Baptism of the Lord

Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

If I were to mention the names of certain disciples, and then ask you to respond with the first word that comes into your mind, I could come very close to guessing how many but not everyone would respond. For example, if I were to mention the name Judas, many would respond with the word, “betray” – but not everyone. If I were to mention the name Simon Peter, many would respond with the word, “faith” – but not everyone. If I were to mention the names James and John, many would respond with the word, “fishermen” – but not everyone.

However, if I were to mention the name Thomas, I could predict with something close to ninety-nine percent accuracy the word you would offer in response. It would be the word “doubt” or “doubting.” In fact, even those who have no idea who Thomas is would probably know the term, “Doubting Thomas” – so closely have we associated Thomas with this word.[1]

Well, Thomas is the “star” of our Gospel lesson this morning. If I may summarize for you, Thomas had not been present when the risen Lord had appeared first to the disciples, who had fearfully gathered in a room behind locked doors. A week later, though, he had rejoined the tiny band, and had heard the story of the risen Lord having appeared to the others.

But Thomas did not believe. True to the term we so commonly use, Thomas doubted. He doubted so much, in fact, that he told the others he would never believe such a cock and bull story: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

Well, it was just as if Jesus were waiting in the wings for his cue. For, as soon as Thomas had finished speaking, the risen Lord appeared once more. “Put your finger here and see my hands,” he said to Thomas. “Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt, but believe.”

Well, we don’t know if Thomas actually did touch the wounds of Jesus or not. But we do know his immediate response. “My Lord and my God!” Thomas almost shouted. The world’s most famous skeptic, Thomas nonetheless found himself filled with faith, and utterly convinced of the literal reality of the resurrection.

I love this story. In fact, this story may be my favorite story in the whole New Testament – excepting only the story of the resurrection itself. What I especially love about the story before us in this morning’s Gospel is how it affirms that God is not put off by our skepticism, by our imperfect faith. Instead, as the title of my sermon wants to suggest, we find that Jesus welcomes a skeptic.

First, how reassuring it is to most of us to know that Jesus cares about and cares for skeptics.

There isn’t a lot we know about Thomas – who is undoubtedly history’s most famous skeptic. But we do know that Thomas didn’t wait till after the crucifixion of Jesus to reveal his skeptical side. Rather, we know that, on Maundy Thursday, Jesus had said, “You know the way to the place where I am going.” And almost immediately Thomas had responded, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; [so] how can we know the way?”

Which is to illustrate that Thomas was probably, by nature a skeptic. His doubting response to the resurrection was not his first venture into skepticism. Indeed he probably was a already a skeptic when Jesus first called him as a disciple. And, since Jesus is the One “unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid,” then Jesus knew who and what Thomas was, from the beginning. Jesus knew that Thomas was a skeptic, a thoroughgoing doubter; but he chose Thomas anyway as one of those twelve who would be his closest friends – his inner core of disciples.

Are you a little like Thomas? I know I am. It took me a long time to arrive at what might pass for a mature and developed Christian faith. By nature, I have a cautious attitude toward things of faith and expressions of faith.

But, myself aside, I think of the great Reformer Martin Luther. He had such doubts about his own personal faith that he was kept up nights worrying. But then he remembered that he had been claimed by Christ in baptism, and sealed as God’s own forever. Thereafter, whenever doubts came upon him, he would say to himself, over and over, “You are baptized, Martin, you are baptized.” And I think you would agree that, in spite of his doubts, Christ obviously cared about and cared for Martin Luther.

Or I think of the famous Harry Emerson Fosdick, founding pastor of the great Riverside Church in New York City. Fosdick wanted to be a Presbyterian with all his heart. But what kept him from it was his inability to affirm the Apostles’ Creed before the Presbytery of New York City. So the Presbyterians lost one of the greatest preachers in the history of the world. But he wasn’t lost to God – who did marvelous things through Fosdick’s ministry at Riverside. In spite of the man’s doubts, Christ obviously cared about and cared for Harry Emerson Fosdick.

And if you are a bit of a skeptic, too, be assured: in spite of your doubts, Christ cares about and for you as well.

It was a hint about his use for skeptics, when Jesus told Thomas to touch his nail-scarred hands, and feel the wound in his side. If I may use the term broadly, Jesus was inviting Thomas to use the “scientific method,” to make use of empirical proof in establishing his faith. Jesus was inviting Thomas to establish what he could know by reason and the senses, before moving anywhere else with his beliefs. Thomas, that is, was to become the very first Christian theologian. Because that’s the work of theologians—to use reason, even skeptical reason, to pave the road toward faith.

And, spaking of theologians, take Thomas’s namesake—St. Thomas Aquinas, the great theologian of the middle ages. Thomas Aquinas took his given name seriously. He developed a method of theology that was similar in its process to what we might call the “method” of the first St. Thomas. The senses and reason I mean, are primary; and we are to follow the evidence from our senses and reason as far as we can – before having to take that vaunted “leap” of faith to the higher matters of belief.

Many people imagine that science and religion are in two different worlds – and that religion wants it that way. Well, maybe some religion wants it that way – but surely not the religion that is founded on the Christ who had a use for a doubting Thomas, and those who would follow in his footsteps.

In our own day, a man like Francis Collins would be a great example of following the “method,” if we can call it that, that the disciple Thomas first established. Collins, if you don’t know the name, is a renowned scientist – indeed, he is the Director of the Human Genome Project that first mapped the DNA of our species.

Collins began as an atheist. But reason and science led him to a place where, at age 27, he was able to take the next and final step and affirm his faith in God. Now he says, “I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between these world views.”[2]

Like the disciple Thomas, Collins too approached God first with skepticism. And he continues today to base what he knows on empirical evidence—evidence, that is, gained from skeptical inquiry. Yet that evidence no longer leads him to the conclusion of atheism, but to a strong and vigorous Christian faith, instead. It is a Christian faith that is an inspiration to millions – maybe to you, too, grounding itself firmly in reason and science.

Collins would surely resonate with the disciple Thomas, who asked to see the nail-scars in Jesus’ hands and touch the wound in Jesus’ side before affirming his belief in the resurrection.

Just like Thomas, Christ obviously has a use for Collins – as he has a use for other skeptics, too, who seek their faith via the senses and even the scientific method, before ever being willing to affirm anything beyond. Christ has a use for skeptics today, as well as yesterday.

Finally, however, we note this too from our Gospel lesson today: that Jesus seeks to draw the skeptic from a non-committal life to a life of faith.

Although Jesus did invite Thomas to touch his hands and feel his spear-pierced side, that was not where Jesus intended things to remain. Jesus was not aiming for Thomas simply to say, “On the basis of my empirical examination, I affirm this man to be a living human being who evidently was physically abused,” period. Instead, surely it was the intent of Jesus all along for Thomas to become truly a person of faith.

And, indeed, it was truly a person of faith that Thomas became. With a depth of feeling almost palpable in the words, Thomas responded, “My Lord and my God!”

Now people had called Jesus “Lord,” even before his crucifixion and resurrection. Indeed, Thomas himself had used the word. But we want to remember that “Lord” had a breadth of meaning, and might only mean a deep respect for someone of higher position.

But Thomas doesn’t stop with the word “Lord.” For the very first time in history, Thomas goes leagues beyond and calls Christ “God.” The senses and reason can do only so much. But faith took Thomas to the very affirmation that has made Christianity unique among world religions – the affirmation that the evidently flesh-and-blood Jesus was also God, Godself!

As Sir Francis Bacon wrote, some four hundred years ago, “If a man will begin in certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

Doubt was surely where Thomas had begun. And Jesus cared for him there, Jesus had a use for him there. But doubt was not where Jesus intended Thomas to end. And, following Jesus’ invitation to believe, Thomas virtually shouted out what must be called the first Christian creed: “My Lord and my God!”

In the same way, the risen Lord cares for you and me, in our own quandaries of faith; the risen Lord has a use for you and me, as we explore the grounds of our faith; but the risen Lord also wants to draw us beyond – to a place where we are intimately one with him, and he with us: he wants to draw us, through our doubt, to a resounding faith. And he will do so, if we will give him the slightest opportunity.

And what can we say in sum of it all, in face of this amazing story before us today? We can say this: that, if Jesus did not condemn Thomas for doubt, he surely won’t condemn you, either, if you also have reservations about faith – if you also are not quite sure yet how to say what you believe about what we celebrated this past Easter Sunday. But he cares for and about you even in your doubt; he has a use for you even in your doubt; and he wants with all his heart to lead you to faith even through your doubt.

And we can believe, even through our doubt—as English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson once affirmed, when he wrote those immortal lines, “There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.”

Jesus once welcomed a skeptic named Thomas. And he welcomes skeptics today, as well.

[1] Brett Blair, Christianglobe.com.

[2] CNN.com, “Collins: Why this Scientist Believes in God.”