New Beginnings and Glorious endings – John 20: 19 - 30

Andrew M first preached this sermon as St Denys Church on the Sunday after Easter.  You can read the passage here. From the beginning of the disciples’ story, their experience of meeting Jesus, it had been quite a roller coaster.  There were many ups and downs, acts of faith and misunderstandings, hopes and disappointments … and then Jesus died and it seemed as if everything had come crashing down.  Where was the sense in all this?  But all along Jesus had seen potential, even when others couldn’t see it in this motley bunch of disciples, and He doesn’t give up.  His belief in them, His gentleness, His perseverance was to win through.

I expect many of us can remember in primary school being taught how to write a story with a beginning, a middle and an end.  I’ve mentioned before that I am often tempted to read the ending of a book first, so I know where it is heading.  This happened recently in a book which follows the imagined, interwoven lives of five people from 1944 onwards, at 15 year intervals.  One had an appalling start to life, which seemed to go from bad to worse as he suffered enduring mental health problems.  And then, suddenly he has a new beginning.  I hardly dared believe things would end well for him and I wanted to skip to the end to put myself out of the misery of having to wait to find out.

 As we look at the disciples again I want to think beyond the passage a bit and at how the stories end. You see, from the beginning of the disciples’ story, their experience of meeting Jesus, it had been quite a roller coaster.  There were many ups and downs, acts of faith and misunderstandings, hopes and disappointments … and then Jesus died and it seemed as if everything had come crashing down.  Where was the sense in all this?  But all along Jesus had seen potential, even when others couldn’t see it in this motley bunch of disciples, and He doesn’t give up.  His belief in them, His gentleness, His perseverance was to win through.

A New Beginning

 We see this particularly in the case of Thomas.  Dour, pragmatic Thomas, like many of us needs to see for himself, and cannot move forward just on the basis of what he has heard from the others, having missed that first appearance in the locked room.

Interestingly the room is still locked – the danger has not melted away, even if their fear had turned to joy.  But Thomas had not been happy to re-engage with the mission on hearsay.  He wanted more proof that it was Jesus that they had seen the previous week and that He really was alive.  V25 “Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my fingers where the nails were and put my hand into His side, I will not believe it.”

Jesus appears again saying “Peace be with you.”  It seems as if this appearance was especially for Thomas’s benefit.  He is invited to do just what he has asked to be able to do.  It isn’t recorded as to whether he actually did put his fingers in the nail holes, and did put his hand in Jesus’s side … but his immediate response is to exclaim “My Lord and my God!”

 An encounter with Jesus was all that it took to draw out that response.  Jesus wanted to put an end to doubt and create belief.  Faith where doubt had existed.  And he does this today.

 A beginning, a middle that is transformed though a new beginning and an ending.  So what about that next chapter, the ending?

A Glorious Ending

We can piece it together a bit from Luke’ second book based on his experiences, the Acts of the Apostles, and from the letters in the New Testament.  The eleven went on to turn the world upside down as the Jesus movement took hold and they responded to Jesus’s commission, going out in the same way that Jesus himself had been sent by the father (verses 22-23), empowered by the Holy Spirit to enable forgiveness and new life to be received.

 Thomas has had too much of a bad press.  He has been labelled “Doubling Thomas”.  But I think he should be remember quite differently as “Faithful Thomas”.  His is ending was a glorious ending, a glorious example of a faith story.

 Why do I propose that Thomas life story had a glorious ending?  Because on the face of it, this doesn’t seem to have been the case.  Thomas carried the gospel further than any of the other disciples, to India and beyond, but according to Indian Christian tradition he was killed in Chennai in AD 72, stabbed by a spear.  It was Thomas who had encouraged his fellow disciples only a few days before the crucifixion to go with Jesus and die for his Lord …

 And they did … and they were faithful to the end, turning the world upside down.  But the eleven apostles, excluding Judas Iscariot, met various deaths, primarily martyrdom due to their faith.  Traditions and historical accounts suggest that some were crucified, others stoned, beheaded, or suffered other violent ends.  John, the last surviving apostle, is believed to have died of natural causes.

 Paul, in his letters talks about running a race, and about receiving a crown of righteousness.  Thomas went on to do just that.  Faithful to the end.  And in the end he was back in the very presence of Jesus.

 John draws everything together in verses 30 and 31, which is effectively the conclusion of his gospel as he passed it down to the Jerusalem church. He declares that his one great purpose in writing was that we may believe that Jesus was sent by God and that by believing in Jesus we will gain life and bear his name.

Our New Chapter

So what are we going to take away for our selves from all of this.  Firstly, our beginnings may have been hard, unpromising, faltering, messy.  But God can deal with that, like He dealt with the disciples.  He has done all that is necessary to deal with the past, our failings and all that we have messed up.  Not one single person is outside of God’s love, His mercy, His forgiveness.  It is a question of what we do about it.  If the resurrection was a turning point for the disciples, it remains the new beginning of what God offers to us if we put our trust in Him rather than ourselves or any earthly power, as we were thinking last week.

 With a new beginning, a whole new chapter of our lives opens up.  That doesn’t mean an easy life, it doesn’t mean we will get it all right – far from it.  I would describe myself as a serial back slider – so many of my good intentions fall by the wayside.  I am slow learner – God has to show me things so many times before I get close to understanding them, let alone really understanding them.  I probably see fewer things in black and white than I have ever done – the mysteries of life have deepened rather than dissolved away.  But faith has grown.  God has become more real to me despite those things that cause many people to question His very existence.

 Questioning is good. Doubt can be a positive thing, as in Thomas’s case.  Faith doesn’t hinge on a watertight set of philosophical precepts, but is based on a person and the personal relationship we have, can have with Jesus Christ through His Spirit who comes into our lives and, slowly but surely, changes us.

 And we have purpose and hope.  We share in the same mission that Jesus gave to Faithful Thomas and the others.  John’s version of Jesus’s commission differs from that of the other Gospel writers.  Some words in the so-called ‘great commission’ have been taken out of context.  Matthew’s forceful ‘authority … go .. make … obey … commanded … the very end of the age’ have been wrongly but conveniently used to support European colonialism and empire.  They must be read together with the different commission recorded by John.  Yes, we are sent into the world, but only in the way the Father sent the Son, the Servant King.  That is how we go.  Then those who accept our message receive the gift of sins forgiven and eternal life.

 Thomas and the other disciples did this, and we too can share in God’s plan for making Himself known in our families, at work, in St Denys and further afield … wherever He leads us.

Looked Upon With Mercy

The late Pope Francis is known for having as responded when asked who he is, by saying simply this:  “I am a sinner.  I am a sinner .. I am sure of this.  I am a sinner whom the Lord looked upon with mercy”.

 That is what he has taken to God’s throne of grace.  That is what Faithful Thomas took to God’s throne of grace.  And this is the only way we can one day come to that same place.

 Much has been made of Pope Francis’s life having been marked by humility and the reality of forgiveness.  It was lived out in service to the poor, to those on the margins.  Can the same be said of you and me?

 Good endings lie ahead when we complete the race.  John’s Gospel, as we have seen, was written that we might “believe that Jesus was the one sent by God and that by believing in Jesus we will gain life”, life in His name.  John is saying it’s all there, the essentials in an abridged account, all you need to have for life in all its fullness, as God intended.  Do read it!