Second Sunday after Easter | a sermon

A sermon by Rev. Andrew Colman on John 1:1-22 and John 20:19-31.

Come Holy Spirit. Come like a fire and burn. Come like the wind and cleanse, convict, convert and consecrate our hearts for our great good and for your great glory. Amen. Just have to say you couldn't preach for decades on those texts and not get to everything. Holy smokes anyway.

Tonight we hear the famous story of Thomas, the one who desires to put his hands in the place where the spear and the nail went into Jesus body. Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark and put my finger in his and hit my hand in his side, I will not believe.

It's Thomas and it's Peter that take the most Flack from what I've noticed from the pulpit and all the churches have been around. Over the years, poor Peter just keeps missing the point, and Thomas, who's most commonly known as doubting Thomas. He's known when you give him a bit of Flack for that and both of these things.

Oh, Peter and, oh Thomas, they're always said with a bit of disappoint. Mind. But maybe it's because we see ourselves clearly in them. I mean, Andrew St. Andrew Peters brother. And he had his moments of glory. He is running off to tell people about Jesus in the feeding stories.

He's the one who gathered up all the fish and the bread to figure out how much food they had so that Jesus could make a plan and, like, get the people going home. So. They could eat.

He didn't know it was coming, so he was like he was kind of. On it, he. Was doing the work right? That's Andrew just running everywhere compared to Peter St. Andrew was like downright useful. Maybe Andrew does not get as much Flack. Because it's hard to give a hard time to those to whom we do not relate, right?

We give we. Give a hard time to Peter and to Thomas because we know what it means to miss the point and we know what it means to to doubt.

But Andrew? Well, man, to come up with the the last time that we like bolted off to tell someone about Jesus. Hands off on that one. With, with Thomas and Peter, we can poke fun at them because and then we're really poking fun at our own doubts and our own missing of the point. And yet they were there time and time again.

Trying trying not to miss the point and trying and eventually becoming the rock upon which the church is built. And then for Thomas, he's actually one of the most beloved of all the disciples throughout the centuries. Precisely because of his doubt. Precisely because when we hear him speak, the words of wanting proof.

We can think of the times in our own lives when things have happened to us and we want to call on God for the very same thing. It's no wonder then, and and I wonder if you've ever noticed that Thomas in all of these windows here Thomas is the one in the very back corner there that greets us as we walk through the Broadway doors. And after service go. Take a look. He's between two of the Saints.

Whichever, whoever the blessed soul, was that organized the layout of all of these windows was not just an interior designer, but they were a person of deep thought. Maybe. Maybe a devout Christian believer. Seeing through their work. To each one who comes. Through those doors, take heart.

I doubt it too. I still doubt sometimes, but I'm here and I'm doing the work. Those who want to meet him, they'll meet him here.

Our reading from First John tonight picks up on this in in a. Bit more of a. A post, Resurrection Ascension Post Ascension kind of way, and it's sort of a Saint Andrew sort of way. It picks up on what Thomas was looking for and then what Thomas went out to do so.

What's? Again, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and touched with our hands concerning the word of life, life was made manifest and we saw it, and we testify to it and proclaim it to you.

The eternal life, which was with the father and was made manifest to us. Now if we stop there and we won't, but if we stop there, this is no different than what then? What? The other disciples had said to. To Thomas. We saw him. He was here.

But Thomas that day asked to feel for himself, and we don't stop there. We continue. It continues through The Who it continues through The Who of Jesus into the what comes next, that which we have seen and heard. We also proclaim to you.

And then it continues from the what into the why? So what you so that you may have fellowship with us and with the father and the son? John is actually giving a bit of a shape of the Christian mission and life in this here first comes witness, first comes seeing and hearing and feeling.

The letter becomes with begins with the things of God that are being heard and seen and looked upon and touched with their own hands. That is the shape of the Christian life. Or equally, the the shape of the life that chooses anything else because it's what we see and feel and hear are, and ultimately are convinced by.

That's the thing. That we take up. And for most of us here, hopefully our journeys or journey will reach an inflection point when we are faced with this question of of what we truly believe and why those are good questions.

For the ones who follow Christ, something special has happened. For those people, myself included, they've chosen to believe in the unbelievable because of what they've seen because of what they've heard because of what they've felt, even though this person of God, Jesus has.

Not being sort of seen in his. Body as we would like to see it the same way that Thomas did for. About 2000 years now. Still we proclaim still we bear witness. Where oh where is the seeing and feeling and hearing for which Thomas demanded?

Where is it? While the letter continues, it is in the fellowship. That John, in his in his letter names as the purpose of the purpose of his and our proclamation of what he has heard and felt. The fellowship is the reason that we proclaim John saw and heard and felt the presence of Christ in the fellowship of those who are with him and with God in the body of Christ, in everybody who's here. That's you.

That's me. That's all. The company of the Saints that have gathered around this table and all those in the past and all those in the future. That all present to one another. But then it ends. Up being a bit of a circular. Thing, doesn't it?

We gather around together and see and feel and hear God in one another. And wouldn't it just be utter silliness not to invite someone else into that? First, of course, you you talk about how joyful the whole experience was and then what are you supposed to do?

But, but you can't come. You talk about how wonderful something is and you say and and you can come. Come and see. We come and we invite, but we need to be careful here. Because we do not invite because we're worried about any other person, but we're we're worried about that person's place in heaven.

That's not why we invite no, that is and forever will be up to them. And God, that is something to which we have never any say over, never input. No.

We invite because there is joy in the fellowship. We invite because there is a banquet spread out on the table. We invite because there is a dinner party to be had and there is more food than the whole world. Eating and drinking for all of eternity could ever consume.

We proclaim the good news and invite people to the table because it is good. So that each person who comes to the table may take part in our joy. And and not like when when John talks about this completing of Joy, John, he's not talking about like a happy Clappy joy, but a divine, eternal eschatological end times joy. Because when someone gathers around that table, they find themselves and and they and they find themselves without that thin, happy, clappy joy where it's nowhere seemingly to be found.

The rest of us. Who are capable at that moment who are also around that table, who have come to know that divine, eternal, eschatological joy?

Stick around and take up our call to love. When that love feels so far away. That eschatological joy is to be the mouth of God that speaks the eyes of God that weeps the face of God that smiles and the hands of God that carries the joy that is the fellowship of God is more than just this eternal dinner party.

It's also the eternal comfort and presence of God in ways and places that only the divine working through us could possibly do. What Thomas thought he wanted was to feel Jesus wounds. But in the end put his finger there or reach out and put his hand into his side. In the end, it was actually Jesus presence.

That completed Thomas's joy. We don't hear that, he. Actually touched him. That wasn't what was needed. It was the presence of Christ. And and what a joy that must have been. I mean, we know. We do know in many ways on Easter Eve. At Rob and Kristen's house, it was filled with this very same kind of joy.

Laughter came from every direction, and I had, and I heard conversations that were more sensitive, that carried a heavy load. In those, I pray that the spirit of comfort was present. The joy in all its forms filled that time of fellowship to the brim and its spilled over. There was a presence of God in that place that no one could deny.

And so as I've mentioned. As I have told, as I as I have talked about all of the joy that his presence in these gatherings and abundance and fellowship. So I will invite. I will invite you to our next living room liturgy. Which is on May 25th. We don't know where yet, but somewhere.

I will invite you to be a part of that fellowship and to the many other fellowship. The opportunities that the engagement subcommittee is working on, we have this was one of the things that was so loud in our in, in the Congregational survey is that we want engagement.

We want to be with each other, not just here, but everywhere else. Because this is a place that knows that joy, this is a place that knows that fellowship.

This is the place that desires the presence of Christ in each other. Around the table. Maybe sitting in a chair on a couch. And so to. All of those things you are invited. So that we can all be a part of the joy that completes each other.

And it's at those times and at those places. That we will find the voice, the hands, the smile. The comfort. In the presence of Jesus. In someone you may never have met. Amen.