Worship
Service for April 7, 2024
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Christ our Savior is risen from the
dead! Alleluia!
P: Break forth into joy! Sing together! God comforts those whose hearts are broken in
sorrow.
L: We who once suffered in death, we who once
cried in despair -
P: Now we know victory over death! Now we know joy over despair!
L: For God has raised Christ from the grave.
All: The tomb is empty and death has been
defeated for all the earth!
Opening Hymn – Lift High the Cross #371 vs. Blue
Prayer of Confession
Gracious God, we confess
before You our slowness to embrace the new life You offer. You offer springtime to our souls, but we prefer
the winter of coldness and indifference.
We continue in despair and self-doubt, rather than rejoice in knowing
You love us. We forget that we have been
baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. Afraid to die, we cannot receive new
life. Rejoicing that You forgive us,
with our coldness, self-hate, forgetfulness, or fear, we pray to You with the
confidence of Your children. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: For all who have come believing in Christ
as the Way, there is rest from your fruitless labors, forgiveness of your sins
and the guarantee of eternal life.
P: Let
us then continue our journey of faith and obedience, through the grace of Jesus
Christ. Amen.
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic Church; the
communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and
the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
O unseen
yet ever-present God, we come to you in awe and wonder. Though we cannot see you, we are surrounded
by signs of your presence; in a perfectly formed daffodil, in the laughter of a
friend, in the need of a stranger. Give us spiritual eyesight and insight so
that we may see you at work in the world around us. Like Thomas, may we proclaim with our
newfound sight, “My Lord and My God!”
Today
we pray for those in particular who are struggling with doubt, whose faith
journeys seem to be uphill battles. May
they find in you a home where doubts are accepted as acts of faith on the path
toward wholeness and peace.
We
also remember those who suffer in any way.
We pray for the victims of abuse, oppression and terror, those who feel
helpless or deserted, those who are sick and their caregivers, those who grieve
great loss. May all of them know your
presence even when they feel most alone.
Hear
us Lord, in these moments of silence, as our hearts and spirits pray to you.
Lead
each of us, Lord, to someone in need, so that we may show the love of Christ,
who in boldness taught us to pray to you, saying…Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, forever.
AMEN.
Hymn – He
Lives #368
Brown Hymnal
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Isaiah
65:17-25
Second Scripture Reading – John
20:19-31
Sermon – Doubts
Create a Stronger Faith
(John 20:19-31)
Today
is not Easter Sunday with all the joy and wonder that Easter brings. A week has gone by, a week filled with harsh
reminders that life still goes on, regardless of what last Sunday was like. There are still bills to be paid and deaths to
deal with and things to get done. Life
has changed since last Sunday. And
they’ve changed for the disciples, as well. We aren’t reading about rolled away stones and
empty tombs and dazzling angels. No,
today it’s fearful disciples, locked doors, and disturbing doubts.
And
once again, the disciples have underestimated their leader. Jesus comes to them through locked doors and
offers them what they need most at this hour — peace. Why peace?
Because they were terrified about what might happen to them. After all, they were Jesus’ closest followers
and he had just been crucified. Would
they be next? Would the authorities,
right now, be looking for them? But
Jesus offers them peace, reassuring their hearts and souls, allays their fears,
and then gives them some follow-up instructions: “As the father has sent me, so
I send you.” He breathes into them the
Holy Spirit, anointing them to do God’s work, the forgiving of sins.
So,
there we have it! The disciples’ fear is
wiped away by the risen Lord and replaced with peace and assurance and a
sending forth to be the church and spread God’s love and forgiveness and
everybody lives happily ever after. A
nice, tidy ending to the story of Easter.
Except
for Thomas. While the other disciples
were getting their marching orders, Thomas was AWOL. We are not sure where he was, why he wasn’t
with the others. We all deal with grief
in different ways. Maybe he was praying,
maybe he was getting drunk, maybe he just needed to be alone. Whatever the reason, Thomas wasn’t there.
When
the disciples came to him with their glorious news, all filled with excitement
and stumbling to get their words out, Thomas refused to believe. There are a lot of things in life we’ll
believe without seeing, but for Thomas, a resurrected savior simply was not one
of those things. “Show me,” he says and
thus earns the unfortunate nickname Doubting Thomas, as if the struggle to
believe was a bad thing.
There
are some people who’d say that there’s no place in church for doubt, because
that shows weakness and a lack of commitment to God. They’re the people with the bumper stickers on
their car that say, “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it!”; people
who aren’t afraid to tell you what’s wrong with your belief and what’s right
with theirs.
But
the Bible has in it a rich history of doubters, and Thomas is just taking his
place alongside other folks whose faith grew through doubt. Doubting Abraham and Sarah laughed in
disbelief when God told them that 100-year-old Abraham and 90-year-old Sarah were
going to have a baby. Doubting Moses
told God several times that he had the wrong guy when God tapped him to lead
the Israelites out of Egypt. And
Doubting Peter who asked Jesus to let him walk across the Sea of Galilee, but
got a nose full of sea water when he started to doubt. And Doubting Martha, who told Jesus, “If only
you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” Doubting Mary, who can’t believe her eyes
that Jesus is gone and asks the gardener to show her to the place where he laid
him. Abraham and Sarah doubted. Moses doubted. Peter, Martha, and Mary all doubted. So, if you have doubts about God, you’re in
good company, and we can add Thomas to that list, too. If those people doubted, and they made it into
the final printing of the Bible, then having doubts can’t be all wrong, can it?
I
don’t believe in a doubtless faith. To
have a doubtless faith you either have to be perfect, which none of us are, or
so narrow-minded that there’s no room for questions, which none of us are,
either. We’re all a little like Thomas,
we all have faith, we all want to believe, but sometimes we need something more
than words or books; we need to experience Christ. Doubt is not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign
of a strong, vibrant faith, a searching and active faith.
I
love what Frederick Beuchner once wrote about doubt, “Doubt is the ants in the
pants of faith. It keeps us awake and
moving.”
I
think all of us, when faced with the story of the resurrection, respond at some
level with incredulity. How can you not?
What we’re talking about is physically
impossible. I don’t care how many times I’ve
flown and how many times someone tries to explain to me how it is physically
possible for a 175,000 pound anything can get off the ground and fly in the
air. I think everybody on every plane
should constantly be going, “Oh my gosh! Wow! We’re
flying!” every time a plane takes off.
I
think our world has made us jaded to the miracles around us like technology and
flight. We’ve come to expect those
things to happen without a second thought. And when it comes to the resurrection of
Christ, we’ve heard the story so many times over the years that we’re prone to
hear it without realizing the magnitude of what has happened. You have to put yourself in Thomas’ sandals. If someone came up to you and said, “The guy
we watched die on the cross three days ago is walking through walls and
bringing us words of peace,” how can you respond with anything but, “I don’t
believe it”? This is not expected, this
is not the same old stuff, this is anything but ordinary.
But
how many of us left the sanctuary last week going, “Resurrection? I don’t believe it!” We didn’t.
Every one of us exclaimed our Alleluias and repeated the refrain with
joy! He is risen! He is Risen, Indeed! But, do we REALLY think about the
incredibility of it all. If you’ve only
heard the story for the first time, think about it. A man rose from the dead. He was dead. Now he’s alive. Every one of us, everybody who professes
belief in Christ, should constantly be going, “Oh my gosh! Wow! Resurrection!”
In
a sense, that’s what Thomas does. After
expressing his doubt, he’s not shunned or ridiculed. He’s not told he just needs to have more
faith. Jesus takes his doubt seriously
and answers Thomas. He comes to him and
says,” See my hands? See my side? See what I did for you? Touch and believe.” And Thomas responds with the greatest
statement of faith in the whole Bible: “My lord and my God!”
Despite
his doubts, or maybe because of them, Thomas did find a deeper, richer faith. Do you know when, though? It wasn’t on Easter Sunday. It was eight days after Easter. Technically, that would be tomorrow. That’s pretty significant. Can you think of a less inspirational day to
come to faith than a Monday? It’s easy
to believe on Easter, when the place is packed, a choir or soloist is singing a
profound Easter hymn, and the joy is overflowing. On Easter, it’s easy to cry out, “My Lord and
my God!”
But
have you ever tried doing it eight days after Easter? On a Monday, of all days? When the lilies are gone, when all that’s left
in the Easter basket is some plastic green grass that spills all over the
carpet making a mess. Can we still make
the same confession now that we made last Sunday? A naïve faith can’t do that. I believe only a faith that has asked the
tough questions and persevered in the search for answers can proclaim Jesus as
messiah eight days after Easter. I bet
those were a long eight days for Thomas. Some folks probably won’t make it that far;
the crowds are already thinning out from last week.
But
I believe Jesus built the church around people like Thomas. And Abraham and Sarah, and Moses, and Peter,
and Martha and Mary. People who doubt
are the cornerstone of the church, people who hear the Good News and scratch
their head and say, “Risen? No, I can’t
believe it.” Christ’s church is meant to be made up of people with ants in
their pants, whose faith is kept awake and moving by their questions and the
search for answers.
There’s
one more quote from Frederick Beuchner worth sharing. He said, “An agnostic is someone who is not
sure whether there is a God. That is
some of us all of the time, and all of us some of the time.” If he’s right, and my experience tells me he
is, at some point in our lives, we all doubt. Look at this world we live in. How can we not at times have doubt? If Thomas, who was there, still doubted, how
can we, even the most faithful among us, not doubt when faced with the reality
of life?
I
hope you have doubts. I hope you have
persistent questions about God. I hope
you are never faced with the awesomeness of God’s work and simply say, “Yep, I
believe it.” I hope you keep asking
questions and voicing concerns and expressing doubts until one day you
experience something so wonderful, so amazing, so life-changing, that your only
response then will be “My Lord and my God!”
Thanks
be to God! AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
How
grateful we are, O God, for all the gifts of this life. you have blessed us with an abundance of good
things, not only fulfilling our needs, but going far beyond. May our giving today reflect your generosity,
and may it be used to further your work, both in our family of faith and
throughout our community. Through
Christ, we pray. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – I Sing the Mighty Power of God #288/128
Benediction –
Go now with
the love of God, the grace of Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy
Spirit. Go to share your faith and your
lives. Go to proclaim the Good News of
Easter. AMEN.
Postlude
No comments:
Post a Comment