Believe!

Grace, Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father and His only Son, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

        Unbelievable! What an amazing and fantastic world in which we live. Within a mere 100 years, we have advanced from horse and buggy to men traveling through space farther than the moon. From leeches to artificial organs our medicine has advanced in the blink of the eye.

        Our production of food has increased while the acres of land to produce the food has decreased. The U.S. population grew by more than 266 million people from 1900 until now, more than tripling from 76 million in 1900 to 342.5 million in 2026.

        Some of these changes are amazing and some of our advances are unbelievable in the sense of our inability to understand much of the change. With this comprehension block, we see more people in disbelief.

        On the flip side of the coin are those who believe in fantastical things which the majority of people disregard. For instance, some people believe in aliens from outer space. Some people believe in ghosts and monsters. Some even believe that if they work really hard and are good people that they will go to heaven.

        Many new technologies require blind unquestioning belief. For instance, everyone knows a microwave oven cooks food, yet what percentage of people who use this technology really know how it works? How about cell phones, or the internet? Do you know what consistently baffles me? Aspirin. In fact, all types of medicine baffle me. I don’t know how half of that stuff works, so I have to put my faith in the doctors and believe in what they tell me.

        Belief and unbelief; extremes on both sides of the spectrum exist. Some people will believe anything, and some people will believe nothing. If you believe everything you hear, you are gullible and if you don’t believe anything you are a skeptic. Sometimes it takes a leap of faith to believe.

        Yes, we have all had our moments of unbelief in one form or another. We may even have heard ourselves say something like, “I’ll believe it when I see it”. The whole state of Missouri has even formed the reputation as the ‘Show Me’ state. It is not that the entire state only believes what they see, but that they have become known for being more pragmatic.

        Thomas, in John 20:25, shows how he would have fit right in with the residents of Missouri when he says:

“Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.” [Jn 20:25]

It is from this statement that Thomas becomes labeled with the “Doubting Thomas” moniker.

        It is interesting how no one remembers the apostle’s unbelief of the women coming back from the tomb when they said they had seen Christ alive. It is interesting that John and Peter ran to the empty tomb to verify by seeing that Christ had risen from the grave. John 20:8, “Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.”

        Even with having seen with their own eyes, they still did not realize the full meaning as we read in John 20:9, “(They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)” Both disciples were present with the others locked in the room for fear of the Jews. Jesus appears to them and they believe.

        Jesus then later appears to Thomas and tells him to stop his unbelief and believe. Thomas proclaims, “My Lord and my God!” In this short sentence, Thomas confesses his faith in Jesus Christ.

        These days we hear people confess their beliefs in all sorts of things – many of them false. These days we are inundated with many ‘truths’ and many ‘beliefs’. The reason we have so many different truths is because people do not want to admit their unbelief. People do not want to know their faith is false.

        It seems, in the world today, we avoid our faith being tested, our beliefs being criticized and our values being torn down by accepting all points of view as valid. We have become a nation of people, who before demanded ‘Show Me’, instead now demand ‘Don’t Show Me’. We have somehow fooled ourselves into thinking that, ‘If I don’t question the belief of others, they won’t attack mine.’

        We have become afraid of confessing our faith as Jesus Himself commanded us. We have replaced the ‘I believe’ statements in our conversations with ‘I guess we all believe something different’. We don’t want to rock the boat, we don’t want to make waves, we want to all get along and co-exist.

        Well guess what? It doesn’t work that way. If you do nothing, if you do not confess your faith and your belief in Jesus Christ, your faith will die. If you do not nourish your faith with the Word, with baptism and with the body and blood of Christ, your belief will wither and your faith will die on the vine. And remember what Jesus said about that:

“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. [John15:2]

        I know that sin and evil exist. I see it every day. I see sin in myself and others. I see sin bigger than life, yet I also know there is the microscopic sin that eats away at us every minute of every day. That sin is not so visible, but it still exists and thrives. This sin may not be big, but it just as easily kills.

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” [1 John 1:8-10]

        If we confess our sins, He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. By confessing our sins, we also confess our faith in Jesus Christ. By acknowledging Christ, we acknowledge our need to be forgiven. By acknowledging our need to be forgiven, we confess our one and only Savior.

        Just as I don’t have X-ray vision to see what is inside of you, I do not have the power to know what is in your hearts and minds. I cannot give you a clean heart and make you righteous before God. But there are a couple of things I can do, the first is to confess my faith. As Dr. Martin Luther writes in the Small Catechism:

“I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father in eternity, and also a true human being, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord. He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned human being. He has purchased and freed me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. He has done all this in order that I may belong to him, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in eternal righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as he is risen from the dead and lives and rules eternally. This is most certainly true.”^[1]

This is the second thing I can do. I can forgive sins in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

‘Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”’ [John 20:21-23]

Christ has sent us into this world with the authority to forgive sin. This is how “Daily in this Christian church the Holy Spirit abundantly forgives all sins—mine and those of all believers.” If we confess Jesus Christ as our Lord, then we confess His authority to forgive our sins and we confess His authority to send us into the world with power to forgive the sins of others.

        We can have faith in His word because we believe in God the Father who sent Him.

        In this we can believe and have faith. Thomas believed because he had seen the risen Lord. He had put his fingers in the nail holes in Christ’s hands and put his hand in His side.

        Jesus told him:“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” We do not have to see with our eyes to believe. We do not have to put our hand in His side to have faith. In the words of the Apostle Peter:

“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, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” [1 Peter 1:8-9]

Therefore, walk in the confidence of your faith.

Amen

^[1] Robert Kolb, Timothy J. Wengert and Charles P. Arand, The Book of Concord : The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 355 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000).