoken with Jesus.
Imagine her excitement, the quickened pulse, and the rapid
speech as she tried to share the news with the disciples. But we
can also imagine the difficulty they had in believing it. For it
is incredible news! The One who was dead is now alive. On the
face of it, it is impossible. In fact, the Bible tells us that
their first response to the story was to regard it as idle
nonsense, told by a distraught and hysterical woman.
That very evening the disciples gathered again, once more
behind locked doors, not knowing for sure what to think about
what had happened that first Easter day. And in the middle of
their confusion, Jesus came and stood among them. His words to
them are his words for us. He said to the disciples, "Peace be
with you." Just when things seem terrible, Jesus is there. Just
when things seem hopeless, Jesus is present. Just when things
seem impossible, Jesus can help.
For the disciples, things could not have gotten worse. By
the end of that first Easter weekend, just about everything in
their lives was in shambles. Their careers had been abandoned.
(I don't know if the disciples thought in those terms. I rather
suspect that the idea of career is a twentieth century concept --
but nonetheless they must have reflected on what they would do
for a living next!) Three years before they had heard Jesus say
to them, "Follow me," and had cast their lots with him.
Following Jesus was to have been their future. And now all that
was gone. Their futures were in shambles. What would they do
now? For Jesus was gone -- no, worse than gone -- he had been
crucified. And perhaps the same fate awaited them. Was there
any future for any of them after what had just happened? Their
faith was shaken. They had trusted Jesus. They had believed in
him. Their whole understanding of God, everything they believed
and lived for had died with him -- just collapsed, like a house
of cards! And it was all gone!
For the disciples, just when everything seemed at its worst,
Jesus was there for them. Standing in the midst of them. Alive.
There to grant them strength and hope. And that would make the
difference for them. In fact, they would go to their graves,
these disciples, almost all of them to hostile, martyr's graves,
not the "Now I lay me down to sleep" variety, but the kind of
graves that we pray never comes to us or our loved ones ... those
disciples would go to their graves confident that even when
things get that terrible, Jesus Christ was there and that was all
that mattered for them.
That is what happened to those disciples that night behind
locked doors. Jesus came to them and changed their lives. Jesus
came in the midst of them and they emerged as different people,
confident and assured of God's love for them.
So we can understand the way Thomas must have felt. He
hadn't been there. He had missed out. For him, the darkness of
night still filled his heart. For him, life was still hopeless.
His hopes had died with Jesus. For him, the future was still
unsure. For he had yet to meet the Risen Lord, and because of
that, doubt filled his heart.
"Unless I see for myself, I will not believe. Unless I can
feel the marks of the nails with my own fingers and touch the
wound in his side with my own hands, I will not believe." Can
you sense Thomas' misery? Can you hear his loneliness, his
separation and pain? I think you can, because we have all felt
it. We have all gone through the same experience. We have
trusted and been hurt. We have loved and lost. We have reached
out in reconciliation to others, only to have them reject us and
snap back in pain. We have all been where Thomas was -- hurt and
afraid to trust again. We understand Thomas. He will be careful
now. He will be slow to believe and reluctant to trust. As for
Thomas, he must see for himself.
We know all about doubt, don't we? For we have all felt the
same way Thomas did. Dave Dravecky, former pitcher for the San
Francisco Giants, lost his arm to cancer a few years ago. It was
a devastating experience. It is bad enough to have cancer, let
alone to face the amputation of an arm. And then on top of that,
to lose a promising career as a major league baseball player.
Naturally Dave was filled with many questions.
During his time of struggle, he began to receive letters
from people all over the country, people who had learned of his
illness. Most of those letters were letters of encouragement.
Some people wrote him looking for answers. They knew he had been
through so much and yet had been able to keep his faith, and they
wanted to know how he had done it. One day he received the
following letter:

Dear Mr. Dravecky, If there is a God who cares so much about
you, why did he allow you to have the surgery in the first place?
I have lived 41 years in this old world and have yet to see any
piece of genuine evidence that there is anything real about any
of those religious beliefs you talk about. God certainly does
not love me and has never done a single thing to express that
love for me. I have had to fight for everything I ever got in
life. Nobody cares about what happens to me and I don't care
about anybody else either. Can't you see the truth that religion
is nothing more than a crutch used by a lot of weaklings who
can't face reality and that the church is nothing but a bunch of
hypocrites who care nothing for each other and whose faith
extends not to their actions or daily lives but is only just a
bunch of empty phrases spouted off to impress others?

A cruel letter, isn't it? How would you have responded to
it? Dave Dravecky received it after he had seen his baseball
career taken from him and lost his arm. He wrote the man back.
He told the letter writer that he knew how he felt because he had
faced the same doubts. He too had wondered if God had abandoned
him. He too had questioned if anyone cared. He too wondered if
his faith were not just empty words. But when things seemed the
worst, Jesus was there. "I am convinced," Dravecky wrote, "that
there is a God. That no matter what happens to me, there is a
purpose for it and behind that purpose stands a loving, caring
God." The same God who came to the disciples. The same
Resurrected Jesus who stood among them and said, "Peace be with
you."
It was the peace that Dave Dravecky had experienced which
enabled him to face his loss with grace and faith. And it was
precisely the same peace that the man who wrote that cruel letter
has never found -- peace with God or even peace with himself.
For when doubt dominates our lives, that is precisely what we
lose, peace with God and peace with ourselves.
Thomas knew that. He knew what it was like to live without
peace. He had experienced it for a whole week. That's what the
Gospel reading is about this morning -- a week of darkness, a
week spent without hope, a week without Jesus.
When Thomas refused to believe, it was not just the other
disciples' word that he doubted. It was life itself that he
rejected. It was a rejection of hope, a refusal to believe that
life can have meaning, that life goes on even after death. We
can hear that so very clearly in the cruel letter Dravecky
received, can't we? The story of Thomas shows us that there is
no hope without the resurrection of Jesus. There is no way to
make sense of our earthly existence without God. But then that
shouldn't be a surprise to us. The Gospel writer John said that
when he wrote, "He who believes in the Risen Christ has life.
And he who does not believe is dead already." Dead already!
Those are his words. "He who does not believe is dead already."
When we allow doubt to dominate our lives, when we close
ourselves off to the possibilities of God, when we live our lives
with only death as the end for us, we walk through life down a
dead-end road. But doubt need not lead to death. Doubt does not
have to destroy faith. Listen to what Jesus said to Thomas when
on the week following Easter he appeared to him. In verse 26 it
says, "A week later his disciples were again in the house, and
Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came
and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.' Then he said
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.' "
There is a remedy to doubt. There is help for us when we
find ourselves filled with questionings and doubt, when the world
seems to collapse in upon us and all our props are knocked away.
Take Thomas as an example. Thomas made the mistake we often
make. He thought he could go it alone. Devastated by the death
of Jesus, he separated himself from the other disciples. "Give me
some room," he said. "I just have to work this out alone." He
sought solitude in his pain, isolation for his loneliness, and
thought he could maintain his trust in God all alone. But what
we see is that his doubts came from being absent from the
disciples, from being separate and alone when Jesus appeared to
them on the first Easter day.
But his doubts were answered in the presence of the other
disciples. It was only in the fellowship of believers, only
through the Body of Christ, that Thomas found the assurance that
he so deperately sought and needed. "Put your finger here,"
Jesus said to him. "See my hands. Reach out your hand and touch
me, if you must. Do not be doubting but believe."
When doubt dominates our lives, when doubt draws us apart
from the church, then doubt can be deadly. But when doubt leads
us to look deeper for God, when doubt sends us searching for
God's wisdom and goodness, when doubt forces us more fully into
the fellowship of believers, then even doubt can be a blessing
for us just as it was for Thomas. For in the midst of doubt,
Jesus is there. Even when things seem darkest, a light shines:
Jesus, who said, "I am the light of the world."
On July 4, 1952, Florence Chadwick made an attempt to swim
the channel between Catalina Island and the California coast.
Unfortunately, it was a fog-filled day. She entered the cold
water, swimming for fifteen hours, fighting the cold, sharks and
fog. Finally, she asked to be taken into the boat. Her
assistants in the boat encouraged her to keep going for surely
they must be close. But because she could not see land, only
fog, she quit. After she got into the boat, they discovered that
they were less than 500 meters from Catalina Island. Two months
later, on a clear day, she tried again. This time, encouraged by
the sun and fine weather, she met her goal. Only eleven hours
and 27 minutes later, Florence Chadwick became the first woman to
swim across the San Pedro Bay to Catalina Island.
When doubts and questionings cloud our vision, when troubles
and difficulties close our eyes to the goodness of God, we need
to move closer to our Savior. We need to draw more deeply into
worship, spend more time in Scripture reading and prayer, and
reach out more strongly to our brothers and sisters in the faith.
Mature faith, faith that serves us for a lifetime, is not a
faith that has never experienced doubts. Rather it is faith that
constantly searches and seeks, faith always on the lookout for
Jesus, faith that trusts that even when the worst has happened,
there in the middle of it stands Jesus. Jesus knew that was the
kind of faith we need. That's why he said, "Peace be with you.
Do not be doubting, but believe. Blessed are those who have not
seen and yet believe." That's his promise for us -- blessed are
you and I, for in believing we have life in his name. Amen.