MY LORD & MY GOD
Resurrection Response • Sermon • Submitted
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My Lord & My God
John 20:19-31
Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
John 20:28-29
Hallelujah! It is the week after Easter! He is Risen! He is Risen, indeed! Enter into the story with me: Saturday was the Sabbath day for the Jewish people. The first day of the week for them was Sunday. I know it seems like a long time ago, but a week ago Friday was Good Friday. Last Sunday was EASTER. The tomb was empty! Jesus was risen from the dead! The early church then began meeting together on the first day of the week: Sunday!
Have you ever wondered what the response to the resurrection was like for those in Jerusalem? Remember, there were millions of people who had traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. What happened when they returned home and the news about Jesus spread around the world? I wonder what the people were saying. “It’s kind of a long story but the short story is that they crucified Jesus on Friday. He was dead. They had to hurry up and bury him before sundown and the start of the Sabbath. Joseph of Arimathea gave up his tomb and buried Jesus’ body. On Sunday—the tomb was empty. Empty like no Jesus inside it. And over 500 people say they have seen Jesus and even talked with Him.” Imagine that game of telephone and how crazy some of those stories got!
Lent and Easter are over now in our church calendar, but Pentecost is just ahead! Over the next seven weeks, we are going to study the stories of these people who saw Jesus after he rose. I am now going to go move from preaching to meddling. I am hoping that one of you will share your “Resurrection Response” with us. You don’t have to preach a message, just stand up here and tell us in 3-5 minutes your response to the resurrection. Pray about it!
Do you know that there were at least five Resurrection appearances of our Lord on the first day of the week?
1. Mary Magdalene (John 20:11–18),
2. the other women (Matt. 28:9–10),
3. Peter (1 Cor. 15:5 and Luke 24:34),
4. the two Emmaus disciples (Luke 24:13–32), and
5. the disciples minus Thomas (John 20:19–25).
Let us turn to our Bibles and read the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection appearances found in John’s Gospel.
Before we do, let us pray. “Lord God, You are more ready to hear than we are to pray. We ask for a resurrection appearance today! May Jesus come and live among us. May we have eyes to see and ears to hear the Good News of the resurrection. Amen”
John 20:19-31
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. 21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” 24 Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.” 26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” 28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” 30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.[i]
FEAR TO FAITH --- John 21:19-23
I wish we had more time to take these passages apart and look at the original writing and dig deep into the meanings of what is being said here. One of the questions that comes to me when I read this account of the resurrection of Jesus is, “When have I been afraid?” When have you been afraid? What causes you to be afraid? We are told here that the disciples were locked in the Upper Room with fear. Have you ever been locked in a room with fear? Listening for every sound? Is that someone coming up the stairs? What was that sound? What are those lights? What was that sound?” When my wife was a teenager, she was babysitting. The kids were afraid to go to bed, saying that someone was in their room. My wife went to show them that there was nothing to be afraid of. She reached around the wall to turn on the light to show the kids that there was no one in the room, except the child had put their stuffed Easter bunny on top of the end table and when my wife reached around to turn the light on—she felt the fur which, in her mind, felt like hair! “There was someone hiding, crouched down in the room!” She screamed, the kids screamed and they all ran into the master bedroom and locked the door! They waited in there together until their mom and dad got home. FEAR! That’s what I’m talking about! Have you ever been locked inside of a room and you are afraid? That is what is going here. Except Jesus came and stood among them inside that locked room. What was it that Jesus said? “Peace be with you!” When I lived in the Midwest, I’ve spent many times locked inside a room with fear. Tornadoes. At least once or twice a year, you find yourself locked in a bathroom, a closet, a basement—and while the storm rages, you are filled with fear. Having Jesus enter into that room saying, “PEACE” was like hearing the all-clear siren announcing that the danger was over. In just four words, Jesus took everyone in that Upper Room from FEAR and brought them to FAITH. Everyone, that is, except for Thomas. For whatever reason, Thomas wasn’t in the Upper Room that night.
UNBELEIF TO BEIELF --- John 20:24-27
Thomas, the disciple, was anything but afraid. Early in the Gospel of John, Thomas is the one who announces that he is willing to go and die with Jesus. Thomas had seen all the healings, and miracles. Thomas was there when Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb. Thomas was there at the Last Supper. He was there in the garden when Judas betrayed Jesus. He knew the Jews had crucified Jesus and that Jesus was dead.
Can we enter into Thomas’ sandals for a minute?
He is not in the Upper Room the first night that Jesus appears. Maybe he was out getting something for the meal. Maybe he wanted to be alone and grieve by himself. Have you ever isolated yourself when you are struggling? Thomas may have just needed to get away. For whatever reason, Thomas misses the first appearance of the Lord to the disciples.
Do you know that Thomas has two names? One is Thomas and it is Aramaic. His other name is Didymus and that is in the Greek. Both Thomas and Didymus mean the same thing: “twin.” Thomas must have been a twin. There’s been a lot of studying by various scholars about Thomas’ twin. As I studied this week, I read that this one commentator said he knew who Thomas’ twin was—it was him…because he, too, is a doubter just like Thomas. Ah, so you and I could also be Thomas’ twin when we, too, doubt.
In a cellar in Cologne, Germany, after World War II were found these words written on the wall: I BELIEVE … I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining; I believe in love, even when I feel it not; I believe in God, even when He is silent.[ii]
Listen to this quote from Billy Graham, “In August of 1949, I was so filled with doubts about everything that when I stood to preach and made a statement, I would say to myself: I wonder if that is the truth. I wonder if I can really say that sincerely. My ministry had gone. I then took the Bible up into the high Sierra Nevada mountains in California. I opened it and got on my knees. I pled, ‘Father I cannot understand many things in this Book. I cannot come intellectually all the way, but I accept it by faith to be authoritative, the inspired Word of the living God!’”[iii]
I love this resurrection response. Everyone is locked in the room. They are filled with fear. “Won’t be long before the authorities realize that we were with Jesus. We are goners. They will be here soon.” And, what no one could have predicted: Jesus came and stood among them. It doesn’t say Jesus rang the doorbell, or Jesus knocked on the door. Jesus came and stood among them. The risen Jesus came and stood among them. “Peace be with you.”
I am sure that everyone who was locked in that Upper Room was flooded with peace. Everyone but Thomas, who for whatever reason, wasn’t there. And when Thomas returns and hears that everyone but him saw Jesus, he doubles down and declares, “No way, Jose! Unless I put my fingers into his risen nail holes, I will never believe this crazy story.”
I am sure that we are all like Thomas. I’m sure we all have times of doubt and unbelief. We don’t want to hear some crazy story about how missed out on the most important thing in history. “Nope! Show me the evidence. I want to see the evidence.” Hmmm. Have you ever said anything remotely close to that?
A week later, Thomas is there when Jesus walks back into the room. “Peace be with you.” And then Jesus walks over to Thomas and says, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Stop doubting and believe! Jesus wants to take us from our unbelief and bring us to belief. I find great comfort that the greatest preacher the world has ever heard, Billy Graham, had doubt. I also find great comfort that the remedy for doubt is getting on your knees and opening up the Scriptures.
Now we close with Thomas’ resurrection response. “My Lord and my God!” The personal pronouns of MY in front of “Lord” and “God” declare Thomas’ authentic faith. Even during Thomas’ doubts and fears, Jesus meets Thomas right where he is.
SO WHAT?
When my wife was in college, she took a class called “The Philosophy of Religion.” The professor was not a Christian and he tried throughout the semester to establish the fact that to be a Christian, you would be a fool. At the end of the semester, he tried one last time to make fun of those who believed. He asked the class if anyone had seen Jesus. He declared that Jesus was a hoax --- He was not real --- He was a fake! His logic was that since no one there had seen Jesus--he did not exist. Most of the students in the class were young teenagers. Jac had returned to school in her 40’s and every day after her philosophy class, she drove over to the church where another pastor and I would gird her up on how to have a philosophical debate with this professor. After a few moments of awkward silence on that final day of class, my wife raised her hand and told the professor that she knew Christ personally. The professor laughed and mocked her and said she didn’t look two thousand years old. My wife then used the same logic that the professor had used to condemn Christianity to proclaim the risen Christ. My wife told the professor, “I know Jesus Christ personally. He is real. He is not a hoax. He does exist. I know him personally.”
Just yesterday I sent a text out to some friends and I included Thomas’ reply in John 20 and Jesus’ reply to Thomas. Let’s look at it again, “Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” In the text I wrote --- So what does the resurrection mean to you? Do you believe?
I received several replies to my text. One man said, “An assurance, hope, life everlasting, absolutely believe. As a matter of fact, I have had a personal encounter with the living Christ.” Another person wrote, “Without the resurrection we do not have anything to believe in. Without the resurrection, all Jesus would be is another human being born of sinful flesh, who walked the earth for a few years and died. But, because He is risen, there is proof that he is he messiah, our Savior, the King of Kings, who sits at God’s right hand. Do I believe? Just look at me!”
Your “so what” for this week is to think about sharing your resurrection response with us. I’m not asking for your entire life story but was there a time, like Thomas, when you said, “My Lord and my God” because you knew that you knew that you knew…that Jesus Christ was real?
Let’s pray: Father God, we are Easter people. The empty tomb of Jesus has changed us. Be with us as we go on our way for the next week and bring us back together next Sunday to worship YOU, to hear your word, and to be encouraged by these resurrection responses. Help us to stop doubting and believe. Amen.”
Let us prayer …
The Seed Christian Fellowship
Rancho Cucamonga, California 91701
www.theseedchristianfellowship.com
April 28, 2019
Pastor Dave Peters
[i] The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Jn 20:19–31). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
[ii] Tan, P. L. (1996). Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (p. 184). Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc.
[iii] Tan, P. L. (1996). Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (pp. 184–185). Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc.