Acts 3:12a,13-15, 17-26
Psalm 111
1 John 5:1-6
JOHN 20:19-31
St.
Barnabas Episcopal Church
Youth
Sunday 4/27/03
(Sermon
written and preached by Youth Group members
Anson Devonish and Annetta Sanfilippo)
Please pray with
us:
Dear Lord, we know
that You are with us each day of our lives, guiding us and protecting us from
things in this world that You see unfit.
Please, continue to do so, whether we have moments of doubt for lack of
tangibility, and please continue to show us Your way through the path of life
You have planned for us. In Your name
we pray, Amen.
Traveling through
this path of life, we face everyday issues that people 2,000 years ago would
have never imagined. Although times
have changed, we know that the Lords love has not. We cannot see Him, and we cannot touch Him, but we know He is
there. In todays Gospel, Thomas does
not believe that Jesus has come back, just as He said He would, until he
touches His wounds. Do you think Thomas
honestly did not believe that the Lord would go through with His promise to
come back after His crucifixion? Maybe
Thomas was simply in denial of the physical capability of coming back to life
after being laid in the tomb? I know I
would if I were one of the disciples.
How could it be possible for Jesus, whether He be the Messiah or not, to
return to this Earth after death? After
all, Jesus appeared in the room with the disciples while the doors were locked
for fear of the Jews, and there was no way for a living human to appear. No way that is, unless you were the Messiah
and could do anything to show your followers that you were real. When Thomas was told that his Lord had come
back to life, he said that unless he could see the mark of the nails in His
hands, and put his finger in the mark of the nails, and his hand in His side,
that he would not believe.
Is this possible
today for us? No, of course not. We cannot see the Lord, or touch His wounds,
but believing in the Lord is not the only way we as human beings take the I cant
believe it til I see it escape. How
many times in a day do you think you hear something, but dont believe it, for
lack of your ability to see it? Or on
the other hand, how many times do you hear a rumor and believe it without any
tangible evidence? Why is it so easy to
believe in the experiences of others, and yet, it is such a challenge to
believe in our own experience of God?
So why is it that it is easier to believe that Ben Affleck and Jennifer
Lopez are about to be married or that Luther Vandross had a stroke than to
believe the teachings we hear in church every Sunday? In reality, we have more tangible proof of Ben & Jens
engagement and Luthers health than we do of Jesus and his teachings. Its easier for us to trust Connie Chung and
Barbara Walters because we can see them and we can hear what theyre
saying. The Bible on the other hand,
has no physical evidence of its teachings.
We cannot see its authors, we cannot travel to the lands it speaks of,
we cannot hear the teachings as the people then did, and we cannot talk to its
characters. So what is it that gives us
reason to believe the stories we hear preached from a pulpit every Sunday and
listen with the trust that these things happened, when we ourselves cant go
out and seek the truth?
Faith. Faith is what gives us the strength to
believe what we cant see and hear.
This simple 5-letter word that means so much to Christians today, who
use it every day to decipher the good and bad of this world, the truth from the
lies. Our belief in God is what leads
us to trust His plan for us, even though the closest we may ever get to
touching Him is to receive communion on Sundays. Today, we rely on our senses to guide us through our days. All the time we count on our sight to warn
us of our surroundings, our speech and hearing to listen and communicate with
others and our touch to help us help others and provide us with that contact
that we need. Faith, is a Christians
sixth sense. It works solely with the
heart, and doesnt need the aid from any of the other traditional senses.
So Thomas faith
was tested that day? Is it fair to say
that Thomas is a bad Christian because he failed to trust his faith, and
believe? No, but it is fair to say that
hes human and with that comes the doubt that Thomas expressed. When Jesus originally appeared, the other 11
disciples were all present. Why is it
then that Jesus chose to appear then, when he knew all his followers were not
there? Thomas was chosen separately to
test and strengthen his faith. Thomas
got the privilege of touching Jesus wounds to prove to himself that his Lord
had come back as He had promised. An
assurance of faith that many of us today wish we could experience.
So because we do
not have this assurance, should we stray from the Lord and wait for our
chance? Or should we as Christians,
follow our sixth sense and know that the Lord will stay with us for all
eternity?
In the name of the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.