Rise Up and Be Transformed!: Sermon John 20:19-31

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

The Church and the World find themselves in what some have called the New Rise of Atheism. This new rise began with the publishing of several books one in particular called The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. In his book Dawkins tries to explain away any and all forms of religion and tries to show the world that there is no God and humans do not need any god to worship. This is not the first time these kinds of sentiments have been published by so-called intellectuals. Karl Marx a famous economist and philosopher called religion “the opiate of the people” meaning that religion only served to control the people not to free them. The Church uses superstitions and threats of eternal punishment to control the people just like a tyrannical government world by threat of death. In both cases the people are controlled and therefore they are not free. This kind of thinking runs rampant through atheist and agnostic thought. There belief is that the world we live is it; there is no heaven or hell, no supernatural mumbo jumbo, no God, no afterlife. The atheist is all about scientific evidence; you might even say they trust in science as much as the Christian trusts in God, and so they are all about proof. You claim God exists…prove it. You claim Jesus rose from the dead…prove it. You claim there is an afterlife…prove it.

Of course we cannot scientifically prove the existence of God, but as Christians we don’t need to prove it that is what faith is all about. We don’t have to prove that Jesus rose from the dead, we have faith in it and faith is the evidence of things UN-seen. Most atheists will concede that there was a man named Jesus who came from Nazareth and lead a small band of followers, and was executed by the Roman government; there is enough historical evidence that most will agree to that. However, that is where the story ends; they recognize Jesus as leader in social justice and morality, but not the Savior. Jesus taught to love your neighbor, but did not heal the sick, the blind, or cast out demons. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but not of a virgin. Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross, but did not rise again on the third day.

We as Christians can’t provide the world with physical evidence of the Resurrection, but we have something much more compelling…we have been transformed by the resurrected Christ. We can see this transformation in the actions of the disciples after their experience with the risen Jesus. They were all changed completely from the people they once were and they were never the same again. They were sent by Christ and they obeyed. These men left their homes and families to travel far and wide to proclaim the good news of the gospel. They proclaimed the gospel in all corners of the then known world. They proclaimed the gospel in the face of constant danger and persecution. Many of them were killed for their work. Stephen was stoned, Peter was jailed and then executed, but they still proclaimed.

Their opponents claimed that their words were lies and that they had hidden Jesus’ body and claimed that he was raised and it was all just a farce. But would the disciples have risked life and limb for a lie? Would the disciples have gone as far to die for nothing more than a farce? I do not believe so. The disciples were so transformed by their experience with Jesus that they were willing to sacrifice their very lives for the message that Christ is risen. We might not be able to prove scientifically that Jesus is the Christ, the risen Savior, but we know it is true because be have been transformed by it. Remember the words of Paul to the church in Corinth “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he [or she] is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (NIV 2 Cor. 5:17) It is a transformation from the old ways of the world to the new way of Christ.

There are steps in the transformation and we can see them in our story for today. First, the disciples were told the good news. Mary had come to the disciples and proclaimed the good news. Remember she was the first evangelist, she said “I have seen the Lord!” Did they believe at first maybe, maybe not? It seems that if they truly believed that they would have been at the tomb waiting on Jesus to come out not hiding out somewhere in Jerusalem. Where you converted the first time you heard the story? Maybe, maybe not. I went to church for a long time before I became transformed by the message. The disciples did not believe at first and neither did Thomas, but poor Thomas has been vilified for it ever since. However, none of them fully believe and fully understood what had happened at first. However, this is the first step in the transformation. We are first told the story by someone else, someone who has already become transformed by Christ and must then proclaim the good news.

The second step is the most important aspect in the transformation progression. It is a personal experience with the risen Christ. The disciples needed a personal experience with the Christ in order to be transformed. Christ appears before them and shows them the scars on his hands and in his side. They rejoice because what has been told to them is true, HE IS RISEN, he is alive. The story becomes real it is no longer just a story but a real experience. Thomas was not there and did not have the personal experience with Christ, the story is not enough.

Then Jesus appears and Thomas believes and it seems as if Jesus is scolding Thomas when he says “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” (29b) However, I think Jesus instead is making a prophecy about the future. The disciples had the blessing of seeing Jesus first hand, with their own eyes. We have not seen Jesus with our own eyes, but we still have personal experiences with Christ. Many Christians can tell their story about a personal encounter with Christ, they can tell about the feeling of love and grace, they might have even heard Jesus call their name in the midst of anguish. Every Christian has had in some way a personal experience with Jesus.

There is another aspect of the story. Jesus also gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Caregiver, the part of the Triune God that dwells within us and intercedes for us. This is also a personal experience. Can you remember a personal experience with God? John Wesley spoke of his heart being strangely warmed, others have felt a renewed sense of peace, I remember being brought to tears at a revival at St Andrews UMC and I, like the others, was transformed in that moment. The transformation might be instantaneous or gradual, it might take seconds or years, but it does happen.

Thomas and the rest of the disciples are transformed by their experience with Christ and the Holy Spirit. They are renewed in their strength and in their faith. Thomas immediately begins to proclaim the truth of the gospel that Jesus is “My Lord and My God”. There is ownership in that statement; there is possession and deeply personal feelings that Jesus is not just God but MY LORD and MY GOD.

This leads to the third and final stage in the transformation; the proclamation and the sending out. Through their transformation the disciples have a story to tell and Jesus sends them out “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” This was their responsibility as transformed people of Christ and it is our responsibility as well. We must go out and tell out story, not just with our words but by our actions, not just in what we say, but how we act. If we are transformed then we should act like we are transformed. We cannot stay on the sidelines of life, but get in the game. We must help where there is need. We must give all that we can. We must lead by example, as Jesus did. We must become a community, living and loving together not just a collection of individuals. We have to tell the story, but more than that we have to live out the story as transformed people of God.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.