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The Great Surprise

Delivered April 27, 2003,
by Pastor Werner De Jong

Text: John 20:19-31

Main Idea: Surprising new life is possible through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus.

Purpose: To encourage the listeners to expect great things from our crucified and risen Lord. To challenge the listeners to attempt great things for the One who sends us into the world even as his Father sent him.

Introduction: Are you capable of being surprised? Would anything you see or hear astonish you? The other day we had a Board meeting at the Boys and Girls Club, where stories are sometimes told about the circumstances certain children have to endure at home. At this meeting someone began such a story by saying, "Close your ears, Werner, this will shock you." They like to tease me, because they all know I'm a pastor. But then another Board member said, "I've been watching how Werner responds to us, and nothing surprises him." That is a sobering comment. It is also food for thought: Does nothing surprise me? At first I kind of took it as a compliment, but then I started thinking about it. If true, what a sad way to go through life, if everything has become so predictable, that one cannot be surprised. And how sad also if hearing bad news has become so routine that it is no longer a shock. Sadly I couldn't offer an immediate rebuttal to the comment, for I couldn't remember the last time a story or an event surprised me. Perhaps I listen to the news too much.

      But in studying today's text, the thought suddenly struck me: bad news isn't the only source of surprise, what about good news? Are we open to being surprised by good news? Or have we heard so much bad news that we hardly expect good things to happen anymore? A potential side effect of hearing so much bad news is that we may grow cynical, and then when we hear about radical good news we may have a very hard time believing it.

Today's Text: The Great Surprise: Today's text from John 20 is all about astonishing good news. It began on Easter morning, when the women discovered the empty tomb, and informed the disciples, who didn't know what to make of it, and remained very much afraid and confused. Our story begins later in the day, in the evening, with the disciples huddled together in secret, out of fear of the Jewish authorities. Will they share the fate of their Master? Will they be the next to be executed? Even though all the doors of the house where they were meeting were locked, John records that Jesus suddenly came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."

      Could there possibly ever have been a more surprised group of people? Their dead Master whom they had abandoned to die alone suddenly appears out of nowhere and offers them peace. This was the greatest surprise ever played, even the best planned surprise birthday party absolutely pales in comparison! The amazement occurred at so many levels, and so many questions must have arisen in the disciples' minds at once: How can this be Jesus, he is dead, he was buried? How did he get in here, the doors are locked? Yet this man looks like Jesus and sounds like Jesus. But if it is Jesus, how can he offer us peace, we who deserted him, who fled like a flock of frightened birds following his arrest? Surely this must be a dream! Who ever heard of such forgiveness? But yet it doesn't seem like a dream. But if it is not a dream then...then... then Jesus truly rose from the dead, but what does that say about death itself? The implications of such good news must have been overwhelming, could they possible dare to believe it? But Jesus convinced them that the hope that was beginning to swell in their breasts was, if anything, not even great enough, when he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. He truly was their Master, for he bore the marks of his crucifixion! He was alive! His love would remain with them forever! The wounds on his body were a visible sign of that love, for he was wounded that they might be healed. How can anyone possibly describe how the disciples felt at that moment? John tries to, but his is a great understatement when he simply records, "the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord." But what else can you say? They were surprised by joy, a joy they probably never believed they could feel. The presence of their risen Lord had dissolved their fear and healed their grief. Then once again he spoke those precious words: "Peace be with you."

      There was nothing at all about that post-resurrection meeting that was predictable. God chose to surprise the disciples in a way they would never forget. It was an indelible lesson that would forever be inscribed on their hearts and minds-- God is the God of surprises! God gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that do not exist! On that day God's ultimate surprise gave birth to the church, and it filled the disciples with unquenchable hope that other surprises were possible. If Jesus can pass through locked doors, surely there are no walls that can stand in the way of the church! And many surprises indeed followed as the church took root and spread throughout the world. For Jesus said to them, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." Then Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit upon them, and commissioned them to go into the world with the message of the forgiveness of sins. The joy of the disciples at the surprise of new life was infectious as they burst upon the world scene proclaiming the resurrection. Healings occurred, broken relationships were reconciled, and the great might of the Roman empire could do nothing to stop the rejoicing disciples from spreading the news of forgiveness.

Surprises Today?: Today we are part of that same church, we are the spiritual descendants of those who came to believe that God can breathe surprising new life into any situation that seems dead. We serve the same God they did, the God who loves to surprise people with good news. What surprising things might God be wanting to do in our lives? What new things might God want to be doing through our church? Do we still expect God to surprise us? Is overwhelming good news still possible? Or do we have little faith in the unpredictable?

      In his book "Calling and Character," William Willimon tells about his own efforts to renew his church denomination. He met with much resistance, and initially thought it was due entirely to the conservative, reactionary ways of the leaders of the church. For the powerful are always prone to the tendency to preserve the status quo, and to snuff out creative, fresh ideas by saying, "We have never done it that way." (When you say those words, you might as well start singing a funeral dirge). But then Willimon had a deeper insight, and he writes: "Upon further reflection, I saw some of their resistance to change as being due to the cynical belief that we cannot change, that God either will not or cannot do any new thing with us. It is sad to see accommodation to sin and death. How do we know that Easter is not true? Who told us that Jesus used bad judgment when he made us his resurrection witnesses even to the ends of the earth?...The willingness to settle down into merely present arrangements, to keep house, to maintain the status quo, is a sin against Sunday" (p.136). This one thing is sure: If we are not open to being surprised today, if we don't expect great things from God, if we don't believe God can do marvellous things in our midst and through us, we can scarcely claim to have a strong faith in the resurrection. For the resurrection is God's great sign that all things are possible, it is God's last laugh at the seemingly invincible powers of sin and death. God wants us to share in his sense of humour. God wants us to be a people who are confident that the death and resurrection of Jesus will bring surprising liberation to those caught in powerful steel jaws like those of a bear trap, the jaws of despair and oppression and violence and sin.

      The same God who raised Jesus from the dead can and will work great surprises in and through his church. We have been given the peace of Christ, we have received the gift of the Spirit, and we have been commissioned to take the peace and forgiveness of Jesus out into the world. Death does not have the last word, life does! With such good news it is no wonder that the apostles could not be silenced even when threatened with imprisonment and death. It is no wonder that for the apostles to preach Christianity was to preach the resurrection. What they proclaimed all over their world was that they had all, at one time or another, met Jesus during the six or seven weeks that followed his emergence from the tomb. Even Paul, who was not an eyewitness to Jesus' resurrection appearances, met the ascended Lord on the road to Damascus, and see how it forever changed him.

The importance of Faith: When it comes to such good news, clearly the one thing we need in order to appropriate it is faith. If the resurrection really occurred, it ought to fill us with an unsurpassable confidence in the future. But how can we know? How can we be sure that our loving Lord lives? How can we know that we have his favour and forgiveness? How can we know that he will bless our efforts to build his kingdom of peace with surprising victories over fear and despair? How can we know that death does not have the last word, but that life does? It all hinges on the resurrection, for as Paul wrote, if there is no resurrection, "we are of all people most to be pitied" (1 Cor. 15: 19). But if there is a resurrection, no human instrument ever devised can measure the depths of the implications of such good news! Hope stirs in our breasts when we begin to think of it, when we dare to allow ourselves to believe it, it makes all or our present problems begin to seem so petty, but can we dare to allow ourselves to believe something so good? We want to believe, but what if we have doubts?

      In a wonderful way our text explores that very question. The narrative now shifts to the disciple Thomas, who was not with the others when Jesus appeared to them. In their joy and enthusiasm they went to Thomas and tried to convince him that they had seen their Lord again, risen from the dead. But too much was at stake for Thomas to allow himself to embrace their message. It had hurt so bad when Jesus was seized from them, and the pain of his own desertion must have hurt even worse. He didn't want his emotions to be trifled with. He desperately wanted to believe, but he wasn't about to jump on this bandwagon until he was absolutely certain. So he said to the other disciples: "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

      Much to Thomas' surprise, a week later he was given his opportunity. The disciples were again gathered in the same house, only this time Thomas was with them. And again Jesus suddenly appeared right before their eyes: "Although the doors were shut," writes John, "Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.' Then he (spoke directly) to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not be faithless but believe." This appearance provoked the most profound confession in the gospels as Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God." Finally he arrived at the place where he demonstrated true faith. The passage makes clear that there can be no permanent faith in Jesus except faith in him as the risen Lord who still bears the scars of atoning death.

      But Thomas didn't arrive at this position on his own. Jesus met him more than half way. Jesus recognized his doubts, but he also recognized his desire to believe. So in grace he revealed himself even to the disciple often known as "doubting Thomas." Isn't that how it is with all of us? Doesn't the New Testament repeatedly demonstrate that God takes the initiative in reaching out to us? God delights to surprise even skeptics with the glorious good news of life. If we are concerned at all about the level of our faith, rest assured that it is a sign that God is already at work within us, and will meet our doubts. This is not to suggest that we hold up Thomas' disbelief as an example–he certainly received a gentle rebuke. But it is to remind us of the grace of our risen Lord.

      I find something compelling about Thomas in this exchange. There is an uncompromising honesty about him. He never pretended that his doubts didn't exist. He was not the kind of person who would memorize a creed or statement of faith and rattle it off without understanding what it was all about. As William Barclay writes, "There is more ultimate faith in the man who insists on being sure than in the man who glibly repeats things which he has never thought out, and which he may not really believe." The Kingdom of God is better served by a Thomas than by a shallow, glib confession that hasn't thought out the consequences.

A Beatitude for Believers: At times we who live two thousand years after the resurrection may find ourselves thinking, "If only I had been there in the room with the disciples. If only I could have seen the risen Jesus with my own eyes. Then my faith could be as strong as the faith of the disciples. Then I could look at the world with new eyes, then I could expect wonderful surprises from God." Did you know that Jesus has a warm, pastoral word for all people who find themselves in that position? We hear it in the words he spoke to Thomas: "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe" (v. 29).

      This is Jesus' personal assurance that faith is no less a possibility for future disciples than it was for the original disciples. It is a beautiful beatitude spoken over people like you and I, assuring us that just because we are historically removed from his physical resurrection does not mean we cannot share in the joyful blessings of that good news. Far from it, "Blessed are those who haven not seen and yet have come to believe." We can have a faith as firm as that of Peter, John, Thomas, and the other disciples.

Faith and the Word: How is that possible? The last two verses of our morning text address our specific concern: "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name" (20:30-31). As people of the twenty-first century, we cannot of course see the same evidence the disciples saw: no newly empty tomb, no discarded grave clothes, no presence of Jesus with visible wounds. But we do have something else: we have the gospel account, we have the witness of John, and of all the other NT writers. We have their testimony, the testimony of those who did see and whose witness remains. We can discover the crucified and risen Jesus in the written words that testify to his transforming presence. (The importance of spiritual disciplines like meditation and study of the Bible, solitude to consider the news, prayer to communicate with God. See church web site for past sermons).

      In addition to the written witness of the apostles, we can also consider the remarkable witness of their lives, their willingness to die if need be in order to share the joyful news of the resurrection with the rest of the world. Why would they write, and why would they die, if they didn't truly believe and know that God's greatest surprise was true, that life comes from death, that forgiveness is given for sins, that the carpenter or Nazareth truly is Lord and God? Do we dare to believe their witness? Do we dare to believe that surprising new life is possible through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus? Do we dare to believe that the joy we feel when we begin to allow ourselves to believe it is not based on fiction but on reality, and that it is only a small foretaste of glory and joy to come? "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." Blessed are those who are open to surprises.

The Resurrection claims us: Attempt great things for God: Before we close, one more thing must be said about faith in the resurrection: if we truly confess such a faith, we will find that it takes hold of us. The theologian Jurgen Moltmann once said that if one considers the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, it is difficult to see why anyone would disbelieve it, except for two reasons. First of all, the resurrection is such a surprising occurrence, such an odd event, that it is very difficult for us to conceive it. But secondly, he also said this– "If Jesus is raised from the dead, then we must change. Resurrection carries with it a claim, a demand that we live in the light of this stunning new reality. Now we must either join in God's revolution or else remain unchanged, in the grip of the old world and its rulers, sin and death" (as summarized by Willimon, Calling and Character, p.137). We cannot have it both ways. We cannot believe in the reality of God's in-breaking new creation and still live in old, safe ways. Because Jesus is risen, we can expect great things from God, who is making all things new. But this also places an obligation on us to attempt great things for God. As followers of the risen Lord we should always have a predisposition to expect miracle, surprise and change. As Willimon writes, "Easter ought to make us more persistent, more willing to engage in recklessness derived from our anticipation of the future. Lacking the empowerment provided by the resurrection, we are always in danger of falling back upon common sense, what is ‘realistic' or ‘responsible.' Easter people ought to be more foolish than that" (p. 138). Those are marvellous words–we ought to be foolish enough to believe that God can use us. We ought to be foolish enough to believe that God can work through us to bring food to the hungry, hope to the prisoner, reconciliation to broken relationships, and salvation to the lost. We ought to be foolish enough to believe that God can surprise us with new vision, new outreach and new growth.

Conclusion: In conclusion, let us not forget who we are: we are the people of God, who have been offered peace, the Holy Spirit and forgiveness. We are servants of the crucified and risen Lord, of the one who has promised to make all things new. We are children of the God of surprises. Therefore may our lives never languish in that place where everything seems predictable, but may we always be open to the astonishing new works of God.

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