Scripture John 20:19-31 (NRSVUE)
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “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.”
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
Sermon
We pick up this morning exactly where we left off last Sunday, the day of resurrection. The last words we heard the gospel witness were, “Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord,’ and she told them that he had said these things to her.” (John 20:18).
It was a moment of rejoicing! Light had come out of darkness, and life out of death. We return to the gospel story on the very same day, but now the sun has set. What has happened in these last twelve hours? Has the news of resurrection spread like the holy fire it surely is? Are the followers of Jesus swarming to the city to see with their own eyes, the wonder of the man who died, living again? Is there, at the very least, a party?
There is not. If Magdalene’s news is being shared, it’s as a furtive whisper. If Jesus’ followers are swarming anywhere, it is not here. Instead, his closest friends are hunkered down in that same upper room where they shared the Passover supper with Jesus. It is not a celebration. The doors are locked for fear, the gospel tells us, of the Jews.
That sounds wrong to our ears, because it sounds like anti-semitism. But that can’t be right. The disciples’ risen Lord is a Jew. The disciples themselves, the ones hiding out, are also Jews. Clearly they are not afraid of themselves, but only of those who, quietly or actively, began or supported the work of having Jesus killed. They are afraid that they are next.
Perhaps they just couldn’t fathom what Mary Magdalene told them. Perhaps they held out some fragile hope that she might be right. We don’t know how her message affected them at all. All we know is this: they are behind locked doors.
There is still fear. There is still uncertainty. There is certainly doubt.
There is another possibility: Could Jesus’ closest companions be afraid of seeing him? Does their fear have to do with shame? As one commentator writes,
After all, they had failed him miserably. Peter had denied him three times, and the rest had deserted him (except for “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” who had been at the cross and had taken Jesus’ mother into his home). Perhaps the last person the disciples wanted to meet on that evening was Jesus, risen from the dead to confront them with their failures. [i]
Would you be afraid of seeing Jesus? Just, on principle… because he is who he is? The gravity of such a meeting could be overwhelming. And how’s our faith doing one week after the high holy day of Easter Sunday, when nothing is too beautiful or too wondrous to be believed? [ii] Do we carry anxiety and fear in our hearts and bodies that gnaw away at our trust in the greatest story ever told, the ultimate good?
Last week I watched a brief clip of a United States Senator answering questions at a town hall in their home state. Someone asked them to speak to the many of their constituents who were feeling afraid in this time of political chaos and employment uncertainty. The Senator replied, “We are all afraid.”
It was a stunning admission. After about a five second pause, the senator continued: “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been… before. I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real.” [iii] A member of the majority party, the senator was conceding that all is not well in the halls of power. Fear is everywhere.
We know what that senator means. Each day brings with it more bad news, new tidings of collapse or destruction. We can easily feel trapped behind the locked doors of our own anxiety, our own doubt.
But stony limits cannot hold love out. And what love can do, that dares love attempt. Locked doors do not deter the risen Christ. Into the room he walks, breathing peace. The first thing he says—for he knows his people are clenched with fear—is
“Peace be with you.” Shalom aleikhem. The greeting is multilayered. Yes, it means peace. But it also means hello, or goodbye. In this instance, the multiple layers of meaning are particularly poignant. Jesus is saying, Peace. He is also saying, Hello. And it will not be long, not even two months, until he says, Goodbye.
Jesus shows them his wounds. He is still Jesus, though the fact that he was able to enter through a locked door suggests that there is something different about him. Jesus’s body is still continuous with his life before death; the wounds show that. But his body is also different: we can call it the resurrection body. The risen Christ is able to transcend boundaries like doors. He is able to vanish and appear in an instant. He is also not always immediately recognizable.
And yet, Jesus now invites touch, instead of forbidding it. In some resurrection accounts he is hungry and eats with his friends. His feet are firmly planted on the ground, which, to people of that time, is a good sign: he is no ghost.
But now the disciples begin to relax a bit. The narrator tells us, “They rejoiced.” Now they can feel the joy and relief of impossible prayers answered. Their rabbi is home.
Then, Jesus says, “As my Father sent me, so, now, I send you.” God sending Jesus is a big focus of the gospel of John. Now, for the first time in John’s gospel, Jesus sends his people.
To further equip his disciples, and to instruct them on exactly what their mission is, Jesus breathes on them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And then in the same breath, he says, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” This is serious business, the business of forgiveness. Jesus’ disciples are entrusted with this two-edged sword, with the job of setting parameters around forgiveness, in his name. This is the mission of the early church.
For some reason, Thomas isn’t there. We don’t know why. He has missed out on this big moment. Later, when the disciples who saw Jesus share their excitement, when they tell him they have seen the Lord, he can’t believe it. He says, “I have to see the wounds myself. I have to touch them myself.”
How many times have you seen an ad for a so-called “miracle” product? Skin cream, weight-loss something-or-other, hair restorer? And how often have you read the ad, maybe watched the video, and said, “That sounds great. Let me give these people all my money.” Probably not so often, right? My guess is that you wanted some first-hand evidence of the product’s powers. You wanted to know someone whose skin glowed, or who lost the weight, or who grew back a nice thick head of hair before you jump in and say, “I’ll take it.”
Thomas is no different. Thoms wants only what the other disciples have seen: Like them, like Mary Magdalene, he wants to be able to say: I have seen the Lord!
A week later—one week after the day of resurrection—Jesus comes again to that upper room, and this time Thomas is there. Once again Jesus comes through closed doors and shows himself to the disciples. He shows his wounds to Thomas. He offers the disciple an opportunity to touch them. Thomas is immediately overwhelmed, and cries out, “My Lord and my God.” All through John’s gospel, we have been hearing Jesus declare his oneness with God. All through this gospel, the narrator has confirmed it. Finally, one of his disciples declares it.
Jesus’ last words in this chapter are, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” John’s gospel is always mindful of the reader, the listener, the one who may be learning about Jesus for the first time. These words are a little love note to the reader, to the listener, to those of us who have not seen, and yet, have believed. He is telling us we are blessed—as in, happy. Content. At peace. These words are not a reprimand to Thomas. They are a word of encouragement—to us.
We are Thomas. We are living in a time when anxieties, fear, and doubts are our common language. With all this noise, the good news seems to fade into the background. But we are also followers of the one who cannot be kept away from us by either the locked doors of buildings or the locked doors of our fearful hearts. We are followers of the one who is not afraid to show us his wounds, and invites us to show him ours. We are followers of the one who wants us to wear forgiveness on our hearts like badges of honor; who invites us to make forgiveness as much a part of our lives as breathing.
We are all members of the body of the risen Christ, the living Christ. By virtue of our baptism, resurrection is already a part of us. Like Thomas, we are a part of the body even when we are not present. Like Thomas, we can ask the hard questions. And like Thomas, we can be ready, when our hearts are open, to cry out, “My Lord and my God.”
Thanks be to God.
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[i] Elisabeth Johnson, Commentary on John 20:19-31, April 27, 2014, WorkingPreacher.org. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-of-easter/commentary-on-john-2019-31-10.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Annie Karni, “A Startling Admission from a G.O.P. Senator: ‘We Are All Afraid,’” The New York Times, April 17, 2025.