Summary
Proof
Human beings are wired to trust what we can verify. We believe the unbelievable when we have witnessed it ourselves or can hear it from those who did. This is empirical evidence: testimony so secure that there is no reasonable way to deny what happened. The Christian faith does not shy away from this kind of evidence. The resurrection of Jesus Christ rests upon the witness of those who saw, heard, and touched the risen Lord.
The first Easter unfolded as a series of encounters with proof. The women came to the tomb expecting to anoint a corpse, having watched Jesus die and seen his body laid in the grave. Instead they found the stone rolled away and angels announcing his resurrection. When they reported this to the eleven, Luke 24:11 tells us their words "seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them." Peter and John ran to the tomb and saw the linen cloths for themselves John 20:6-8. That evening, Jesus appeared in the locked room and showed them his hands and side. Only then, John 20:20 reports, did they rejoice. The disciples themselves did not believe until they saw.
Thomas was absent that evening, and when the others labored to convince him, he refused: "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe" John 20:25. This is more than doubt; it is a flat refusal to believe on anyone's terms but his own. Thomas demanded that the Lord meet his conditions before he would confess him. We resemble Thomas more often than we care to admit. We set conditions upon God: I will trust you if you heal me, if you make me happy, if you let me understand everything. Such demands quietly place the unbeliever in a superior position, requiring God to answer to us. This is the sin of pride dressed up as honest inquiry, as taught in "Proof".
What is striking is how Jesus responds. A week later he comes through the locked door again, again speaking peace, and turns directly to Thomas. He does not rebuke him or knock him down a notch. He meets Thomas exactly where he is in his unbelief and offers him precisely what he demanded: "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe" John 20:27. Jesus left no wiggle room for any of his disciples. In Luke 24:39 he tells the gathered disciples to look at his hands and feet, to touch him, because "a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." The witness had to be pure, unmarred by any reasonable doubt, because the entire Christian church would rest upon it. John would later write of "what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked upon and have touched with our hands" 1 John 1:1.
Confronted with the living Lord, Thomas responds with one of the great confessions of Scripture: "My Lord and my God!" John 20:28. Then Jesus speaks past Thomas to everyone who would come after: "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" John 20:29. This is not a rebuke of Thomas — all the disciples believed only after they saw. It is a blessing pronounced over the disciples to come, those who would receive Christ through the witness of the eyewitnesses. That is us. As 1 Peter 1:8 puts it, "Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory."
We cannot put our fingers into the nail marks, but Christ still comes to us tangibly through Word and Sacrament, week after week. And the call placed upon us is the same one given to those first disciples: not to convince, but to tell. The disciples could not argue Thomas into belief; only the risen Christ could do that. Likewise, you will not argue an unbeliever into the kingdom. That is not your job. Your job is to bear witness to what you have been given — Christ crucified, Christ risen, sins forgiven — and to trust that God himself, working through his Word and Spirit, will prove himself to be exactly who he says he is. Of this we are witnesses, and of this we have proof.
Video citations
- "Proof" 4-7-24 — A few years ago, there was a woman in Canada who was skydiving. She was 5,000 feet in the air and she jumped out of the airplane and she began plummeting to the earth. Her first parachute didn't…