Over the last 10 years or so I’ve had a number of opportunities to work with, and supervise, young people who are interested in pursuing ministry. It’s one of my favorite parts of the job. I love their creativity. I love their passion. I love helping them think about what it means to live out this gospel that we all cling to and what it means to draw other people to Christ.

And one of the harder things that I do along the way is to help them see themselves in the role of pastor. And specifically, helping them learn how to talk about their faith.

One young woman I worked with, and we’ll call her Tracy (and let me just say that Tracy is not somebody who I am working with now), but Tracy spent some time with a number of young gals in a church where I was working in.

From the conversations that I had with some of those students she was getting to know, I knew that Tracy had earned their trust, and that the gals were ready to hear from her.

And so, when I asked Tracy to move the conversation to a level a little deeper, to begin to talk with them about her relationship with Christ, and open up things from Scripture, Tracy’s response was, “Well, I can’t do that yet. I don’t quite feel comfortable with that just yet. That’s not my personality. I need to earn their trust first.”

And these were Christian young people that she was spending time with.

Another young man I worked with who I had asked the same question of responded, “Well, I’m trying to build a relationship with them first. I need to earn the right to be heard first.”

Now, I appreciate their sensitivity. And I also found myself thinking that what really was at issue were their own doubts and insecurities. And I wanted to say to them, “Quit being so cautious. Trust me on this one. Just go and ask the question.”

Talking about faith seems to be one of the places where the rubber meets the road for us; where our convictions and our doubts butt up against each other. And it can be difficult for all of us.

What does Jesus think about our doubts? How would he have us deal with them?

I think our text this morning helps us to deal with this.
Reading: John 20:19-31.

As with Jeff’s sermon last week, we’re spending some time in the post-Easter stories; those encounters after the crucifixion and resurrection, where the disciples meet the risen Lord. When we meet up with the story, Jesus had already made one appearance to the women who mistook him for the gardener.

At the beginning of our text, he meets up with the disciples and perhaps it’s interesting that Thomas was not with the others at the time. But as we get into the heart of the story, we hear the disciples say to Thomas, “We have seen the Lord.” And his response is striking, “Unless I see the nail marks and put my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

The critical question in our text today is one of doubt and belief. The word for believe appears 7 times in our text today. And our text ends with the sort of purpose statement for the book of John. “These are written so that you might come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. And that through believing you will have life in His name.”

Belief is an important word in Scripture, and especially here. It’s a big word filling several pages and theological dictionaries. But at the very least, it means trust. Maybe understanding certain information. Maybe recognizing gaps in one’s knowledge. But living an active trust.

I was a competitive swimmer in high school and college. I’ve taught swimming and coached swimming through the years. Maybe the best image I have right now of trust comes from that world. When I was really young, I was what swim teachers call in very technical terms of course, a screamer.

My swimming lessons took place right up the street from our house, and my mom had to carry my brother (who was an infant at the time) and literally drag me by the arm up the street, yelling, kicking, screaming. More than once I broke free and found my way to relative safety in the bushes, where she had to pry me free while carrying her infant son.

Now, this is not a picture of trust. My youngest son Chad also takes after his father, with a more than healthy fear of the water. Last summer we had him in several weeks of swimming lessons, and just to get him to go into the water without crying (let along paying attention and actually learning something) required a weekly bribe of Krispy Kreme donuts.

Now as fearful of the water as he is, often when our family goes swimming together as a family, Chad will slowly make his way to the edge of the pool and say, “Stay right there. Catch me.” And he’ll jump.

Now I know he’s terrified of the water. And I know he has no skills in the water. But he’ll jump because I’m there. He has learned to trust and he puts his life in my hands every time he does this.

In our text today, the doors are shut out of fear. And Jesus appears in the room. Jesus speaks words to Thomas that only the disciples would have heard. And notice, too, that he does this by way of a command. “Put your finger here. See my hands. Reach out and put your fingers in my side. Do not doubt, but believe.”

Now let’s think for just a minute about Thomas. Thomas is a guy I think we can relate to. I can relate to him. He’s spent a lot of time around Jesus. He’s made some pretty significant sacrifices to follow Jesus along the way. He’s left family and friends behind in order to be with Jesus. He’s seen Jesus do some pretty amazing things. He’s even made some statements throughout the gospels that seem to be statements of faith. And yet here it seems he’s not fully convinced. And yet, here it seems, he’s not fully unconvinced. He’s still with the disciples. He hasn’t run.

Thomas seems to be a mixture of both doubt and faith, not too unlike the rest of us. You know what it’s like to be both believing and unbelieving at the same time. Some of you might remember from your experience in dating and wondering whether it was time to get engaged. You love this person. You think you might want to spend the rest of your life with that person, but you don’t know what the future holds. Is this person really the one?

Or, when you were in college, you might have had a certain field of study that you enjoyed learning about. And yet, is that the one to major in? Will there be jobs when you graduate? Is that really what you want to do for the rest of your life?

Thomas, I think, is a mixture of both doubt and faith. And then the question is, “How will Jesus respond?”

It’s interesting to me that in our text today, Jesus does not seem dissuaded by Thomas’ lack of faith. In fact, it seems that Jesus meets up with Jesus because of his lack of faith. Sometimes I think we’re afraid that Jesus might be angry with us or withdraw from us if we doubt or ask questions. And in our text today, Thomas’ doubts would not keep Jesus away.

In this case, Jesus offers the evidence that Thomas is looking for. And he also suggests that there might come a time when one might not get the answers that they were hoping for. Jesus says, “Blessed are those who believe without seeing.”

But in this case, anyhow, Jesus offers the evidence that Thomas is looking for. And in fact, he offers far more than information. He offers an invitation. It’s personal. It’s high-touch. He offers himself.

So Jesus is not hindered by Thomas’ doubt. Jesus offers evidence to Thomas. But I think it’s really important to remember that Jesus wasn’t content to let Thomas’ doubts remain. Jesus commands him, “Stop your doubting and believe.” It’s as if Jesus is saying, “Here are my wrists. Here is my side. If that’s what you need, put your hands here. Do something about it.”

You and I live in a culture of doubt. Ours is such a skeptical one. Especially if anyone who holds to any kind of claims about truth. So there’s little external motivation for us to learn and to grow. It’s easy for us to stay planted in our doubts. Or even to use doubt as a shield to protect us from facing difficult tasks or decisions.

In fact, just last night, I got an email with pictures of little Rachel MacLean. Some of you did, too. And I sent back a quick note that said, “I look forward to watching her grow.” And then I thought, “I think that’s what the text is saying to us today.” That we grow.

I mentioned earlier that I’m growing concerned that it’s difficult for us to speak about our faith. And that for many of us, doubt and faith and culture all collide. Some of us avoid it because we don’t want to offend people. In fact, I preached a sermon just a year ago, encouraging us to be careful about how we perceived and how we behave, and be careful that we not offend people.

And I’m coming to believe that that’s not what we need to be most concerned about. We’re quite good about being careful about offending people. Instead, I think we do well to remember that it is possible to talk about certain things without offending people. We’re pretty good at that. Perhaps we might simply say, “I feel like I need to talk with you about something but I don’t want to offend you. And so stop me at any point if you need. But otherwise, I feel like it’s important for me to say this, to share with you about something that’s so important to me. And again, if this bothers you, stop me.”

We can do that. I’m coming to think that people aren’t quite as easily offended as we might fear they would be.

And maybe it’s difficult for us to speak about our faith because we’re afraid that we don’t know enough. And then it might be time for us to do some reading.

I met with a group of guys this last week and they asked a tough question that I wasn’t prepared for. And I felt a little silly. I felt like I should know the answer to that question. But I didn’t. And so I simply had to say, “You know, that is a great question. I’m going to need some time, but I will read up on that and get back to you.” And that’s okay, too.

Ultimately, it is not our responsibility to convict people of the truth of the gospel. And last week Jeff reminded us that that is the Holy Spirit’s work. And yet we are responsible to bear witness to those things we’ve come to believe. I do think that Jesus command to Thomas has some bearing on our responsibility to learn what we can so that we can intelligently and respectfully speak to people.

Several years ago, I took a group of young people on a mission trip to Scotland. A group of high school students from our church. They had all grown up in Christian homes. They had all served in student leadership – both in their schools and on a student ministry team in our youth group. We were invited to go to this church. They had been doing a tremendous job of reaching out to a group of teenagers in their area who we could say with complete confidence were lost, or at least they had been. And they’d done a tremendous job of earning the right to be heard, gaining their trust, caring for these students. And many of them had come to faith. And we were invited to come along and spend two weeks with them.

So together we visited the castles and we went miniature golfing on the miniature golf course right next to the old course at St. Andrews. We went hiking together, or hill walking, they would say. And we attempted to eat haggis. We did a lot of things together so that over the course of time those students would hear the stories from our group…our group of students who had known Christ for many years.

About a week into the trip, the other pastor took me aside and said, “When are your students going to begin sharing their stories? We really want to hear your stories.” So I brought the message back to my group. “Okay, guys. They’re ready to hear from us. They want to know what God has been doing in your lives.”

Now maybe I should have seen this coming, but I was pretty unprepared for the resistance that I found. We had told them that this trip was for the purpose of sharing our faith with these other students. We had spent some time talking about how to share our stories. We had read a book together, preparing us for sharing our faith in a way out of genuine respectful love and concern for another person. Again, we had been asked by them to talk about our faith. And again we were talking to a group of other Christians. And yet our group was hesitant.

So the compromise we agreed on was to set up Emmaus walks – time where students could go out in pairs and talk about their lives and talk about how God had met them along the way. So the other pastor and I programmed this time into our schedule.

Now when the time came, our students were still unwilling to do it unless I was incredibly clear in my instructions. “Now, we’re going to talk about God. We’re going to be sharing our experiences with Jesus. Please don’t be offended, and if you are, you can get mad at me. But I am asking all of you now to share your experience with Jesus with each other.”

Now that’s a story about high school students. But that could be a story about adults, too, couldn’t it? And when we were debriefing the trip a week later, in every case, our students mentioned that that was the high point of the trip.

Why?

Because they realized they could do it. And they realized that people were not as antagonistic towards them as they were afraid of. But that they were really interested in our stories. And not only were they interested, but they were really helped by them. They saw that others were somehow drawn closer to Christ in the process. They also discovered that their friendships with these students had gone to a whole new level and there was a depth, or a bond, to their relationship that they hadn’t expected.

The message this morning is simple. That Jesus meets us where we are, just like Thomas. He’s not surprised to find us with questions, just like Thomas. And yet he leaves us with the command, “Stop doubting, and be believing.” Doubt is common and maybe inevitable, but Jesus intends better for us. He intends for us to trust.

Amen.