Sermon notes St. Thomas Sunday, John 20:19-29 May 8, 1994
At the very beginning of Great Lent I told you that Lent was designed to be a liturgical tool to teach us about life as disciples of Christ. I used the word microcosm, meaning the few weeks of Lent were really our whole life lived out in a few short weeks. Each Sunday of Great Lent was given a special Gospel Lesson to help us understand what it means to be a disciple of Christ.
Each week was like moving down a narrowing tunnel.
Each week our way of life, our beliefs and perspectives were challenged by our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we could properly understand and follow him. Each week we were drawn deeper into that ever narrowing tunnel, and as Mark’s 
Gospel has it, it is a tunnel that gets darker as we go in. It gets darker because the world increasingly rejects Christ and pushes him toward the crucifixion. It gets darker because slowly his family and followers and then even the disciples of Jesus abandon him, betray him, deny him and flee from him.
But also always, there is a speck of light at the end of the tunnel which we are drawn towards, which we continue to move towards, but to get there we must pass through this most narrow and painful passage, we are forced to crawl on our hands and knees on painful, cold and hard stone.
There is no other way for us to go if we are to follow Christ, for we all must pass through that narrow and dark passage of the tomb of Christ. And all of Lent and all of Holy Week lead to the darkness of the night, Christ in the tomb, and we hoping that God will arise and judge the earth. And then in the middle of the night, in the midst of this darkness, the light appears, the unfading and everlasting and gladsome light of Christ, Risen from the dead. We have passed through the cross, through the tomb, through death, through hades, into the never ending light of God’s Kingdom. And that tomb of Christ which stinks of death suddenly becomes the fount of life, the source of the resurrection, the font of baptism, the means of new birth, of regeneration, of access to God, to the kingdom, to eternal life.
The tomb of Christ, his death, his burial, become for all of us the passage into new life, we enter through this narrow passage way in our own baptism, where we die with Christ and are buried with him, and then are raised with him to a new and unending life. And each Pascha, we are reminded of this journey, of our journey through the darkness of this world, through the cross and tomb into the joyful light of God’s Kingdom. And our little walk into the darkness of the midnight, is a reminder that we are but sojourners on earth, passing through on our way to the Kingdom of God, and the night does pass away, and the darkness does fade into the light of Pascha, and the New Day, just as this world and our life on this earth also will pass away, and only that which God establishes will continue on forever. And that is a reminder not to live for this world which too is passing away like the night, but to live for the Kingdom of God which stands forever, and is never over come by the darkness.
And today we stand on the other side of that tomb, of the darkness of death, the cross and the grave. Today we know of the resurrection and we have experienced the light and life of Christ our God in baptism, in the Gospel, in the Liturgy, in the Eucharist. And we pass through the tomb of Christ which also becomes the font of life for us all, and we are here again in the world, facing the new reality of God’s resurrection.
But for all its newness, for all the light of Christ, and the power of the resurrection, and the joy, and the hope, we also notice that some things in the world have not changed. In fact many things seem to go on as if there is no God and there is no resurrection. The world is still awash in sin – in violence, disease, warfare, abortions, lust, greed, murder, death, disbelief. And we are confronted with this contradiction, if Jesus indeed is raised from the dead, why is the world so much like it was before? Are we really to believe that Jesus is risen from the dead? Are we to understand that this resurrection has changed the world forever? The apostles tell us that they saw Jesus alive, risen from the dead, but what are we to believe?
And this is where the Gospel lesson today brings us. Because, like Thomas, we were not there when Jesus appeared, and even though people we trust, the apostles, their followers, our bishops, priests, grandparents and parents, all say Jesus is risen from the dead, are we to believe?
And Jesus says to us, “You are indeed blessed, for you have not seen me and yet you believe.”
It is the doubt of Thomas, which is our doubt, and his confession of faith is for us.
Remember before you judge Thomas, that the other disciples also did not believe before they encountered the risen lord. None of them really believed in the resurrection until they had seen Christ themselves. The empty tomb, the message of the angels, the testimony of the myrrhbearing women, none of these things convinced the other disciples either. But Christ appears to the disciples and brings them to faith. He does not reject those slow-to-believe followers, he does not reject Thomas, but encourages him to faith. Neither will he reject you or I if or when we doubt the Lordship of Christ Jesus. Instead, He invites us, he welcomes us, He is ever patient with us because He loves us. If we have our doubts, note well that so did the disciples. Yet they came to believe that the resurrection was true, and then they took that news to the world.
Listen to these words from the hymns of Vespers for this Day.
Thomas, called the twin, was absent
When you came to your disciples through closed doors, O Christ.
He refused to believe what they told him,
But you did not reject him for his faithlessness.
When he saw your side, and the wounds in your hands and feet,
His doubts vanished and his faith was confirmed.
After both seeing and feeling you,
He confessed you to be neither and abstract God nor merely a man.
He cried: Glory to you, my Lord and my God!”The disciples were assembled on the eighth day,
When the Savior came and gave them his peace,
He said to Thomas,
“Come, Apostle! Feel my hands, which were pierced by the nails.”
O Blessed doubt of Thomas,
which brought the hearts of believers to knowledge.
In fear we cry to You:
“Glory to You, my Lord and my God!”
If there are any doubts in your heart about Jesus or the resurrection, know that many people before you have also doubted, and there doubts were laid aside by personal experience, and it is they who witness to you today, who invite you to believe that Jesus of Nazereth is in fact God’s chosen Messiah, whose life, death and resurrection has changed the course of the world forever.
Fraternized 