John 20:24-29
4th Sunday of Easter
St Barbara’s 11.05.2025
Rev Tulo Raistrick
Well, after something over 2,000 services across our 8am and 10am Sunday morning services, our mid-week communion services, Buzz at St B’s and Prayers and Bears services over the last eleven years, I come to my last sermon as vicar here at St Barbara’s. It has been an absolute joy and privilege to share these services with you, and for us together to grow in our love for God. Thank you.
Today, as we continue during this wonderful church season of Easter we come to the next in our series looking at Jesus’ encounters with the disciples after his resurrection. Today’s encounter is Thomas meeting Jesus.
I am struck by how different all the encounters are, how each encounter leads to faith in different ways. Take Mary. She needed to hear Jesus speak her name as well as see him before she believed. Or take the two disciples on the Emmaus road. They needed to see Jesus break bread, reminding them of the Passover meal just a few days before, before their eyes were opened. Or take the disciples in the upper room. They needed to see him eat broiled fish and explain the Scriptures before they believed. Or take Thomas, in today’s reading. He needed to see Jesus’ wounds, and perhaps touch him, before he was sure. Mary was told not to touch Jesus, whilst Thomas is invited to do so. They all come to faith, they grow in faith, in different ways, even though it is the same Jesus they are encountering.
One can imagine Jesus’ followers talking to each other after these encounters. “What did you learn about Jesus from meeting him?” “Mary – why was it so important that he spoke your name?” “Cleopas – why was the breaking of bread do you think the moment you realised who Jesus was?” “Peter, James and John – why was him eating broiled fish so important? If he is not a ghost what does that mean?” “Thomas – what was it about Jesus that prompted you to declare “My Lord and God”?”
Would they have done so insisting that their own experience was the only valid one, or the most spiritual one? That seems incredibly unlikely. Instead they would have rejoiced with one another in these different encounters, as they tried to piece together what it meant that Jesus was alive, what those different experiences told them about who Jesus was. They would have learnt from one another, grown from one another.
One of the great joys for me about being part of St Barbara’s over the years has been seeing how each person’s journey of faith has been different. Some of you have been part of this church for decades. You have seen multiple vicars come and go, and you know it is very much the people, not the clergy, who make the church. Others of you have come from other churches and other traditions, bringing with you experiences and insights that help all to flourish. And for others of you, this is the first church you have ever been part of, bringing fresh eyes to what we do.
We all express our faith differently too – whether through quiet contemplation, joyful singing, faithful praying, generous giving, willing service. We may be the first to arrive and the last to leave, or we may slip in quietly at the back once the service has started and slip away at the end before we are noticed.
That difference, that diversity, is something to be welcomed, to be celebrated, because when we do so, it helps us all to grow in faith. The differences of experience and encounter with the risen Jesus for those first Christians led to a stronger community – one that was able to live positively through the challenges ahead. Look around you today, and appreciate one another. Celebrate our difference and grow from one another.
The second thing that I am struck by in Thomas’ encounter with Jesus is the fact that it is from this encounter that Thomas came to be called “doubting” Thomas. It is perhaps an unfair name, suggesting that he is the only one to have doubts, when none of the other disciples believed without seeing either. And Thomas elsewhere in the Gospel accounts shows real commitment and faith. After all, he is the only one, a few weeks earlier, willing to support Jesus’ dangerous decision to go and visit Lazarus and risk arrest. He says to the other disciples, ”let us go and die with him”. And when Jesus speaks of going to the Father, he is the disciple who asks “how can we know the way?” Here is someone of deep commitment and earnest faith.
But there is certainly some sensible caution in his words when he says he wants to see Jesus, and touch his wounds, before he believes. After all, what the other disciples are claiming has never ever happened before, nor could even be conceived of. He is right to be honest about his doubts, to acknowledge that his faith is fragile.
I can identify with that and I’m sure we all can. Faith that is there but needs encouragement, nurturing, if it is to blossom. One of the things that attracts me to the Myton hospice work that I will be moving on to do is the chance to come alongside people for whom faith is very fragile, for whom it may in some ways be buried out of sight, and help them re-discover it at a time of significance in their lives. To acknowledge that we are all Thomases in some way or other, and that we all need help to hold onto and grow in faith.
It has always been a strong principle for me here during the last eleven years for us to be a church where everyone is welcome, no matter how fragile one’s faith. We may not always be the most bold and articulate in our faith, but we are a place where Thomases as well as Peters are welcome, that acknowledges that faith is a journey, and we take different routes along the way. If we can help each other along that road, as the disciples did for Thomas, then we are doing something right as a church. May we continue to do that, and continue to grow better at doing so.
And thirdly, I am struck by Thomas’ response when he meets the risen Jesus. “My Lord and my God”, he says.They are words of love, faith, hope. They are words that show that Thomas has grasped something of who Jesus is – he is not just an ordinary person, or even an exceptionally good person, but he is God, and he is the one worthy of giving his life to in worship and service. They are extraordinary words that capture the essence of our whole faith.
We are all on different journeys. There will be times when faith comes harder than at other times. But what unites us, what helps us to be a family, is that we too with Thomas can say together, “Our Lord and God”. It is Christ who is our heart and our focus, the one who we follow and are shaped by.
As a family, we will miss you all so much. Physically, we are not moving far – just to Cheylesmore – so please do pop in and visit us there, though if you all come at the same time it may be a little bit of a squeeze. But spiritually, we will be even closer, for we will remain part of one family, a church family that affirms with brothers and sisters across the world those wonderful words: “Jesus – our Lord and our God!”
May each of us affirm and live out those words each day of our lives. For this is what we are called to do, indeed this is the very essence of our existence: to worship, to delight in, to live for, our Lord and our God. Amen.
