Colin Robeson
July 25, 2010
Crazy Talk
Living Proof: Encounters with the Real Jesus
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples
were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with
you." When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were
glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has
sent me, even so I am sending you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said
to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you
withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld."
Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the
other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see in his
hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand
into his side, I will never believe."
Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors
were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said
to Thomas, "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 20:19-31; TNIV
First of all, I’d like to introduce myself to you guys. Some of you may not know me. My name is
Colin Robeson, and I work here at the church in the Congregational Care Department. I mostly
do hospital and home visits, and I also help coordinate our memorial services. I’m also a
seminary student at Fuller Theological Seminary, and I am pursuing ordination in the
Presbyterian Church. The hope is that I’ll become an Army Chaplain when I’m all said and done.
I’m thankful to this church and the opportunities it has given me as I develop and as I form into
the pastor I hope to be. So I am excited about this opportunity today.
Being new to this, you kind of figure out there’s little things that preachers do to get their head in
the game before they get up here. For me, five minutes ago, I gave myself 60 seconds and I’d
think of all the things that could go wrong. I mean, I’m talking stuff like the ceiling caving in, me
doing a nose-dive off the front. But that’s not the craziest thing. I sat up there and thought,
“What happens if I trip over my shoe laces?” Folks, I don’t have laces in my shoes. So, that’s
what you’re working with today. But I hope that God speaks to you through this time.
I read once that the goofy thing about the Christian faith is that you believe it and you don’t
believe it at the same time. To be honest, there are times when I would have to agree. When I
take a long look at what it is we claim to be true, I’m astounded, and I get, on some levels, why
people say Christians are crazy.
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I mean, we stand up here, and we proclaim that we have an intimate and personal relationship
with the Creator of the Universe, and that we claim to know the origins of the universe, its
purpose. We claim that this Creator, Whom we call God, has made us in His image, and that He
gives us protection and authority over the rest of creation. We claim that after we chose to go
our own way and leave Him, that He pursued us, first through our ancestors the Israelites,
whom He spoke to through judges, Kings, and prophets. Despite our ancestor’s desire to go
their own way and do what was right in their own eyes, He continued to pursue them. We claim
after they ignored Him as He spoke to them, that He became like us, lived among us, and died
for us.
Now, if that doesn’t sound too farfetched, we go further. We say, not only after He died this
brutal death on the cross, He rose from the dead. We claim that He is continuing to provide for
us, and that He will make good on His promise to restore the whole of creation. And that will
happen when He comes. And by He, I mean the Creator of the Universe, and He’s going to
bring heaven with Him.
I mean, you lay it all out like that, and it can sound a little too fantastic. Yet we proclaim it as the
truth. We can’t prove it using any method that’s accepted in science. Logically there’s some
issues there, too. Philosophy has tried to be helpful to us, but in the end it doesn’t make the
case that we need it to.
We have the Bible. It’s the word of God. It’s been passed down for 2000 years and it’s a gift to
us, because it carries with us the traditions of the church and how the church has interpreted it,
and God speaks to us through it. So there it is. Crazy talk from what some may call a crazy
book. And there are times when I’m talking about Jesus, Who I do believe in, that I feel crazy
and not the sane and intelligent person I think that I am.
And I feel that way until I see God move. Whether it’s in my life, or in the lives of others, when I
am a witness to the work that God is doing I am astounded and I cannot help but be compelled
to believe in the truthfulness of what we proclaim. And despite the craziness of what we believe
in, I accept it on faith. I think that’s what it comes down to: faith. Sure, we do have the Bible, but
it takes a certain amount of faith to accept that as well.
I bring this all up because faith, and the acceptance of faith, are core issues in our passage
today. Here we meet a devoted disciple of Jesus, and we are a witness to his deep disbelief and
the encounter with Jesus that changes everything. But before we get to Thomas, we’ve got to
prep ourselves for the story we’re about to dive into.
We meet the disciples shortly after Jesus has died. I think it goes without saying that they were
grieving the loss of their friend, their teacher, their mentor, and also the man they thought was
the Messiah. In the midst of this it’s easy to imagine that they’re having a very difficult time trying
to reconcile the fact that they thought He was the Messiah, and that they just watched Him die.
It’s also easy to imagine that as His principle followers, that they were deeply afraid that they
might suffer a similar fate.
So in the midst of their fear, we meet them as they have gathered in worship. Our Scripture tells
us it was the first day of the week, which would have been the Sabbath. It also happens to be
the first Easter. They have gathered to worship together in community. Because of their fear of
the Jews, Scripture tells us that they have done this behind locked doors. What’s interesting is
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that Mary Magdalene has already come to them. She has ran from the empty tomb where she
was weeping, and told them of Jesus’ appearance to her. So you’ve got to wonder, “Why are the
doors locked?” So we’re not sure how they received her, but what we can infer is that the locked
doors mean they are still in fear, and that the appearance of Jesus has not taken away that fear.
So what does Jesus do? He appears to them. He walks through the walls, and He speaks to
them, “Peace be with you.” He sends them out into the world, breathing the Holy Spirit on them
and giving them the power to forgive sin. This is a very important prologue to our focus on
Thomas, because here we see Jesus meeting people He loves in their fear. He walks through
the barriers that they have erected to keep what they are scared of out, and He speaks the
word, “Peace,” to them.
Now, we understand this peace as a state of freedom from anxiety or inner turmoil. What we
see here is that Jesus is calling them out of their fear and into what He is doing in the world. You
guys, this is huge, because what He’s doing here speaks to us as well. Now, God meets us in
our fear, and He gives us peace. Along with that peace, He calls us to partner with Him, and to
speak peace to others. This is a peace that surpasses all understanding, and a peace that can
calm the deepest of fears.
Well, immediately after this, the Scriptures relates to us that Thomas wasn’t present with the
rest of the disciples. Now, it doesn’t tell us why he wasn’t there. We’re not sure if he was so
upset that he needed to grieve alone. We’re not sure if he had a job to take care of, some duty
that he was tasked with, although it does tell us it’s the Sabbath, and what we know is, on the
Sabbath most things are prohibited, because on the Sabbath, this is the day that God rests, and
we give all glory, honor, and praise that is due to Him. So it is hard to imagine that Thomas is
not there for any other reason than that he doesn’t want to be.
What I think is important is, we need to realize that this affects us as well. Because when
Thomas is not there, he misses out on what Jesus is doing. First and foremost, he misses out
on seeing Jesus. The guy he watched die three days ago appeared to his friends, and he wasn’t
there. Second, he missed out, and missed out witnessing and being a part of the work that
Jesus was doing in the midst of that community.
And we have to pay attention to this, because it applies to us as well. Because when we enter
into worship we do so as a community. We come together as very different people, from very
different places, and we proclaim a common faith. And we do this because we think this is what
God has called us to do. Not we think. We know; we believe this is what God has called us to
do. Because we acknowledge that God works through the worshipping community.
To be honest the Biblical witness is clear on both of these points. Worship is not something that
is done in isolation. Joining in worship as a community is one of the obligations, and it’s also an
opportunity we have to respond to the gifts that God has given us. We need to remember that
when we fail to enter into what God is doing, when we fail to be a part of the worshipping
community, we miss out, too.
Oftentimes, and I’ve been there, trust me, oftentimes, when you’re waking up on Sunday
morning, you’re thinking, “The weather’s nice. I would rather sleep in. The newspaper and
Starbucks sounds great.” We don’t think about the consequences of what it means to fail to fulfill
this responsibility.
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But when we look at Thomas, we see those consequences. Jesus rose from the dead, and He
revealed Himself to the disciples. He walked through walls. He breathed the Holy Spirit on them.
He gave them a peace that surpasses all understanding, and He called them to participate with
the work that He was doing in the world. Thomas missed out on it.
When we’re absent, we miss out, too. We miss out on what God is doing in the lives of our
brothers and sisters, and they miss out on what God is doing in our life. Now, to be fair, God is
not limited to these walls. We certainly know He works outside of them, and He works outside of
the times we have set aside for worship. But you have to ask yourself, “Why do we build
churches? Why do we have a room set aside called the Sanctuary to gather in and to worship
as a community if what happens in there isn’t important?”
Now you might be thinking, “Well, you’ve been doing it for 2000 years, so why not keep on
going?” It’s fair. No, it’s a fair critique. But the thing is, it’s not that. I think it’s because to be a
follower of Jesus Christ means that you are called to be a part of the body that He has created.
That body is the church. Also, to be fair, there is a time and a place for solitude. I can speak to
my life and I’m sure that you can think of times in your own life where God has met you in times
of private prayer. But those are two separate disciplines, with two very different purposes. In
addition, Scripture and the witness of the church for the last 2000 years, have never understood
times of private prayer or solitude as a substitute for gathering as a community to worship.
Now, I’m making a stand here, and some of you might not appreciate it, but the reality is, on
Sunday morning, you need to be here. It’s more than just walking through the door. It’s
participating in the work God is doing in this community. It’s receiving the peace that God has
given you, and sharing that peace with other people. I’m chief among this, because I’m as
tempted as you are to not come some Sunday mornings. But when we’re not here, we miss out.
It’s an issue of maturity and discipleship that you are here. God is working in this community.
God will speak to you through people, through words, through songs, and He will send you out
to speak peace to other people. You’ve got to be here to do that, and showing up’s half the
battle here.
For Thomas, the consequence here is that he spent a week in disbelief. Because after Jesus
appeared to the disciples, they ran to him. He’s their friend. They want him to know what has
happened. They say to him, “The Lord has appeared to us. We have seen the Lord.” Without
skipping a beat, Thomas says, “Hey, unless I see the mark of the nails in His hands, unless I
place my finger in it, unless I take my hand, put it in the wound made from a spear, I am not
going to believe this is Him.” He’s firm on this point. He says, “I will not believe.”
Now, on the aside, I think Thomas is pretty gross here. I’m not someone who wants to stick my
hands in wounds to verify things. Do what you want, it’s not my deal. But Thomas’ hyperbole
aside, we see that he is not someone who is going to be duped into believing a lie. Based on
our encounters with him in earlier parts of John’s gospel, we see he is a very loyal, and a very
clear cut kind of guy. So this isn’t that surprising. Because earlier, when Jesus wanted to visit
Judea, to visit His sick friend Lazarus, where when he was in Judea the last time they almost
stoned Him to death, Thomas is the disciple that jumps up and says, “Well, hey, if You’re going
to go, we’re going to go with You, because if You die, we’re going to be standing next to You
and die with You.”
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Another time, when Jesus is telling them, “Hey, My Father’s house has many rooms in it, and
I’m going to go ahead of you to prepare a place for you,” Thomas is the one who pipes up and
says, “Yeah, but we can’t follow you because we don’t know where you are going, and we don’t
know the way.” And because of that, Jesus responds and says, “I am the Way, I am the Truth, I
am the Life, there is no other way to the Father except through Me.” If nothing else, we should
be thankful to Thomas there.
With that in mind, it makes sense, with Thomas’ desire for clarity and his very loyal nature, that
he is not someone who is going to accept that the man and the friend, the person he cared
about, that he watched die on the cross, just appeared to his friends. It was crazy talk, as far as
he was concerned, so he responds with an equally crazy statement.
I want to pause here, because when we open up this passage in our Bible, we often think, “Oh,
yeah. This is the Doubting Thomas narrative.” But I think we’ve given Thomas a bad rap here,
because Thomas is not a doubter. He is misunderstood. Thomas is someone who did not
believe in the resurrection, and he’s clear about it. Doubt is the feeling of uncertainty or a lack of
conviction. Disbelief, on the other hand, is an inability or a refusal to accept something is true.
You may be thinking, “He’s in seminary, he does this all the time, he’s just splitting hairs here.”
That’s not the case. The distinction is huge. Listen to this, which is stronger force: “I doubt you”
or “I disbelieve you.” For me, it’s disbelief. Doubt carries with it this inkling, or this inclination,
that it could be true, there’s something to it, I’m not sure. Whereas disbelief is declarative, it’s
firm. So Thomas isn’t a doubter here. He is simply someone who does not believe in the
resurrection. And as someone who is presented with what seemed like crazy, he chose not to
believe, and he presented the criteria by which he would believe.
When I look at his criteria, I cannot help but think of the scientific empire we live in, that uses
accepted methods to prove or disprove things, and by them we believe things are true or false.
My problem with this kind of thinking is that it really messes us up when we think about faith.
First, there are a number of things that we believe in that we can’t prove. Take love. It’s an
emotion we all have, and it’s not rational. By that I mean that we feel it. I love my wife, she is a
very caring woman, and I care deeply for her. But if you ask me to quantify my love for her, to
weigh it, measure it, present it to you so you could verify it, I would struggle to do so. Anything I
did to try to prove my love to her would be open to your interpretation.
Let’s take beauty. If I put 100 people in a room and I ask, “What’s beauty?” I’m going to get 100
different responses. If someone comes to me and says, “Hey, I want to be beautiful. How can I
do this?” The answer they would get from me will be very different from the answer they might
get from you. But we accept beauty as true. We say we know it when we see it. Beauty is
something you take in and you behold. But it’s in the eye of the beholder. But we believe in it
and we claim it. I say this all to say that there are a number of things that we believe in and we
say are true that don’t make any sense.
My second problem with this kind of thinking is that when we develop and impose our own
criteria over something, we’re placing ourselves over and above it to say it’s true or false. This
gets really complicated when we’re talking about God. I mean, this thinking is fine when you’re
trying to assess something. You’re trying to figure out, “Hey, if I throw a penny off the side of the
Empire State Building, am I going to kill someone?” I’m thankful people test and verify these
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things, because I don’t want to die when I’m in New York. The answer is no, by the way. There’s
an issue with downdrafts. You can watch a Mythbusters episode, it’ll explain it all to you.
But this gets really, really problematic when we start to treat God like a myth to be busted.
Because the reality is, God is not something you prove. God is Someone you believe in. We
have a huge problem with mixing proof and belief. Proof is the result of testing. Belief is the
result of trusting. I don’t prove God by testing Him. I believe in Him because I trust Him. They
are very different things.
Now please don’t hear me say, “Don’t think about your faith.” There is a large tradition within the
church that says faith is seeking understanding, that we think about it, that we try to understand
it, to make sense of it. But I think it’s important to point out that proof and reason have never
been at the center of what we proclaim. Although they may be a part of how we come to believe,
I think ultimately that people trust and believe because they have had an encounter with Jesus.
Something has happened in their life where they are compelled to utter what may seem crazy to
anyone else.
You know, when I stop to think about what it would look like to trust God, the best image I can
come up with is that we’re in a burning building, and there’s someone five stories below who is
saying, “I will catch you if you jump.” Once you jump it really doesn’t matter how much trust you
have in that the person below will catch you, what matters is that they do catch you.
I think this is a fair analogy for us as we think about faith. We say that creation is distorted, that
God is seeking to save us, and that God will restore the whole of creation. That means He’s got
to put the fire out, and we have to be out of the building for Him to do this. So He’s saying,
“Jump in My arms. I will catch you. I will hold you. And I will do what it is I say that I will do.” We
trust in Jesus. We jumped into Jesus’ arms. And if you want proof, I don’t think that Jesus has
dropped anyone yet.
Now don’t hear me say that when you jump into Jesus’ arms you get a life free of pain or free of
suffering. What you get is a life with God. You get a life lived before God and in His presence
where He cares for you in the midst of the pain and suffering you encounter in life.
Now, as we move forward, we’re told that the disciples have gathered with Thomas a week later
to worship. I think it’s really important to point out that they didn’t kick Thomas out because he
disagreed with them. They were confident enough in what they believed to let Thomas work this
one out in the midst of their fellowship. This is what communities do for one another, they bear
each other’s burdens and they care for each other. It speaks loudly that Thomas felt comfortable
enough to gather with them knowing that he has told them he has told them they are wrong
about something so important to them.
So what happens is Jesus appears to them in worship. He walks in again. He walks through the
walls. He says again to them, “Peace be with you.” Jesus turns to Thomas and then says, “Put
your finger in my hand. Take your hand, put it in my side.” It’s almost as if Jesus is saying to
him, “If this is what it’s going to take for you to believe, then so be it. Have at it.”
At first this is a little bit shocking, because we’re looking at this and going, “This is the Lord of
the Universe and you want to stick your hands in His wounds.” But then when you realize this is
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what Jesus has been doing the entire time. He has been condescending to our level his entire
ministry. It’s one of the ways He shows us that He loves us.
Now, I use the word condescend intentionally. You may hear it and think of condescend in a
negative way, that people have condescended to you, that they have not spoken respectfully to
you, or not treated you with respect. Don’t hear that here. Instead, I think the word condescend
is one of the best ways we can give proper explanation to what happens when the God of the
Universe puts on skin, moves into our neighborhood, and offers to live with us, die for us, and
give us eternal life. If that’s not condescending, I don’t know what is.
This is how the Gospel of John opens to us. It says, “The Word became flesh and made His
dwelling among us.” I like how The Message translates it, where it says, “The Word became
flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.” Ours is a God Who comes to us. He
condescends Himself so that we might know Him and be saved. It’s what He does because He
loves us.
So from Jesus’ perspective it’s not a huge deal that Thomas wants to touch His wounds,
because all Jesus is concerned about here is that Thomas believes in Him. He recognizes that
Thomas is in a place of deep disbelief, and He calls him out of it. He exhorts him strongly,
saying, “Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Going back to the doubting: some of your translations
may have it reading, “Do not doubt, but believe.” The Greek word used here is apistos, pistos
means faith, a is the prefix that means the opposite. Jesus is saying, “Do not disbelieve.”
Thomas isn’t doubting, and Jesus knows that, and He’s speaking to the place, because Jesus
knows where we are and He meets us in the places that we’re at. He knows that Thomas needs
to believe in the resurrection in order for him to have eternal life, so He meets him there.
What I find interesting here though is, we don’t have any explanation or indication in the
Scripture that Thomas reached out and touched Him. Taking into account all the other details
that this passage has labored to give us, that we know that it was eight days from when they
gathered, that the doors were locked, the timing and all these details that are given us, we can
infer from the lack of any statement that said, “He touched him,” that he didn’t. Instead, he
exclaimed, “My Lord, my God.” Now having witnessed the risen Christ, Thomas cannot help but
believe what he found impossible before. Now, instead of dismissing what he thought was crazy
talk, he’s speaking it himself. Thomas, like the disciples, is now a believer.
This is a huge deal for Thomas. It’s also a big deal for the narrative within the Gospel of John.
You see, up until this point, Jesus has been called Teacher, Rabbi, Master, and Lord. Other
terms, but those were the chief ones we see. We need to realize here that when the word Lord
is used, it was a common title at that time to recognize someone who has power and authority
over you, so when you see that, don’t confuse Lord, with the Lord. I make this point because we
don’t see Jesus recognized as God until this point. Now, I’m sure it was assumed by the
disciples, by the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead and walking through walls that He
was God. But the writer of the Gospel chose to use this encounter with Thomas to make it clear
to us that the Jesus of history and Jesus Christ are one and the same.
He uses Thomas. The most devoted follower, and the most ardent disbeliever, who dismissed
His appearance the first time as crazy talk, to show us that Jesus is who He says He is, and that
it is in Him we should believe. This entire Gospel has been leading up to this point. That Greek
word for belief, pistos, it’s used seven times in Luke, it’s used nine times respectively in Matthew
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and Mark. The Gospel of John uses it ninety. This entire Gospel has been written with the
emphasis that you and I might believe. In fact, verses 30 and 31 tell us, “Jesus did a lot of other
things in the presence of His disciples, things that are not included in this book. But what has
been included has been in order that you and I might believe that Jesus is the Christ, He is the
Son of God, and that by believing in Him we might have life in His name.” This is huge.
Now, as I was thinking about what I should preach today, I couldn’t help but think about my own
journey to faith. See, I didn’t grow up in a house where we went to church. I would go once in a
while to Sunday school when I slept over at my Grandma’s house, but it wasn’t really a part of
how I grew up. In sixth grade, I started going to Youth Group with a friend, though. Full
disclosure: it was because there were girls there that I liked. God works through all things. That
we should be confident of. But also because, as a kid, I really struggled to fit in. For some
reason, church was a place where I felt that I fit. So at some point between sixth and seventh
grade I became a Christian, and I was baptized. I think a large part of my draw to faith was the
community. That community happened to be about Jesus, so I was, too.
Yet, as I got older, things changed. During my freshman year of high school my youth group
leader moved. I really began to struggle. Looking back on this, I can see that I was way more
invested in the community than I was in Jesus, so that when things got hard, I left. It wasn’t until
a few years later, when I was a Junior in high school, that I started to think about God again. In
that time I chose to make some poor decisions. One of those was, I partied a lot. In Arizona
what you do when you’re high schoolers is you go and hide in the middle of the desert and you
have a party.
Well, I was out there, and we ran out of beer. So a couple of my buddies were going to go get
some more, and I said I’d go with them. They’re driving, and I’m in the back of the truck looking
up at the sky. It was a cloudless night. I remember seeing those stars. I had one of the strongest
feelings. It was one of those feelings you know could only have come from God. I looked up at
the sky, and I felt with this force that there was a God, that He was up there, and that He loved
me.
At first, I tried to dismiss this, because I was on a beer run, and I didn’t want to think about God.
But also because I was ashamed, and if that was true, things were going to have to change in
my life. So I really tried to dismiss it. But for weeks I kept having these conversations that I
ended up in. I kept thinking about that night, and I kept thinking about Him. So at some point I
ended up back at church. And sure, I still really liked the community, and I liked feeling like I fit
in. But this time I was there because I believed with a conviction I’d never had before.
This speaks to me, and I think it should speak to you, that God meets us in the weirdest of
ways, and in the oddest of places. For some, it might be a specific event like a mission trip, or a
retreat, or a revival of some sort. For others of you it may have been a gradual shift that
happened over a period of time and you realized you were out of place where you believed.
Wherever it was, I firmly believe that belief comes from some encounter with God. As this
encounter with Thomas tells us, when we enter into that relationship with God, He speaks peace
into our lives, He breathes the Holy Spirit on us, and He sends us out to give that peace to
others. He gives us the community of believers as a family to participate in. Chief among those
things, He gives us faith.
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Faith is a gift that God gives us. Faith is what makes the crazy make sense. It’s how we stand
up and affirm what it is we believe, and that we believe it’s true. This is what I have to remember
when I feel crazy speaking the truth.
Now, when it comes to believing, and this at least has been true in my own life, there have been
times where I have doubted, or I have just chosen to not believe, and I have faltered. This may
be true for you, too. What’s important for you to know is that Jesus Christ has condescended
Himself before, and He will do so again, because He loves you. Whether through a friend, or an
event where the Holy Spirit moves you, or something else, Christ will pursue you. This I am
confident of. Ours is a God who cares for you, who loves you, who longs to be in relationship
with you, no matter how far you go, no matter how hard you try, ours is a God Who will meet
you, and care for you, and offer peace to you.
In a few moments we are going to stand, and we are going to affirm our faith. This has been
something that Christians have been doing since the very beginning. It’s a way that they, and
we, assert our identity as the people of God. Sometimes it’s been done as a way to stand up to
competing ideas that might lead us away from God. Other times it’s done as a way to remind us
of what we believe so that we can hold onto it when things get tough. Whatever the reason,
articulating our faith is important, because it says what we believe in. And by Thomas, we see
the impact of these statements. These statements define who we are, and Who we are about.
As we do this, I’d encourage you to use this time, and to take time later, to ponder what is it that
you believe. If it feels appropriate, use this time of affirmation to reaffirm your faith. To reaffirm
that Jesus Christ is the Lord of your life. Some of you may be new. You may not have believed
before. If you’re hearing God speak to you, I’d ask you to use this time to affirm your faith and to
claim that Jesus Christ is the Lord of your life for the first time. If you choose to do this, there are
people available after the service who want to pray with you. Mostly they want to encourage you
and welcome you into the community of faith.
Others of you may be sitting here, maybe on the fence. You may be unsure of what it is you
believe. You may be listening to me and thinking, “That guy’s crazy.” Know that no matter the
difference, no matter where you are, this is a place where you have a space to be. There is a
place for you here. We won’t be ashamed of who we’re about, but we’ll also respect you and the
journey that you’re on, and for the time being, we’ll believe for you.
With that, I’d like to ask you to stand, and recite with me the affirmation of faith you see on the
screen:
This is the good news which we have received, in which we stand, and by
which we are saved, if we hold it fast: that Christ died for our sins according
to the scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day,
and that He appeared first to the woman, then to Peter, and to the Twelve,
and then to many faithful witnesses.
We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus Christ is
the first and the last, the beginning and the end; He is our Lord and our God.
Amen.
1717 Bellevue Way | Bellevue, WA 98004 | (425) 454-3082
Crazy Talk
10
Please be seated. May this be so in your life, may Jesus Christ offer you the peace that only He
can give you. May Jesus Christ be your God, and may He be your Lord. May you take part in
the community of faith that will edify you, that will build you up and offer you a word of
encouragement and hope when you need it, and may you do so for others. May you leave this
place and take part in what God is doing in the world, because He needs us to speak peace to
other people, that’s the vocation He has given us. And may you take the gift of faith that God is
giving you. May you allow it to nourish you and enrich you and sustain you no matter the place
life takes you. That is my prayer for you. May it be so. In the name of God, we say Jesus Christ
is our Lord. Amen.
Discussion Questions
R E A D | John 20:19-31
1) Reflect on your own journey to faith, how has God met you? Have you had experiences of
disbelief or doubt where God interceded?
2) Why do you think Jesus calls us to worship in community?
3) What keeps you from entering into and participating in worship? What could be the
consequences in your own life for not doing so?
4) The passage indicates the Jesus spoke peace into the disciples fear, how has Jesus spoken
peace into your life?
5) Take time to reflect on your faith. Look at the Nicene and the Apostles Creed. Begin to
articulate what it is that you believe as these creeds have done.
1717 Bellevue Way | Bellevue, WA 98004 | (425) 454-3082