How is it that you can, or should I say that I can, get to 58 and just find this out now?
From now on I am going to stick to my guns (oops not guns, politically incorrect term) stick to my ganookas and refuse to do stuff that I really have no time for or which are a misuse of my time or which actually steal time I could be doing worthwhile stuff.
And by the way here's yesterday's offering at which there were about 50 people. Thanks God!
This reads better than it was preached!
Appearances do Matter! (15.04.2007)
20:19 “Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’
20:20 When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.
20:21 So Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.’
20:22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.
20:23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’
20:24 Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
20:25 The other disciples therefore said to him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ So he said to them, ‘Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.’
20:26 And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, ‘Peace to you!’
20:27 Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.’
20:28 And Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’
20:29 Jesus said to him, ‘Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’
20:30 And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book;
20:31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.’
Introduction
It is after Easter in our church calendar. We now move from the Gospel of Luke to the Book of Acts and John’s Gospel.
Today’s passage is still set in Sunday, the first day of the week. It is the evening of the day when…
Well….
What does the context say?
John tells us (20:18-19) that it was the same day that Mary Magdalene saw Jesus in the garden. Thinking He was dead, here’s Mary, crying her eyes out at the place where she and the others had laid Jesus on the Friday afternoon.
Crying and broken, she with understandable feelings of abandonment and continuing grief and guilt from the Friday until this morning, she expects to complete her tasks and then to go back home to continue her life somehow without Jesus. She had no idea how, but somehow she must live without the only Person who ever loved her.
Hope...
Have you had much to do with people in grief?
Mary knew about grief: She had suffered terribly at the hands of men who used her. She had sold herself to the devil. And it was Jesus who had to come and released her from that prison. Yes, Mary knew about grief.
But this surely must have been the deepest grief.
She definitely knew about guilt! Once forgiven by Jesus what was she to think now? He was dead and all her hope had gone with Him.
Have you had much to do with people in grief?
It is the hopelessness in some people that touches me most and at times makes me feel useless, until I get the chance to be with the people in support and eventually to tell those who grieve that there is hope in Jesus Christ.
That is the purpose of the gospel. That’s good news, because the hope is based on the gospel message of His death and resurrection and the promise of eternal life to all who put their trust in HIM.
Their trust, your trust, will be rewarded. It is the truest thing you can do: To trust personally in the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of your grief.
Mary Magdalene discovered it. Through the evidence before her of the risen Christ and the practice of her faith in the days following His ascension into heaven.
How or by what known conditions can we have confidence to trust Christ?
Because He is alive and because He has called us to trust, more; He has called us to risk ourselves...to rely completely and personally on Him who has returned from the grave!
How are you doing with that? Are you walking with Him?
Do you still trust Him on this day as much as you trusted Him last Sunday?
Just as Mary had to keep trusting Him after He had gone from them into heaven, so we are all in the same ‘faith boat.’
We have to trust Him for everything in the same way that Mary and the others did.
There is more.
Jesus said: (21) “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
That’s why it’s a gospel of peace.
That’s why we are to preach this gospel to others.
Peace is not created by the Peace Corps, or by decisions made by the United Nations, or by governments.
Peace is ‘Eirene’ in Greek, from where we get the name Irene. To be at peace means to be in a positive, life-giving, condition with God. Powerless before Him you are powerful before people.
It is the gift He gives to all who trust Him through Jesus Christ and true happiness flows from it.
(22) “Receive the Holy Spirit. (23) If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
The Holy Spirit is God. To receive the Holy Spirit is to have God in you.
The Holy Spirit shows God to your mind, your spirit and your experience. Your whole self changes and is being constantly changed to be more like Jesus.
He is the One who gives you the ability to forgive others.
Doubt...
One of the wisest things I was told as a young Christian was ‘learn to doubt your doubts.’
Thomas’s doubts are in doubt.
Doubts have substance (sometimes) and they need to be checked out as much as claims of faith do.
However, there is nothing wrong with having questions and doubts. It is something completely different to let them grow into a system of belief!
Early in His ministry when Jesus told the disciples that He must die and be raised they did not express their questions:
They believe they are but the created memory of the church; a group of disciples of John and some others who lived many years later…blah blah blah.
Critics don’t have evidence for this… it’s a theory, but some people believe these critics mainly because it lets them off the hook.
This kind of doubting of the Bible does not require definite doctrines or call for clean morals.
However...let’s look at what the Bible says.
When you study them, these stories of John stand up to scrutiny. These are the kind of things that John would write. It is according to his life experience when we compare what he says in his Gospel as compared to:
1. His life with Jesus as recorded in the other 3 Gospels... These facts are stated for example in the Gospel of Matthew: It is Peter, James and John that Jesus takes with Him to the transfiguration. (Mat 17).
In Luke it is John and his brother James who go with Jesus to see Jesus heal a 12 year old girl.
In fact, Mark often tells us it is Peter, James and John who are chosen to go with Jesus to many important events. Mk14:32 “Then they came to a place which was named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’ 14:33 And He took Peter, James, and John with Him, and He began to be troubled and deeply distressed.” (Compare
It’s always Peter, James and John. They are the ones who learn. They learn to pray, to heal, to serve communion, the Lord’s Supper, to work for Him and to write down what happened! Peter and John are the same ones who wrote many books of the NT. Five are by John and two are written by Peter.
It is Peter and John who are sent to prepare the Last Supper.
John himself testifies it was he who was trusted with taking care of Jesus most precious, most loved person on earth, His mother. (Jn 19: 27)
He is the beloved disciple. He gets the name of ‘beloved disciple’ from his own Gospel, writing about his relationship with Jesus. This affirms what is said about him in the other three Gospels.
2. John’s other writings are I, II and III John and Revelation. His love and commitment to Jesus Christ and the Church is unquestioned. His turn of phrase as well as the themes he uses fit with the Gospel of John. He is the disciple who as an Apostle can say:
I
1:2 the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us - 1:3 that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.”
3. Church tradition strongly confirms the authorship of John for this fourth Gospel. It is quoted by many of the church Fathers, early Christian writers: One of whom, called Eusebius while writing of John, said: (2) “And in the first place his Gospel, which is known to all the churches under heaven, must be acknowledged as genuine. That it has with good reason been put by the ancients in the fourth place, after the other three Gospels, may be made evident in the following way.
(5) “And the rest of the followers of our Saviour, the twelve apostles, the seventy disciples, and countless others besides, were not ignorant of these things. Nevertheless, of all the disciples of the Lord, only Matthew and John have left us written memorials, and they, tradition says, were led to write only under the pressure of necessity.” (Eusebius Ecclesiastical History, Bk III, chapter 24: Paragraphs 2 & 5) (3rd to 4th Century AD) See: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm
Faith...
John’s writings evoke faith, “that you may believe.” This chapter and the incident with Thomas serve to illustrate this so well. Look how many times the word ‘believe’ is used.
Thomas in this chapter says: “I will not believe.” (25)
Eight days later Jesus comes to them. This time Thomas is there: “Peace to you!” says, Jesus. 20:27 “Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.’ ”
This is the Gospel of believing:
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”(29)
Illustration:
“A grocer put up a sign that read "Eggplants, 25¢ ea. or three for a dollar."
All day long, customers came in exclaiming "Don't be ridiculous! I should get four for a dollar!"
Meekly the grocer capitulated and packaged four eggplants.
The tailor next door had been watching these antics and finally asked the grocer, "Aren't you going to fix the mistake on your sign?"
"What mistake?" the grocer asked. "Before I put up that sign no one ever bought more than one eggplant.” (BIBLE VERSES & TRIVIA - Tuesday, April 10, 2007)
The grocer was thinking outside the square.
We need to think like that; like Thomas, in fact.
Not the Thomas before he saw Jesus, but the Thomas after he believed in Jesus!
To think like the grocer is prudent business-wise.
Learning to think like Thomas results in eternal life and peace, the ultimate in healthy living. And you get more life than the eggplant will ever give you!
In John chapter 6, Jesus said:
6:64 But there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him.
6:65 And He said, ‘Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.’
6:66 From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.
6:67 Then Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you also want to go away?’
6:68 But Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
6:69 Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ ” Amen.
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