Here's One For The Left Out & Left Over
Here's One For The Left Out & Left Over
John 20:19-31
April 7th 2024
Eastertide
Grace Baptist Church
Vermillion South Dakota USA
Welcome In The Name Of The Father, The Son, And The Holy Spirit.
The Ground Beneath Your Feet Is Holy Ground.
Let Us Worship.
“My Lord & My God”
John 20:19-31
19 So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
20 And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
23 “If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.
25 So the other disciples were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
26 After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”
27 Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.”
28 Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”
30 Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;
31 but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name. [1]
Outlines & Outliers
Themes & Theology
The Lord Jesus has been raised from the dead.
Now what?
That may be your question now that you’ve wrestled with believing the unbelievable about the Lord Jesus: now what?
And it is the question the Lord Jesus answers for the disciples present, all of them except Thomas who is… somewhere else. We don’t know what Thomas was up to. But he’s off doing whatever a Didymus would be up to, and this absence shall come into play later on.
For those who are present, Jesus stands in their midst. He says “Peace to you”, and the disciples rejoice, and we disciples are still rejoicing.
Peace is one slippery fish.
There are days when you feel invincible, the sun is shining in the sky and in your heart and inside your eyelids, and you feel so good you reckon it’ll never go down. There are also days when the darkness is slick and sticky at the same time and you can’t hardly get your feet under you for any traction at all, and you can’t seem to snap out of it either.
But to have the peace of God would mean that He is with you and you are right by Him because of who God is, and what God has done for you in Christ Jesus our Lord. Peace with God means you are objectively right with God no matter what your circumstances happen to be, or what your feelings may be saying and screaming. If we’re right with God, all that’s not right will not long last.
This is why turning for our old ways to the new life of Jesus is so good for us.
Romans 5:1
1. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ[2]
John 14:26-27
26 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
27 “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. [3]
John 16:33
33 “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” [4]
The peace of God is your birthright if you dare be born again in Jesus. He’s calling to you right now. Do you have your ear buds turned up so high with distraction that you cannot hear Him?
This dilemma is my dilemma, perhaps it is your dilemma as well: I want to fade away and be buried in my baptism so far that I’m not concerned with the things of the world, but I have this sneaking suspicion that that particular impulse is actually terrible selfish, as in: I don’t want to be bothered by other people’s problems, so I’m just not going to be bothered by them, but I want to feel spiritual about it so I’ll just get into hyper localism, and call any device that could bring me news of the outside world wicked technology.
But on the other mighty hand, I took most of the season of Lent away from the hyper voyeurism of social media, and that was the opposite of a rush, and it was the opposite of the outrage, and that felt really good.
All who know Jesus know the tension I’m talking about. The Lord Jesus is offering me peace, but I really love getting all riled up about everything I probably can’t do anything about: but thank God I’m not like those people! There’s not much redemption in thanking God you’re not like those people, and it’s prone to make your heart shrivel up into nothing, or at least nothing very useful.
And yet, how I loved to be all riled up about how the world is falling apart and taking people out with it, and how I also love to say the world is bad, and it has long been bad, so worry not about the badness of it all, instead pursue peace, plant a garden, pretend you’re Wendell Berry, get rough hands building things in the woodshop until the Lord wears down your rough edges, Lord let me be a simple man, subscribe to hyper localism and throw away any and all subscriptions that would give you news of the outside world.
The problem with these inclinations is that the human wreckage caused by the brokenness of our ever darkening world is coming to your hometown. You’re better off informed and well researched and deeply rooted in Christ so that when the newest old perversion gets a makeover and shows up to kill, steal and destroy, you’re not completely flabbergasted, but rather deeply rooted in Christ.
Although as I said, there’s turmoil and tension with the actual best proportions of knowing what’s going on but still having peace like a river. That’s what makes cooking so difficult: you need to figure out the recipe that works for you and is still nonetheless faithful to Jesus Christ. It could be, and this is not meant to be wishy and washy but you may still, nonetheless think so about me, that each of us have different tolerances for heat, and salt, spice, and sugar, and time, and marinating in the outrage machine of the world may well make some of you too salty, but to not do so, may make some of you so bland as to be neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm, which makes the Lord Jesus queasy.
Jesus is going to tell the disciples how to bring peace and rejoicing to everybody else, because the disciples who were there already have the peace and the rejoicing just to know Jesus, and it is the paradoxical, and idiotic malaise of our time to question what the Lord Jesus has given us and says is ours already because we like to think of ourselves as tortured and deep, but we’re really just enjoying the pain. It helps us write poetry, and we feel like we’re more intelligent than other people. Let’s not be too stupid to be happy. Jesus tells the disciples how to bring peace and rejoicing to others.
A Startling Verse, but then aren’t they all?
Sure they are, the Bible is meant to wake you up.
Jesus says to them,
John 20:21-23
21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
23 “If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
N.T. Wright[5] tells a story about a man who goes in for a job interview and they decide to offer him the job above the job he was actually applying for. To which the man replies, “There’s no way I can do that.”
To lead the entire department, all of a sudden, what with the massive responsibility, and the whole astronomical budget, was more than the man was prepared for. He wanted slightly better pay without soul crushing responsibility. Be careful what you wish for after all. There’s always a calculus at play between doing what you love over managing other people doing what you love.
To which the boss man replies, “We think you’re the right man for the job. We’re going to restructure the department, take the busy work off your plate, hire some more folks who will shore up your weaknesses, you can do this, we’ll help you.”
For most people it’s all well and fine, and even good, they suppose, that God is forgiving. But don’t ask them to be forgiving, and don’t make it sound like anything of consequence actually depends upon them being forgiving.
One objection to these verses is that only God Himself can forgive sins, it doesn’t really matter whether or not we forgive anybody, after all.
Jesus is getting the disciples ready for the rest of their lives. They’re going to tell the good, good story to the world. To people who didn’t see it up close like they got to see it, but whom still need the peace that only Jesus can give, and the Lord Jesus breaths the Holy Spirit upon them to equip them to do the hard work: the slow work of faithfulness, because guess what? They’re not qualified, but the unqualified is exactly who God delights to use, and He’s going to help you do the slow and faithful things. So buck up, with man it is impossible, but nothing shall be impossible with God (Matthew 19:26, 1st Corinthians 1)
Why does the Lord Jesus breath on them, I wonder?
The breath of life originating from the divine creator and animating all that is lovely and alive is this motif we find throughout the Scriptures.
Way back in the beginning the voice and breath of God makes everything that is.
Genesis 2:7
7 Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being[6]
Don’t you love that the Bible says God formed mankind from the dust of the ground. There are so many translations of the Word out there in English and most of them say “dust”. Mere dust, the loose stuff that’s left over floating around, rather than the deep, dark, rich, life giving Iowan top soil that we all know grows life. We don’t come from that. We come from dust. You are mere dust, and to mere dust you shall return, and the only thing keeping you going in between is the breath of God.
Now Jesus breaths the Holy Spirit upon the unqualified disciples, men who do not feel up to the job of proclaiming forgiveness in Christ, let alone being all that forgiving themselves. Men who hold grudges and jockey for the number 1 and 2 spots in the kingdom.
But the world is perishing, and we see it every day, the world is starved for peace, and Christ is the only one who can give it to them, and He says you best tell them about Him. So there it is, and here we are, what are you gunna do about it, then?
Thomas, the doubter.
Which brings us to Thomas, and the ever present potential of letting FOMO (fear of missing out) prevent you from experiencing anything real, any beauty, anything at all, because you’re so busy shopping around for the best time with the best people that you end up never spending anytime with any people, and you die alone, and sad, without any good memories whatsoever, because the perfect became the enemy of the good.
Thomas ain’t gunna believe unless he gets to believe the same way everybody else got to believe, through seeing. It is the fear of missing out. They got to see Jesus, so I better get to see Jesus, I won’t just believe the good news shared with me!
Question, would more people become Christian if we could show them Jesus? No, I’m not talking about showing Jesus through our good deeds and kindness, none of the sickly sweet saccharine, sacrosanct mumbo jumbo. “Preach the gospel always, use words when necessary.” The adage given to all would be writers is, “Don’t tell: show” What does that even mean? That doesn’t make any sense. You have to use words. It’s a message. If I had wanted to show you I’d be a painter, but I’m gunna tell you, because I’m a writer.
No, I’m talking about, what if every Church had their own, personal, Jesus. And at the end of every Gospel presentation, they just bring Him out, and show you, and say, “Here He is!” A 2,000 year old, 33 year old Jewish carpenter from Galilee with horrendous wounds through His hands and feet. Why, we’d say: “That long fallen Roman Empire executed Him, but as you can see, right in front of your face, He’s very much alive, we close our case, would you like to be Baptized right now?”
They wouldn’t believe it even if they saw Jesus. Just like people in Christ’s day didn’t believe in Him even though He’d just done a miracle right in front of their faces. They’d find some reason to not believe. They’d find objections, and doubts: How do we know this guy in front of us is the same Jesus from the Bible?
Which is why the Lord Jesus says to Thomas, and to all of us:
John 20:29
29 Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”
You have a soul, and you must see Jesus with that broken unseen part of you that was made to see Him.
But lest we’re tempted to be too hard on good ‘ol doubting Thomas, it should be said that Christianity is for the awkward people, the weirdos, the least of these, as well as for everybody else. Thomas wasn’t there, he didn’t see, he was left out. Jesus isn’t mad at Thomas. He’s compassionate and meets Thomas where Thomas is. Christianity is for the awkward people. The ones who feel cold and passed over. Maybe you’ve never felt like you fit in. Maybe you feel like what’s easy for others to believe is not, for whatever mystifying reason, easy for you to believe. And you feel like an outsider, because it feels like everybody else saw the memo and you just weren’t there that day.
Take school for instance: perhaps you never felt like you fit in because it’s supposed to be about education and is actually about anything but education. It’s Lord of the flies, some kind of social jungle.
Perhaps you have just never felt like you really fit in. What is all of this about, really? How are you to navigate so much arbitrary nothingness that people call life? To this day, I wonder what I’m doing with my life, everything outside of Christ is perplexing. Paul said, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” I ask, “Who will deliver me from feeling awkward in my own skin. The answer is the same for Paul and me, His name is Jesus.
Our citizenship is in Heaven. This is not our home.
Getting lost in my head is a refuge for me, but can I get lost in the promises of God? Can I await the resurrection of the dead, as my long awaited home? Can I taste and see and anticipate the goodness of God as though it is already partially present and fulfilled in the already not yet of the Kingdom of Heaven?
I’m gunna need my God to make me feel okay about not living in a meritocracy. We learn quickly that life is not so much about what you know but who you know, and that’s never worked out so hot for me because all I know is the salt of the Earth, and to be honest, it’s a good life.
Television makes heroes out of the misanthropes who are so good at what they do they are allowed to bypass the social game but we know that’s not usually how it works in real life.
Jesus is the only one who can redeem the fallen notion of “It’s not what you know it’s who you know”, because He’s not exclusive, He has no taste as Rich Mullins used to say. He loves the ones who were there, and He loves Thomas who got left out.
God loves you too, wheresoever you fall in those categories.
John 1:10
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.
11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,
13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. [7]
Who you know matters- even and especially for you beautiful loners who know and have no one else.
In my study I have a stained glass window. I bought it when I was a widower because when you’re alone there’s no one to say, “Do you really need an old stained-glass window from a defunct Catholic Church that you found on Craigslist?”
The window depicts the Apostle Thomas, he who told his fellow disciples in John 11:16, “Let us also go that we may die with Him.”
The window depicts our passage. “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
There is a great deal going on here. One of aspect of which is the presumed intimacy. Does the Lord not have bodily autonomy? Well, His body is broken for you, Thomas, and the rest of the world too. Jesus our savior and friend gave Himself up for us all. Furthermore, Thomas doesn’t believe His request will come to pass because Thomas does not believe Christ has come back from Sheol.
Nonetheless, ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened to you.
~ Jesus, Matthew 7.7
Jesus appears in their midst, in a locked room, He appears with supernatural, glorified, resurrected power.
Behold the man, indeed.
And the Lord tells that little morbid doubting Thomas to have at it, do some exploratory surgery: and Thomas believes.
The window in my study depicts the scene. The unnamed artist imagines the Lord Jesus looking serene as always, and Thomas is on his knees face in palm, in chagrin and shame, as He obeys the Lord and sticks his finger into Christ’s divine side, into the very wound by which sinner’s sin sick souls are healed.
But here’s the most beautiful thing about the window: three apostles are also depicted whom I assume are meant to be Peter, James and John, and not one of them are looking at Thomas, because Jesus is there, and all eyes are one Jesus.
That the way it should be in the Church. Perhaps you don’t think you’re as good at believing as other people. You have a place here, all eyes are supposed to be on Jesus, anyway. As the hymn says, turn your eyes upon Jesus and the things of this world shall grow strangely dim. Amen.
[1] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Jn 20:19–31). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[2] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Ro 5:1). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[3] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Jn 14:26–27). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[4] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Jn 16:33). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[5] N.T. Wright “John For Everybody” p. 148
[6] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Ge 2:7). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[7] New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Jn 1:10–13). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
The Liturgy for April 7th 2024
The Congregation Singing
The Call To Worship
Psalm 134
Call & Response Blue Hymnal #702
The Apostle’s Creed
The Lord’s Prayer
The Offertory
The Congregation Singing
The Proclamation
“My Lord & My God”
The Gospel According to St. John 20:19-30
The Supplication
The Communion
1st Peter 4:8-11
The Doxology
The Benediction
The Communion
Jesus, Bread of life, continually fill me who hunger.
Jesus, drink of joy, continually give me to drink who thirst.
Jesus, the fattened calf, nourish me as Your prodigal son, and bestow upon me the forgiveness of my sins.
Jesus, the heavenly manna, sweeten me, like You did Your thankless people, and bring Your promise upon the earth.
~ St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain
The Benediction
Blessed are you who do not see, yet believe.
~ The Lord Jesus
The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith 17.1
Those whom God has accepted in the beloved, effectually called and sanctified by his Spirit, and given the precious faith of his elect unto, can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved, seeing the gifts and callings of God are without repentance, from which source he still begets and nourishes in them faith, repentance, love, joy, hope, and all the graces of the Spirit unto immortality;1 and though many storms and floods arise and beat against them, yet they shall never be able to take them off that foundation and rock which by faith they are fastened upon; notwithstanding, through unbelief and the temptations of Satan, the sensible sight of the light and love of God may for a time be clouded and obscured from them,2 yet he is still the same, and they shall be sure to be kept by the power of God unto salvation, where they shall enjoy their purchased possession, they being engraved upon the palm of his hands, and their names having been written in the book of life from all eternity.3
1 John 10:28,29; Phil. 1:6; 2 Tim. 2:19; 1 John 2:19
2 Ps. 89:31–32; 1 Cor. 11:32
3 Mal. 3:6
