John 20 - Part 2

 

Read John 20

In the hymn I Love to Tell the Story, the third verse begins:  I love to tell the story, for those who know it best, seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.

You know the story.  Many of you know it well.  You have been reading it all week.  It was surely a much easier read that last week.

Nobody comes to this part of the story and says, yeah, ok, I know how that comes out. Shakespeare may have consistently climaxed his stories in Act III, Scene II but John takes you all the way to chapter 20.

Put yourself in that time and place just for the moment.  Jesus is gone.  Mary thinks someone has taken the body.  OBTW—this huge stone has been rolled away.  Peter and John race to the tomb.  There are some burial cloths but no body. 

They go back to where they were staying.

Mary comes back and in a somewhat circuitous conversation discovers the Lord is alive.  For the second time that morning, she returned to the disciples with news.

I have seen the Lord!

On that same evening, the disciples were gathered in a locked room and Jesus appeared to them.  Peace be with you was his greeting.  Now there is joy.  Seeing is believing.

Again, Jesus said peace be with you.   He said receive the Holy Spirit and breathed on them.  You might think that the Spirit didn’t come until Pentecost but consider that the disciples received the Spirit at this time and it was fully manifest upon them at Pentecost.

These were some confused men.  It might take a few weeks to bring to recollection what they had been through and how it all fit together.

Jump ahead a little to Saul’s conversion.  He met the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus.  This was a powerful conversion of a man well versed in God’s written word; yet, Paul spent some time in the wilderness after this encounter putting the pieces together.

He knew God’s word inside and out, but he had realized he didn’t know God very well.  Some time to process, digest, reconcile his education and experience with what God had called him to do was needed.

The disciples needed a little time as well.  About 7 weeks should do the trick, but the Spirit was given at this time. 

OBTW—Thomas missed this meeting and would not believe what had happened.  You know the story.  I won’t believe it until I see it.

Thomas wanted the forensics.  I want to see holes from nails and a spear.  Thomas gets the less than affection nickname in the modern times of Doubting Thomas. 

Perhaps a better title would be Be Careful What You Ask For Thomas.

Jesus appeared to Thomas later and told him to see and touch what he needed to.  Thomas believed and proclaimed, My Lord and My God.

Then Jesus speaking to Thomas speaks directly to us.

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

That is the story that we celebrate once a year.  This year, you get it again.  We should celebrate resurrection time and time again.

The crosses that we display on our church buildings and homes are empty.

We remember that the tomb was empty.

We sing Christ Arose.  Hallelujah, Christ arose.

But for the moment, I ask that we look at the very end of this fantastic chapter.

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

If you have read the Bible for a while, you have asked these questions or others like them.

How was Jesus as a baby?

Did he have to go through the terrible twos?

We see a glimpse of Jesus when he was 12 but what happened between then and when he turned water into wine when he was about 30?

Did he act like he knew everything when he was a teenager?  What if he did know everything?  Now there is a parenting challenge.

Did he ever get grounded?

How many days or weeks or months was it between some events in the Bible?

Will there be a college football season in 2020?

It seems like there is so much that is not included in the Bible that inquiring minds want to know. Listen again to how John ends this chapter.

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

We have enough to believe.  Our charge is to believe.  Our calling requires us to believe.  Our discipleship calls us to believe.

We are charged with more:  trust, obedience, love to name a few, but we must believe and this short closing to this chapter tell us that we have what we need to believe.  These written words are what we need to believe.  These testimonies passed from generation to generation are what we need.  We are blessed that we have them in writing.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Let’s celebrate our atonement in the blood of Jesus. Let’s celebrate resurrection. Let’s celebrate life eternal.  Let us celebrate the victory over sin and death that we know in Christ Jesus.

Let’s do this believing in what we have not seen. 

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

We have all that we need to believe, and we are blessed for believing.

Amen.