Greetings to you all in the name of our amazing and wonderful Lord and God. I am sure almost all of you know by now, but Call Day was yesterday. I am so excited to announce that the Lord who is in control of all things is sending me to Peace in Christ Lutheran Church in Hermantown, MN. I will be the associate pastor under the senior pastor, Pastor Ludwig. Pastor Ludwig planted the church 25 years ago and has been there ever since. Over the last 25 years, the church has grown to over 800 members on the books. They built a fellowship hall first, then built a sanctuary, and now have even built an education wing for the preschool they have. They have a DCE, two preschool teachers, and two part time secretaries. They worship an average of 300 members in three services on Saturday and Sunday. As associate pastor some of my focus will be in coordination with the preschool, starting more small group ministry for 20 to 40 year olds, starting a men's club, possibly campus ministry since there are five colleges or tech schools in Duluth which is only nine miles away, as well as preaching, teaching, and visiting. I will be busy, but it will be a wonderful busy.
Hermantown is about 9,000 but is only 9 miles from Duluth. It is very close to the banks of Lake Superior and is growing very rapidly. There are a lot of opportunities for service to the community, especially in Duluth.
I will be ordained up there one of the Sunday's in July. We are still working out the official details of that date. In June I plan to go up and visit and try to find a place to live since they do not have parsonages. I am so excited to go up and meet every one and begin my full time ministry in such a wonderful place.
Minnesota North District is the most rural district of the 35 LCMS districts, and yet very very little of it is farming or agriculture. It is a lot of mining and forestry. I will definitely get my fair share of winter, but I love that part of it.
For being my first call, it is exactly what I was hoping for. I wanted team ministry with a secondary focus of a school/preschool, possible campus ministry opportunities, and a busy atmosphere. I am also thrilled to hear Pastor Ludwig is an extremely hard working man who expects a lot of himself and will expect a lot out of me. I am more than willing and ready to step up to the challenge. I cannot thank the Good Lord enough for this opportunity and to putting me in the place where he saw fit for me.
There will be plenty of hunting, fishing, ice fishing, and winter sports opportunities for me. The people from the church who I have already met or been in contact with are all amazing people who are so friendly and welcoming.
Last night they told me that they had 100 people gathered at the church to watch the call day service. They watched the first part of the service on the big screen in the sanctuary. Then when it came time for the actual assignments, they gathered in the fellowship hall for ice cream and call day bingo. They made up their own bingo cards with the different districts on the cards. When each district was read along with each guy, they got to put a button on that space until they got bingo. Pastor Ludwig told me when they read my name and Peace in Christ the room went crazy. He said you would have thought the Vikings won the Superbowl with all the cheers and high fives. This just shows how loving and caring they are and how much they already support me. I was genuinely touched when he told me this and I thought about that many people being that excited over little old me. Today they posted pictures on my Facebook of different people holding up welcome signs for me. I am so blessed already and I haven't even gotten there yet. The Lord is good and I cannot imagine doing anything else with my life.
Now I have to focus on school for a couple more weeks, finish my field work responsibilities, and make official summer plans. It is hard to keep from wanting to be there starting tomorrow, but I am trying to enjoy the time I have left with my friends and brothers here at the seminary. I was so excited to see where they will all be going as well, but am sadden that they will be so far away. I truly believe there is nowhere else in the world quite like this place. The last four years have been some of the best years of my life and I would not be here today if it were not for a family who raised me in the faith, family and friends who supported me the entire time, and so many generous, loving, caring people supporting me both emotionally and financially and praying for me the whole way. So to every one of you reading this, I know you have supported me and I want to thank you so much for that.
Please continue to pray for me as I finish up my seminary career, enjoy a few weeks of summer, and move to Hermantown to begin the rest of my life as a servant of the Lord through one of my vocations being an official Lutheran Pastor. one dilemma I am having is trying to decide whether I will continue with this blog after I graduate. I mean I will most likely continue to do a blog of some sort; however, the entire intention of this one was to cover my seminary career. I mean I won't be the "sem stud" (seminary student) after I graduate. So if you have any suggestions for a new name, new ideas of what you would like to keep reading in a weekly (possibly VERY short daily) blog, please, please, please let me know. My email is richterk@csl.edu and I am open to any ideas, comments, or suggestions. However, for the next couple weeks I am still THEE sem stud :) and will try to keep posting more frequent blogs. Thank you and may the Lord who has blessed me so abundantly all of my life bless each and every one of you even more richly through His grace and mercy.
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Monday, April 13, 2015
Last Two Sermons
Greetings to you in the name of our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ. The last few weeks have been busy, but in such a good way. I have preached four times in the last four weeks. I preached in chapel which was extremely intimidating but actually quite fun too. If you have I tunes you can listen to that sermon on Concordia Seminary, Chapel Sermons 2014-2015. As intimidating as it is to preach in front of a bunch of preachers, they still gave me quite a few compliments. I then preached the exact same sermon at my field work church the following Sunday.
The next week was Holy Week and I had the privilege to go back to Brookings and preach one of the seven sermons for their Tre Ore service. We had Thursday and Friday off from classes so I went up north on Wednesday. It was fun to see everyone up there again and special for me to attend Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services back at Mt. Calvary. I love the Treo Ore service with all of the special music, to hear six different preachers, and to really focus in on each one of the seven sayings of Jesus from the cross. I will post my sermon at the bottom of this post.
Then I was able to be home for Easter and see the family. We shot clay pigeons on Saturday which is always fun for me. Then we celebrated the resurrection of our Lord with Easter morning service. We had dinner at moms with Grandma and spent our free time playing cards, playing outside with the boys, and relaxing. It was a great holiday.
The next week went very quickly as I continued my usual routine of going to my two classes, working for the farmer, and hanging with friends. Friday night was spring fest on campus which is always a great time. My bar in my room was extra busy and I even had the band Lost and Found in there. I have had quite a few famous (as in seminary-famous) people stop by for a drink in my bar.
Saturday I headed down to south east Missouri to my great-aunt's house. My grandma's family is still down around the Cape Girardeau area. I stayed with my great-aunt Verna but several of my family members were there to hear me preach and enjoy a lunch together Sunday after church. I thoroughly enjoyed preaching at both Shawneetown and Pocahontas. The family dinner was especially enjoyable afterwards. I love getting together and spending time with family, especially that side of the family that always has such a fun time together. I will also post that sermon below as well.
Now I am back to trying to keep up with homework, jobs, friends, sports, and all of the extra events coming up for our concluding class. We have several dinners and events coming up which is awesome, but also fills up the calendar very quickly. I will be finishing up my Romans Bible Study at field work church the next couple Sundays.
Tre Ore Sermon on John 19:26-27:
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
St. John shows us an interesting scene here in his Gospel. As Jesus is hanging on the cross, in pain and agony, slowly dying, two of His loved ones are standing at the foot of the cross looking up to Him. First is His mother, Mary. The second one is the disciple whom Jesus loved. These are two pretty special people to Jesus and they are standing with Him as He is in His most humiliating hour. Then Jesus, rather than complaining about the pain He is in, rather than be mad at the soldiers crucifying Him, rather than being upset with the rest of His disciples who have betrayed, denied, and abandoned Him, rather than any of these negative things, He speaks words of tender mercy. He speaks words of love and creates a new family. As He is dying He gives these two loved ones of His to each other as a new family as he says, “Woman, behold you son” and to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.”
Jesus has created a new family as the disciple took her to his own home from that hour on. Jesus speaks these words of tender mercy, giving His two loved ones each other to have as family, to support each other, to care for each other, and most importantly to encourage each other in their faith in Jesus. He is not thinking about Himself or His own pain, but He is thinking about these two people who mean so much to Him and in His death, He unites them into one new family.
I have recently been working on my family tree because I recently meet some cousins that I had only met when I was a baby. Starting with grandparents and working down to kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, on both my mom’s and my dad’s sides together, I have been blessed with a family of 124 people. And it is still growing as three of those are expecting. As I told this to some of my friends, they were shocked because they come from rather small families. And I do admit that that is probably much bigger than the average American family; however, it does not even begin to compare to the size of my family in Christ. When I was baptized and made a child of God, I was given a whole new family of all believers in Christ. This is the same family that you were brought into at your baptism as well.
Jesus created a new family for His mother and His disciple at the cross through His death, but He created a new family through His death and His resurrection that united each and every believer in His name. This family is huge! Millions probably even billions of people who have received the Holy Spirit, believed in Christ as the true Son of God, and be brought into the family of God. St. Paul speaks about this in both Romans and Galatians when He speaks of son-ship and adoption as sons of God. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God has united all believers and created a new family in His Son’s name. And you are included in that family.
This is not only good news because you are now a son or daughter of God, being made part of His family and being made an heir of His salvation and eternal life, which is pretty Great news in itself, but even more, He gives us our family of each other. Every other Christian in now our brother and sister in Christ, and these brothers and sisters are blessings to us just as Mary and John would be blessings to each other.
We support each other. We help each other with the physical necessities of everyday life. If one of our brothers and sisters can’t feed or clothe their family, we support them with what they need. As brothers and sisters in Christ, we make sure that our family is well provided for and tended to in our support for each other.
We care for each other. Both emotionally and spiritually, we are there for our fellow brothers and sisters. We step up to help them when they are in need, we lift them up in prayer, we come to their side in pain, we celebrate with them, and give thanks for them for being a part of our family.
But most importantly, we encourage each other to remain strong in our faith. We point each other towards the Lord who created our family through His death and resurrection as our Lord and Savior. We help each other cling to Jesus Christ and His faith, because it by His redemptive work alone that we are able to be this loving, supporting, caring, encouraging family.
Hear the words of our Lord spoken from the cross to His mother and His disciple, two of His loved ones as His tender mercy creating a family for them and be reminded that through His tender mercy He has created a new family for you and all believers that He loves so dearly, dearly enough to hang on that cross to redeem you and bring you into the family of God as sons and daughters, but as also as heirs who have received salvation and eternal life. And then being reminded of that good news yourself, go encourage your brothers and sisters in Christ so that they too may be strengthened by this good news.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Grace, mercy, and peace are yours in the name of our Father and the Living Lord Jesus Christ!
He is Risen…. He is risen indeed, alleluia! Jesus is most certainly risen as we see in our text today. This is a pretty well-known text of Jesus appearing to His disciples in the upper room and then coming to appear to them again, but this time including Thomas. Now most of you probably know him as doubting Thomas. However, as I study this text I do now think St. John is trying to show us Thomas as doubting, but rather as being ridiculously dramatic, extremely stubborn, and overly defensive. Jesus appeared to the ten disciples and Thomas was not there. Not there are theories as to why Thomas was not there, but overall St. John doesn’t tell us that. He simply tells us Thomas was not there the first time Jesus comes to the disciples. Then when Thomas does join back up with his brothers, Jesus is no longer there. They excitedly begin to fill him in, tell them who they saw. But before they can get any further into the story than simply telling Thomas they saw Jesus, he stops them. He cuts them off and interrupts them. If he was simply doubting that they actually saw Jesus, he would have asked more questions, asked what he said, asked what they did while he was there, or asked what he looked like. But Thomas doesn’t ask anything, rather he makes this ridiculously dramatic, extremely stubborn, overly defensive statement.
Really, it is an ultimatum, if he does not see the wounds, if he does not thrust his finger into the nail holes, or if he does not put his hand inside the spear wound, he absolutely will not, no way believe that Jesus is alive. Have you ever thought about Thomas’ ridiculously dramatic ultimatum? Unless he sees and touches the most grotesque evidence of Jesus’ death, the wounds, the holes where the nails were driven through His skin, the slash where a spear was stabbed into his dead corpse, and unless he gets to do these almost violating acts to Jesus he absolutely will not, no way believe Jesus is alive. He is not doubting, he is actively disbelieving.
Why is Thomas being so stubborn, so dramatic, so defensive. Why is he so quick to cut his brothers off and throw this extreme ultimatum in their faces? Again, St. John does not out rightly just tell us this, but I do not think it is misusing the text to say that Thomas is hurt. Reading the way St. John wrote this passage, I think it is not that hard to see that Thomas feels let down, abandoned, and hurt by Jesus dying. He put all his hope and trust in this man who he followed as his teacher. He was beside him for so many miracles and teachings, eating with him, traveling with him, learning from him. And now this Jesus was gone, dead. Thomas is hurt and so when the disciples try to share their excitement about seeing Jesus, this is why Thomas cuts them off, interrupts them only to throw his extreme ultimatum back at them. He is being stubborn and defensive because he does not want to get his hopes up again. How can he trust and hope in this man again after he has already died once? He pushes them away, puts up his defensive walls, stubbornly denies they are telling the truth and is over dramatic to express how actively disbelieving he is going to be about this.
However, as ridiculously dramatic, extremely stubborn, and overly defensive his demand was, one week later we see Jesus show up again. He greets the disciples with the same words of peace that he did the first time, and then he turns and goes after Thomas. Jesus uses the exact same wording Thomas had in his ultimatum and tells Thomas “if that is what it is going to take to believe, then go ahead and do it. If you need to thrust your finger into my nail holes then here they are, poke away. If you need to stick your whole hand in my side, go ahead and do it already. Do whatever ridiculous, dramatic thing you need to do to stop being stubborn, stop actively disbelieving and start believing again. Stop this nonsense of disbelieving and start believing.” And it’s not too surprising that Thomas doesn’t actually need to do any of it. He drops his defensive walls, he stops being dramatic and stubborn and proclaims my God and my Lord. He confesses that Jesus is living and he not only believes, but puts his trust and hope back in Jesus knowing he will not be let down again. Dramatic, stubborn, defensive Thomas sees the living Jesus and the hurt is healed, his faith is restored, and his hope and trust is once again placed in the living Lord, Jesus Christ.
Who does this ridiculous, stubborn, defensive Thomas make you think of in your life today? I hope and pray you do not think of yourself. I am not trying to compare you to Thomas at all because I hope you all believe in Jesus. You came to church this morning to hear about Jesus so I am fairly certain you all are believers. You do not need to be told to stop disbelieving and start believing, you are not feeling hurt or let down by God and therefore have not built defensive walls around yourself to stubbornly reject your faith. No, I am not talking about you. So now that that is clear, can you think of anyone else in your life like Thomas? Maybe you can, maybe you can’t right off hand, but I am willing to bet we all know someone like this. I know several people like this. People who deny there is a God, or people who are stubbornly rejecting their faith, or people who are mad at God. These people exist all around us every day.
I once worked with a guy who claimed to not believe in God. However, after more and more discussion as our friendship developed, I finally began to see that he did believe in God, but he was mad at God. He felt betrayed by God because his newborn son had died only a couple days after he was born. This friend of mine was hurt that God would take his child from him. Because he felt hurt by God, he built these same defensive walls, he made ridiculous claims of what it would take for him to believe. So I did the only thing I knew to do, I tried my best to show Him the living Jesus that is present and offering peace. I shared God’s written Word with him, using Scripture to try to show him that the pain and suffering of this world does not begin to compare to the grace of God. I showed him how God’s Word points us to Jesus who died for us and our sins, but rose again to be our living Lord who is willing to do anything to show us He is the Son of God. I tried to show how Jesus’s death and resurrection is the victory over death and the grave. I also used God’s spoken Word of proclaiming the Gospel to Him that in Christ we have salvation and eternal life. I proclaimed to Him that even though he was mad at God, God still loved him, loved him enough to sacrifice Jesus, His own son, to offer peace to him. I also tried to show him Jesus by loving him as Jesus would. I was patient with his questions, honest with his sarcastic remarks, and tried my best to care for and genuinely love him. I sympathized with his pain and loss, but I also loving challenged him to see it through the lens of the cross. When Thomas was stubborn and defensive all it took was seeing Jesus present and living and he stopped disbelieving and believed. So when my friend was being stubborn and defensive I tried my very best to show him that Jesus is still living and present in our lives through the written Word of Scripture, through the spoken word of the proclamation of the Gospel and through me a caring, loving friend. Now my friend did not make the immediate 180 that Thomas did, but last time I talked to him he was going to church and even to Bible study. I continue to pray for him that he too will see Jesus as his Lord and God and will stop disbelieving and believe.
Every situation will be different, but Paul speaks about doing this very same thing. In 1 Corinthians 9:22 when he says, “To the weak, I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people that by all means, I might save some.” See Paul understood what Jesus was doing to Thomas. When Thomas was dramatic, Jesus became dramatic so that by all means he would believe. Jesus was willing to do anything so that by all means some might believe. In fact, Jesus was willing to be put to death, even death on a cross, so that He could rise from the dead and pronounce peace to all people. Paul, an imitator of Christ, was willing to become all things for all men so that by all means some might be saved. Now the question is, are you willing to become all things to all men so that some might stop being stubborn and actively disbelieving and start believing? Are you willing to see what Christ was willing to do to help Thomas believe, and be like St. Paul, an imitator of this living present Christ?
I pray you answer yes to those questions. But even if you did, you may be asking yourself, how can I do that? You have the same gifts I used with my friend. You have the written Word of God in the Scriptures to share with people, to point people to the fact that Christ is living, He is present in our lives, and He wants all people to stop disbelieving and start believing. You have the gift of God’s spoken Word in proclaiming the Gospel to them. You can proclaim the good news that in Christ there is forgiveness of sins, there is salvation, there is eternal life, and there are loving brothers and sisters as we are united together in His name. And be sure to add that these amazing gifts are theirs through the grace of God alone. They have to do nothing to receive them. And finally you have the gift of your presence for them. You can be the presence of Christ in their life, by loving them, becoming weak for them if they are weak, or meeting them in whatever situation they are in. Christ Himself calls us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. St. Paul on several occasions commends us to be imitators of Christ’s love, to be children of God without blemish in the midst of a twisted and crooked generation.
By using God’s written word of the scriptures, God’s spoken word of the proclamation of the Gospel, and the presence of His love through your very own presence, you can become all things to all people so that by all means some might be saved. We can be the presence of the living Lord Jesus Christ who invites all people to stop stubbornly disbelieving and believe in Him as the Son of God who offers His peace to all mankind. We, who are believing, who have our salvation and eternal life in the living Christ Jesus, can be His presence in a world that desperately needs Him. Go out into the world, meet people, learn their story, build relationships, and when you meet the dramatic, stubborn, defensive Thomas’s of this world, show them that Jesus is alive and He is present in their lives so that they may stop disbelieving and start believing , start believing that He is risen... He is risen indeed, alleluia! Amen.
The next week was Holy Week and I had the privilege to go back to Brookings and preach one of the seven sermons for their Tre Ore service. We had Thursday and Friday off from classes so I went up north on Wednesday. It was fun to see everyone up there again and special for me to attend Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services back at Mt. Calvary. I love the Treo Ore service with all of the special music, to hear six different preachers, and to really focus in on each one of the seven sayings of Jesus from the cross. I will post my sermon at the bottom of this post.
Then I was able to be home for Easter and see the family. We shot clay pigeons on Saturday which is always fun for me. Then we celebrated the resurrection of our Lord with Easter morning service. We had dinner at moms with Grandma and spent our free time playing cards, playing outside with the boys, and relaxing. It was a great holiday.
The next week went very quickly as I continued my usual routine of going to my two classes, working for the farmer, and hanging with friends. Friday night was spring fest on campus which is always a great time. My bar in my room was extra busy and I even had the band Lost and Found in there. I have had quite a few famous (as in seminary-famous) people stop by for a drink in my bar.
Saturday I headed down to south east Missouri to my great-aunt's house. My grandma's family is still down around the Cape Girardeau area. I stayed with my great-aunt Verna but several of my family members were there to hear me preach and enjoy a lunch together Sunday after church. I thoroughly enjoyed preaching at both Shawneetown and Pocahontas. The family dinner was especially enjoyable afterwards. I love getting together and spending time with family, especially that side of the family that always has such a fun time together. I will also post that sermon below as well.
Now I am back to trying to keep up with homework, jobs, friends, sports, and all of the extra events coming up for our concluding class. We have several dinners and events coming up which is awesome, but also fills up the calendar very quickly. I will be finishing up my Romans Bible Study at field work church the next couple Sundays.
Tre Ore Sermon on John 19:26-27:
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
St. John shows us an interesting scene here in his Gospel. As Jesus is hanging on the cross, in pain and agony, slowly dying, two of His loved ones are standing at the foot of the cross looking up to Him. First is His mother, Mary. The second one is the disciple whom Jesus loved. These are two pretty special people to Jesus and they are standing with Him as He is in His most humiliating hour. Then Jesus, rather than complaining about the pain He is in, rather than be mad at the soldiers crucifying Him, rather than being upset with the rest of His disciples who have betrayed, denied, and abandoned Him, rather than any of these negative things, He speaks words of tender mercy. He speaks words of love and creates a new family. As He is dying He gives these two loved ones of His to each other as a new family as he says, “Woman, behold you son” and to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.”
Jesus has created a new family as the disciple took her to his own home from that hour on. Jesus speaks these words of tender mercy, giving His two loved ones each other to have as family, to support each other, to care for each other, and most importantly to encourage each other in their faith in Jesus. He is not thinking about Himself or His own pain, but He is thinking about these two people who mean so much to Him and in His death, He unites them into one new family.
I have recently been working on my family tree because I recently meet some cousins that I had only met when I was a baby. Starting with grandparents and working down to kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, on both my mom’s and my dad’s sides together, I have been blessed with a family of 124 people. And it is still growing as three of those are expecting. As I told this to some of my friends, they were shocked because they come from rather small families. And I do admit that that is probably much bigger than the average American family; however, it does not even begin to compare to the size of my family in Christ. When I was baptized and made a child of God, I was given a whole new family of all believers in Christ. This is the same family that you were brought into at your baptism as well.
Jesus created a new family for His mother and His disciple at the cross through His death, but He created a new family through His death and His resurrection that united each and every believer in His name. This family is huge! Millions probably even billions of people who have received the Holy Spirit, believed in Christ as the true Son of God, and be brought into the family of God. St. Paul speaks about this in both Romans and Galatians when He speaks of son-ship and adoption as sons of God. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God has united all believers and created a new family in His Son’s name. And you are included in that family.
This is not only good news because you are now a son or daughter of God, being made part of His family and being made an heir of His salvation and eternal life, which is pretty Great news in itself, but even more, He gives us our family of each other. Every other Christian in now our brother and sister in Christ, and these brothers and sisters are blessings to us just as Mary and John would be blessings to each other.
We support each other. We help each other with the physical necessities of everyday life. If one of our brothers and sisters can’t feed or clothe their family, we support them with what they need. As brothers and sisters in Christ, we make sure that our family is well provided for and tended to in our support for each other.
We care for each other. Both emotionally and spiritually, we are there for our fellow brothers and sisters. We step up to help them when they are in need, we lift them up in prayer, we come to their side in pain, we celebrate with them, and give thanks for them for being a part of our family.
But most importantly, we encourage each other to remain strong in our faith. We point each other towards the Lord who created our family through His death and resurrection as our Lord and Savior. We help each other cling to Jesus Christ and His faith, because it by His redemptive work alone that we are able to be this loving, supporting, caring, encouraging family.
Hear the words of our Lord spoken from the cross to His mother and His disciple, two of His loved ones as His tender mercy creating a family for them and be reminded that through His tender mercy He has created a new family for you and all believers that He loves so dearly, dearly enough to hang on that cross to redeem you and bring you into the family of God as sons and daughters, but as also as heirs who have received salvation and eternal life. And then being reminded of that good news yourself, go encourage your brothers and sisters in Christ so that they too may be strengthened by this good news.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Sermon on John 20:24-29:
Grace, mercy, and peace are yours in the name of our Father and the Living Lord Jesus Christ!
He is Risen…. He is risen indeed, alleluia! Jesus is most certainly risen as we see in our text today. This is a pretty well-known text of Jesus appearing to His disciples in the upper room and then coming to appear to them again, but this time including Thomas. Now most of you probably know him as doubting Thomas. However, as I study this text I do now think St. John is trying to show us Thomas as doubting, but rather as being ridiculously dramatic, extremely stubborn, and overly defensive. Jesus appeared to the ten disciples and Thomas was not there. Not there are theories as to why Thomas was not there, but overall St. John doesn’t tell us that. He simply tells us Thomas was not there the first time Jesus comes to the disciples. Then when Thomas does join back up with his brothers, Jesus is no longer there. They excitedly begin to fill him in, tell them who they saw. But before they can get any further into the story than simply telling Thomas they saw Jesus, he stops them. He cuts them off and interrupts them. If he was simply doubting that they actually saw Jesus, he would have asked more questions, asked what he said, asked what they did while he was there, or asked what he looked like. But Thomas doesn’t ask anything, rather he makes this ridiculously dramatic, extremely stubborn, overly defensive statement.
Really, it is an ultimatum, if he does not see the wounds, if he does not thrust his finger into the nail holes, or if he does not put his hand inside the spear wound, he absolutely will not, no way believe that Jesus is alive. Have you ever thought about Thomas’ ridiculously dramatic ultimatum? Unless he sees and touches the most grotesque evidence of Jesus’ death, the wounds, the holes where the nails were driven through His skin, the slash where a spear was stabbed into his dead corpse, and unless he gets to do these almost violating acts to Jesus he absolutely will not, no way believe Jesus is alive. He is not doubting, he is actively disbelieving.
Why is Thomas being so stubborn, so dramatic, so defensive. Why is he so quick to cut his brothers off and throw this extreme ultimatum in their faces? Again, St. John does not out rightly just tell us this, but I do not think it is misusing the text to say that Thomas is hurt. Reading the way St. John wrote this passage, I think it is not that hard to see that Thomas feels let down, abandoned, and hurt by Jesus dying. He put all his hope and trust in this man who he followed as his teacher. He was beside him for so many miracles and teachings, eating with him, traveling with him, learning from him. And now this Jesus was gone, dead. Thomas is hurt and so when the disciples try to share their excitement about seeing Jesus, this is why Thomas cuts them off, interrupts them only to throw his extreme ultimatum back at them. He is being stubborn and defensive because he does not want to get his hopes up again. How can he trust and hope in this man again after he has already died once? He pushes them away, puts up his defensive walls, stubbornly denies they are telling the truth and is over dramatic to express how actively disbelieving he is going to be about this.
However, as ridiculously dramatic, extremely stubborn, and overly defensive his demand was, one week later we see Jesus show up again. He greets the disciples with the same words of peace that he did the first time, and then he turns and goes after Thomas. Jesus uses the exact same wording Thomas had in his ultimatum and tells Thomas “if that is what it is going to take to believe, then go ahead and do it. If you need to thrust your finger into my nail holes then here they are, poke away. If you need to stick your whole hand in my side, go ahead and do it already. Do whatever ridiculous, dramatic thing you need to do to stop being stubborn, stop actively disbelieving and start believing again. Stop this nonsense of disbelieving and start believing.” And it’s not too surprising that Thomas doesn’t actually need to do any of it. He drops his defensive walls, he stops being dramatic and stubborn and proclaims my God and my Lord. He confesses that Jesus is living and he not only believes, but puts his trust and hope back in Jesus knowing he will not be let down again. Dramatic, stubborn, defensive Thomas sees the living Jesus and the hurt is healed, his faith is restored, and his hope and trust is once again placed in the living Lord, Jesus Christ.
Who does this ridiculous, stubborn, defensive Thomas make you think of in your life today? I hope and pray you do not think of yourself. I am not trying to compare you to Thomas at all because I hope you all believe in Jesus. You came to church this morning to hear about Jesus so I am fairly certain you all are believers. You do not need to be told to stop disbelieving and start believing, you are not feeling hurt or let down by God and therefore have not built defensive walls around yourself to stubbornly reject your faith. No, I am not talking about you. So now that that is clear, can you think of anyone else in your life like Thomas? Maybe you can, maybe you can’t right off hand, but I am willing to bet we all know someone like this. I know several people like this. People who deny there is a God, or people who are stubbornly rejecting their faith, or people who are mad at God. These people exist all around us every day.
I once worked with a guy who claimed to not believe in God. However, after more and more discussion as our friendship developed, I finally began to see that he did believe in God, but he was mad at God. He felt betrayed by God because his newborn son had died only a couple days after he was born. This friend of mine was hurt that God would take his child from him. Because he felt hurt by God, he built these same defensive walls, he made ridiculous claims of what it would take for him to believe. So I did the only thing I knew to do, I tried my best to show Him the living Jesus that is present and offering peace. I shared God’s written Word with him, using Scripture to try to show him that the pain and suffering of this world does not begin to compare to the grace of God. I showed him how God’s Word points us to Jesus who died for us and our sins, but rose again to be our living Lord who is willing to do anything to show us He is the Son of God. I tried to show how Jesus’s death and resurrection is the victory over death and the grave. I also used God’s spoken Word of proclaiming the Gospel to Him that in Christ we have salvation and eternal life. I proclaimed to Him that even though he was mad at God, God still loved him, loved him enough to sacrifice Jesus, His own son, to offer peace to him. I also tried to show him Jesus by loving him as Jesus would. I was patient with his questions, honest with his sarcastic remarks, and tried my best to care for and genuinely love him. I sympathized with his pain and loss, but I also loving challenged him to see it through the lens of the cross. When Thomas was stubborn and defensive all it took was seeing Jesus present and living and he stopped disbelieving and believed. So when my friend was being stubborn and defensive I tried my very best to show him that Jesus is still living and present in our lives through the written Word of Scripture, through the spoken word of the proclamation of the Gospel and through me a caring, loving friend. Now my friend did not make the immediate 180 that Thomas did, but last time I talked to him he was going to church and even to Bible study. I continue to pray for him that he too will see Jesus as his Lord and God and will stop disbelieving and believe.
Every situation will be different, but Paul speaks about doing this very same thing. In 1 Corinthians 9:22 when he says, “To the weak, I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people that by all means, I might save some.” See Paul understood what Jesus was doing to Thomas. When Thomas was dramatic, Jesus became dramatic so that by all means he would believe. Jesus was willing to do anything so that by all means some might believe. In fact, Jesus was willing to be put to death, even death on a cross, so that He could rise from the dead and pronounce peace to all people. Paul, an imitator of Christ, was willing to become all things for all men so that by all means some might be saved. Now the question is, are you willing to become all things to all men so that some might stop being stubborn and actively disbelieving and start believing? Are you willing to see what Christ was willing to do to help Thomas believe, and be like St. Paul, an imitator of this living present Christ?
I pray you answer yes to those questions. But even if you did, you may be asking yourself, how can I do that? You have the same gifts I used with my friend. You have the written Word of God in the Scriptures to share with people, to point people to the fact that Christ is living, He is present in our lives, and He wants all people to stop disbelieving and start believing. You have the gift of God’s spoken Word in proclaiming the Gospel to them. You can proclaim the good news that in Christ there is forgiveness of sins, there is salvation, there is eternal life, and there are loving brothers and sisters as we are united together in His name. And be sure to add that these amazing gifts are theirs through the grace of God alone. They have to do nothing to receive them. And finally you have the gift of your presence for them. You can be the presence of Christ in their life, by loving them, becoming weak for them if they are weak, or meeting them in whatever situation they are in. Christ Himself calls us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. St. Paul on several occasions commends us to be imitators of Christ’s love, to be children of God without blemish in the midst of a twisted and crooked generation.
By using God’s written word of the scriptures, God’s spoken word of the proclamation of the Gospel, and the presence of His love through your very own presence, you can become all things to all people so that by all means some might be saved. We can be the presence of the living Lord Jesus Christ who invites all people to stop stubbornly disbelieving and believe in Him as the Son of God who offers His peace to all mankind. We, who are believing, who have our salvation and eternal life in the living Christ Jesus, can be His presence in a world that desperately needs Him. Go out into the world, meet people, learn their story, build relationships, and when you meet the dramatic, stubborn, defensive Thomas’s of this world, show them that Jesus is alive and He is present in their lives so that they may stop disbelieving and start believing , start believing that He is risen... He is risen indeed, alleluia! Amen.