I Want to Stay in the Empty Tomb
When nagging doubts shape the empty tomb feeling:
the story of “Doubting Thomas”
Larry Thorson
Scripture Text: John 20:
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Jn 20:31 But these are written that you may
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
that by believing you may have life in his name.
New International Version Bible
Introduction
Picture
this scenario. The phone rings and you
answer it. The person on the other end
of the line says “You’ve
just won an all expense paid trip to
We all have what I call a minimum standard
for believing or M.S.F.B. That minimum
is set by our past experiences. You may
have met people who believe almost everything everyone says. Their minimum standard for believing
something is quite low. We also call
them gullible. They can’t seem to
discern truth from non truth which makes them susceptible to being cheated. Instead of having 20 years of experience at
something they have 20 one year experiences.
Every situation is also the first time.
We’ve also met people who hardly believe
anything anyone says. We call them
cynical. Their minimum standard for
believing is so high they often miss seeing the possibilities in life. Often they have been hurt by people who took
advantage of them. They miss seeing the
possibilities in life. Somewhere between
the extremes lies a balanced, healthy belief system. That balance is what we’re going to look at
in this chapter of John.
In this series we’ve been looking at various
responses to Jesus’ empty tomb on the first Easter. These responses have been based on a variety
of belief systems. When Jesus died, Mary
cried, the guards and Chief Priests lied and the male followers of Jesus, well,
they could only hide.
Thomas and His Doubt
But there’s another response to the
empty tomb besides crying, lying or hiding.
It’s called doubting that the tomb was even empty. No matter what the evidence, a cynic is going
to doubt. That was the case with Thomas,
one of Jesus’ original disciples. Thomas
had a very high minimum standard for believing.
He didn’t just believe something because.
To set the scene, Thomas somehow missed Jesus’
when he made his post resurrection appearance to his disciples. The Bible doesn’t tell us where he was that
night. Maybe he was taking a walk. Maybe he was napping. Maybe he had to go to work. Maybe he didn’t want to huddle in fear like
the rest of the disciples but wanted to move on with his life after Jesus died. We don’t know. What we know is that when he got back to the house
where the disciples were meeting they were all abuzz about this visit from Jesus
but he didn’t believe them. Thomas said in
verse 25 “Unless I see the nail
marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into
his side, I will not believe it.” That
was his MSFB, his
minimum standard for believing. This is where he got the nickname, “Doubting
Thomas” which has become part of our English vernacular.
Doubting a Barometer
A lot of people are like Thomas. They have a hard time believing something
that’s outside of their past experience.
Like the
The Benefit of the Doubt
Mark Buchanan, who is a pastor in
Denial means a refusal to admit the
truth of a statement or charge. John
Inside
every church there are those who struggle with doubt. They come to church week after week and
quietly listen to their preacher talk so matter of factly about the
resurrection and miracles. They may hear
excited testimonies of people who have been dramatically healed through
prayer. But then they look at their
experience and it looks a lot like Thomas’ experience during the week after the
first Easter. I want our church to be a
place of honest seeking after the truth about God. I don’t ever want to see someone ostracized
or treated like a second class citizen because of their honest struggle with doubt.
Being Open to Consider the
Unbelievable
But if
you are struggling with doubt will you at least be open minded enough to seek
the experience that Thomas had? Look at verse
27 “Then
he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and
put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
We think of Thomas examining Jesus’ nail holes and
making sure that he’s valid like Caravaggio’s somewhat well known 16th
century painting “Doubting Thomas” that shows Thomas putting his finger in
Jesus’ side. But that’s not what
happened according to the Scriptures. In
verse 28 we read: “Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus said to him in v.29: "Have you believed because you
have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to
believe." All he had to do was see and hear
Jesus. That possibility is open to you
regardless of your past experiences or your doubts.
I respect folks who struggle with doubts. My experience with many of them, however, is
that they religiously maintain that unbelief as if it defines them. They almost seem proud of not succumbing to
belief in the supernatural. Many are not
even open to consider that it could even be revealed to them.
In 1997, the astronomer Carl Sagan
developed a terminal illness. He was a man of science, not faith. When he
learned of his illness, he let his friends know that he did not want prayer,
instead he wanted proof. Christians tried to talk to him, and they did pray for
him. Sagan had a conversation with a friend of his, Joan Brown Campbell, who
was a Presbyterian pastor. He said to her, "Joan, you’re so smart, why do
you believe in God?" She found that a rather surprising question from one
who had no trouble accepting the reality of black holes in space, which no one
had ever observed. Sagan responded, "I just knew they were there because
the calculations seemed to indicate that it was true." Joan said to him,
"Carl, you’re so smart, why don’t you believe in God?"
Despite the best medical treatment,
the great astronomer developed pneumonia and died. When he passed away, Sagan’s
wife issued this statement: "There was no deathbed conversion, no appeals
to God, no hope for an afterlife, no pretending that he and I, who had been
inseparable for 20 years, were not saying goodbye to each other forever."
She was asked, "Didn’t he want to believe in God?" She answered, "Carl
never wanted to believe; he wanted proof."[3]
After I graduated from a fundamentalist
Baptist college my MSFB went sky high. I
had seen and experienced things that I wished I hadn’t seen Christians do. I had been emotionally hurt there. I thought of junking the whole faith walk and
becoming a “religious skeptic”. But I
faintly remembered the times that Christ and I had in my early days of
innocence in the faith and wondered if those times could return. It was then that I believe God sent me into
the presence of a Bay Area pastor named Tom Gillespie who spent nine months
helping me past my hurt and doubt before that doubt became permanent and
defined who I was.
Later in my ministry I worked for a
senior pastor who left his wife after becoming involved with a younger woman in
our church. It was a devastating
experience for me both professionally and spiritually. I began to doubt whether following Christ was
even emotionally healthy. Again God sent
me to a church, the West Valley Presbyterian Church of Cupertino and a pastor,
Ron McHattie who helped me forget the hurt and to work through the consequent
doubt.
Later again I had another bad experience
of being hurt and each time my MSFB shot up and each time God sent someone to
help restore me. Now I know that when it
happens again, God will send someone to help restore my hurt and renew my
faith.
Conclusion
In the end, it will be our encounter
with the risen Christ, and not the proof of His resurrection, which seizes our
hearts and captures our imaginations. The
problem really isn’t that we don’t have enough proof for believing in Christ,
the problem may be that we don’t want to allow Christ to change the way we
live. We want to stay in the empty tomb
or reseal it and pretend Jesus’ body is still there.
When
Jesus died, Mary cried, the guards lied, the disciples only knew how to hide and
Thomas doubted. Remember Thomas never
gave up doubting all week even when everybody else said they had experienced
the resurrected Lord but he did when he encountered Jesus himself.
Maybe you feel like Thomas. Everyone around you seems to have experienced
the resurrected Lord but that just hasn’t been your experience. I appreciate that you’re doing this
study. I appreciate that you’re here. I know that you won’t believe because of my
experience with the resurrected Lord.
And you won’t believe necessarily because of the testimony of someone
you really respect. But will you at
least be open as Thomas was in never leaving the disciples’ side just in case
it might be true?
You don’t want to be gullible and
believe something that might not be true.
But there is the possibility that you haven’t yet experienced everything
there is to experience. When you’re
doubting stay open to the facts that brilliant people across have believed
about Jesus Christ. Stay open to the
fact that you may be entering a type of great experience with our Lord unlike
anything you’ve ever experienced before.
As Jesus met Thomas in a miraculous way so I believe that the same will
be true for you. Will you at least be
open to that possibility?
I want everyone to have Thomas’
experience but Jesus said “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet
have come to believe." When something happens to you that
you didn’t expect and didn’t particularly like and you wonder where is God in
all this you’re not alone. God didn’t
shun Thomas for struggling with his faith.
Pray “God help me to believe” and if you honestly mean it, in time the
resurrected Christ, God’s Son and Savior will become very real to you.
It starts with faith. “Lord Jesus, I believe in you as my Savior,
not because I can see you but because I want to believe. Take my life, my doubts, my fears, my
traditions and reveal yourself to me in anyway that you think I need.” Can you pray that prayer right now or do you
want to stay in that empty tomb believing that Jesus’ body is still there?
Describe a time when you doubted what
someone said even though they strongly believed in it. What kept you from believing that person?
Why do you think Thomas had such a
hard time believing the testimony of the other disciples who had seen
Jesus?
What makes believing in the
resurrection difficult for you or for someone you know?
Describe how you came to believe
in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
What would you say to someone like
Thomas about the resurrection?
Monday Matthew
What did Jesus predict would
happen to him? v.21
What was Jesus’ response to Peter?
V.23
Tuesday Matthew
How did Jesus deal with the boy
and his seizures?
What did Jesus tell his disciples
that he predicted would happen to him? v.22
Wednesday Matthew
What did Jesus predict would
happen to him?
What would you have done if you
were one of the disciples on the way to
Thursday John
What do you think caused Jesus to
weep, the death of his friend Lazarus or the tears of Lazarus’ sister Mary?
(v.33)
What do you think would make Jesus
weep about you?
Friday John
What two responses did the raising
of Lazarus bring? (v.45 & v.53)
List some times when you sensed
God was doing something supernatural near you.
What was your response? What do
you think your response might be to news of a resurrection today?
Saturday Psalm 9
In a volatile and changing world what
comfort do you get from verse 7?
What is the hope of this
Psalm? v.9
Sunday John
Read
this passage again from Thursday’s reading in light of what you have read and thought
about during the week.
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NEXT SERMON: Take Off the Grave
Clothes
John 11:38-44
[1] Swindoll’s Ultimate Book of Illustrations, p.593 adapted from Bits and Pieces, quoted in Lloyd Cory, Quote Unquote
[2] “The
Benefit of the Doubt” by Mark Buchanan as published in Christianity Today,
[3] Taken
from Kenneth Woodward, "Is God Listening?" in Newsweek,