Easter musings

I’ve been thinking about John 20:24-29 a lot lately.  To set up what has been happening in context, Jesus has literally and bodily risen from the grave (hallelujah!).  He has been appearing to people in His sphere of influence showing them that He is truly alive.  He appeared to Mary Magdalene (John 20:10-18), and then He appeared to His disciples (verses 19-23).  In verse 24, the text states that Thomas was not with the disciples when Jesus showed Himself to be alive.  Thomas essentially says, “I won’t believe what you are telling me about this resurrection stuff unless I see it with my own eyes.”  The text says that a week passes (verse 26) and the disciples and Thomas were together again in a house.  Jesus enters and quickly singles out Thomas.  He says, “Put your finger here; see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side.  Stop doubting and believe” (verse 27).

I want to underscore that last sentence because I think it applies to some who will read these words. You don’t believe that Jesus literally arose from the grave.  You think it’s all a hoax or a myth.  Jesus said to Thomas, “Stop doubting and believe.”  Dear reader, with love I repeat the same thing to you: stop doubting and believe.  By all means, don’t take my word for it.  Do your homework on this.  May I recommend a wonderful book by Lee Strobel?  It’s entitled “The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus.”  Part three of the book is “Researching the Resurrection.”  This is a fabulous book that I hope you’ll check out.

Back to the text in John 20, Thomas sees that Jesus still bears the marks of the nails from the crucifixion.  Seeing with his eyes, he believes.  He declares, “My Lord and my God” (verse 28).  Incidentally, it’s interesting to me that at this point Jesus doesn’t say to Thomas, “Thomas, you’re a little mixed up.  I’m not God.  I’m just a man like you.”  Jesus doesn’t say that, of course, because that’s not the truth.  Jesus is both fully God and He is fully man.  This is something that Jesus made clear in His Earthly ministry.

In John 20:29, Jesus says to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  You can put me in that verse, I have not seen Jesus with my physical eyes, and yet I believe.

But what about you?  I haven’t heard the phrase as much lately, but I used to constantly hear the phrase, ‘Seeing is believing.’  It always used to bother me a little bit because, in some cases, we don’t have the opportunity to see something in order to believe it.  In this matter that is certainly the case.  We don’t get the opportunity to see Jesus with our physical eyes before believing in Him.  For us, the phrase is the other way around: not ‘seeing is believing,’ but rather ‘believing is seeing.’  Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  Does that describe you?

Kevin