Thomas and the Tree of Life

Sermon 4/24/2022 Baccalauréat Dinner and Worship

Thomas and the Tree of Life

Well happy Easter to you all! And we can still say that to each other because Easter in the liturgical calendar is actually not just one day, but 50 days! So happy Easter and welcome to our Baccalaureate dinner and worship service as we close out a difficult, disorienting, dire academic year, but ultimately a beautiful one too. And I want to especially thank Logan for the delicious desserts tonight. Wow those were great, as well I want to thank Carl and Motor City Wesley for the awesome music tonight. 

As we are still in the Easter season, we have today the story of one of Jesus’ post resurrection appearances to the disciples. But the character who gets the most attention in this story is not Jesus, but the apostle Thomas or “doubting” Thomas as he has become known. And when we call Thomas “doubting” Thomas it’s really never meant as a compliment. It’s usually a way of denigrating Thomas for not believing in Jesus’ resurrection until he was able to see the mark of the nails in Jesus’ hands, and touch Jesus’ hands and side. 

But what if we got that wrong? What if it’s exactly the opposite? What if Doubting Thomas is in fact the faithful picture of what it looks like to be an honest, thoughtful, and even slightly skeptical disciple of Jesus? Well that’s what I want to take a few minutes today discussing with you in a sermon I’m calling Thomas and the Tree of life. 

So let’s start by diving into the story a little bit. We first have the disciples who are locked up in the house because they are afraid of being crucified like Jesus just was. But interestingly, Thomas is not with them, so Thomas was out and about. It doesn’t tell us what he was doing, but he obviously wasn’t so fearful that he felt the need to lock himself up in the house. So already, this is a plus in my book for Thomas. He is an example of someone exercising their faith over their fear. We don’t know if Thomas was afraid or not, but we do know that he didn’t let that fear prevent him from stepping out in faith even if it was just to leave the house to get a few groceries or what not.

So that’s number one of how we can understand Thomas as the exemplary disciple of this story. He exercises his faith over his fear. Then he eventually returns back to the house where the rest of the disciples are locked up and they give him the whole run-down of how they have seen the Lord. But Thomas with a healthy amount of skepticism says that he won’t believe them unless he were able to see Jesus and touch him. And I can’t help but relate to Thomas here. He was the only one out of his friend group that wasn’t there when this unbelievable appearance of Jesus happens. I would be doubting my friends too! How was he supposed to know that they weren’t pulling his leg?

Then a week goes by and what do you know, but Jesus shows up again, and this time Thomas is with his friends. And what Jesus does is so gracious. Instead of reprimanding Thomas for his doubt, he invites Thomas to touch and see the wounds in his hands and side. In response, Thomas proclaims his faith by exclaiming to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” 

And what Jesus says next is I think where everyone turns against Thomas and his doubt. Jesus says, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

This statement is where all the self-righteous faithful who pretend not to have any doubt like to say, “Well I haven’t seen Jesus but I still believe. I’m not like one of those doubting Thomas’ who needs proof.”

But come on, we all have doubt, and proof that something exists is a thing we all strive for. I don’t think that we need to feel bad about that. Just because Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” It doesn’t mean that the inverse is true. It doesn’t mean that those who have a hard time believing without seeing are somehow not blessed.” If anything Jesus’ invitation to Thomas to see him and touch him is the gracious way Jesus responds to all of us in our doubt. The same invitation is offered to any of us unbelievers or those of us who would like to see to believe. Jesus doesn’t condemn us or cast us away. Jesus welcomes us in, even comes back again and again until he eventually finds us and invites us too to touch and see and believe.

I’m not sure what it is you have doubt about these days. Maybe you doubt whether or not you’ll get all your final projects and tests done, or maybe you doubt you’ll get a passing grade even if you do finish everything. Maybe you doubt Jesus’ resurrection like Thomas. This year as we have been getting this campus ministry started, it has been a personal season of doubt, but every time my doubt wants to convince me to lose hope that this campus ministry is viable, y’all show up again and again for each other, proving that a radically inclusive community of faith is vital and needed. 

So when we feel overcome with doubt I am here to tell you today that that is ok. Because you can still walk in faith as a person with doubt. In fact, the only way to walk in faith is to allow your faith to walk hand in hand with your doubt. Because the opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty. Like, if you are certain about something, you need no faith to believe in it or hope for it. Our ability to have faith at all is dependent on the doubts we carry. 

And it is a true leap of faith to believe that Jesus died on the cross, rose from the dead, and in doing so transformed that cross, that tree of death into a tree of life. But that is the true essence of faith, to have our doubts that this thing actually happened, but to step out like Thomas stepped out believing, hoping that it could be true. We can’t know for certain, but we can have faith that in dying and rising Jesus actually did swallow up our sin, and has freed us from our fear of death. 

Thus we can live free. Not free of doubt but free to doubt, free to believe, free to step out even when the fear of death is real all around us. And after two years of COVID, where many of us were locked up in our homes, dorms, and apartments for fear that going outside could hurt or potentially kill us or our loved ones, maybe we can relate to the disciples' fears. But we can have faith that just as Jesus showed up again and again to his disciples and to Thomas in their time of fear, Jesus shows up for us as well here in the bread that we share during communion, in the friends that helps us to finish the semester strong, in the people who we meet or work with after graduating from this place, Jesus shows up for us too. 

And Jesus’ presence with us is all the proof we need to nurture even the smallest seed of faith that we hold onto. That seed of faith that is watered with the waters of our baptism, nourished with the bread and wine of communion, and that takes root in our lives grafting us and connecting us to the Tree of Life. Amen