Written That You May Believe John 20:19-31

 

Grace, mercy, and peace be with you, from God our Father, and our risen Lord, Jesus Christ.

 

Our message is taken from our Gospel, especially verses 30 and 31: 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His name.

 

In the early days of the Old Testament, the stories of God’s people weren’t written down, they were spoken.

 

And they were told over and over again, and in that way, committed to memory and handed down from generation to generation. God guided the transmission of those sacred stories.

 

It wasn’t until the time of Moses that the words of Scripture started to be written down and recorded, something Moses had learned from the royal Egyptian court.

 

On Mount Sinai, God inscribed His commandments on tablets of stone and gave them to Moses to give to the people. 

 

From this we get the expression, “written in stone”, meaning it’s nonnegotiable, can’t be changed; or “not written in stone”, meaning that it’s flexible and can be changed.

 

The Ten Commandments, which are a summary of the moral laws of Scripture, are “written in stone”, both literally and figuratively.

 

Literally, God gave them to Moses on stone tablets; and figuratively because they’re eternal and nonnegotiable; they describe how we should always honor God and treat others; and that failure to do so is sin, for which we need God’s forgiveness.

 

Because of Jesus, we have that forgiveness. 

 

Also written in stone for eternity is the Gospel.

 

The good news of our salvation in Christ doesn’t change with time.

 

The way we’re saved today is the same way Adam and Eve were saved, and all God’s people in between, by faith in the One who would win our salvation, Jesus the Messiah.

 

All the Bible points to Him; it’s all about Jesus, and God has set that in stone for eternity, so that as our Gospel says, you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

 

The message of Jesus to His disciples was, “Just trust Me; just believe, and you won’t be sorry!”.

 

Sometimes, we ask that of others: “Just trust me; give me a chance.”

 

Sometimes we prove ourselves trustworthy, and sometimes we don’t; sometimes we fail others.

 

Then we need to be forgiven and do better, and restore our family’s, or co-workers’, or friends’ trust in us.

 

Jesus didn’t have the luxury of making a mistake, and getting a second chance to prove Himself. God had no back-up plan for saving the world.

Recently Elon Musk has been making the news with his attempt to purchase Twitter, which the Twitter board of directors is resisting.

 

Musk was asked in an interview if he had a plan B, to which he responded, “Yes.” There’s always a plan B.

 

But not when it comes to our forgiveness; all along God had only 1 plan to save the world.

 

There was no plan B; and there couldn’t be.

 

If God’s Son couldn’t save the world, then the world couldn’t be saved. 

 

The devil knew that, so he threw every temptation he had at Jesus.

 

It made life difficult for Jesus, and it made dying more difficult and painful than we can imagine, but Jesus proved Himself to be greater than what would harm and destroy us: sin, Satan and death.

 

There was one chance, and one chance only for us to be saved, and Jesus didn’t let us down; He proved that He is the true and only Son of God. 

 

In faithful obedience to His Father, Jesus died for us; and in glory and power, He rose for us.

 

So as we so often say, we owe everything to Jesus. 

 

It was Him or nobody. With everything against Him, He stayed steadfast and prevailed for our sake.

 

And yet its’ all for naught, if we stubbornly and foolishly fail to believe. 

 

Jesus will never fail us, but if we fail to believe in Him, then we fail to be forgiven and saved.

 

In our Gospel today, we read about faith, and the lack of faith, and how important it is.

 

Jesus miraculously appeared to the disciples on Easter evening, showing Himself alive again, and giving them the office of the keys, the power to forgive the sins of repentant believers, and withhold forgiveness from unrepentant unbelievers. 

 

Thomas, whose personality was much like Peter’s, wasn’t there at the time, and when his friends told him they had seen Jesus alive again, Thomas told them they were crazy, that he wouldn’t believe unless he could see and touch Jesus for himself.

 

Eight days later -- and, as we said last Sunday, 8 is the number in Scripture that symbolizes new and eternal life -- 8 days later, Jesus appeared to His disciples again when Thomas was with them.

 

Jesus invited Thomas to touch His hands that had been nailed, and his side that had been pierced, to show that He was no figment of their grieving imagination, nor a ghost or phantom, but real and alive.

 

Even before touching Jesus, it seems, Thomas cried out, “My Lord and my God!”. Seeing and hearing Jesus convinced him.

 

Jesus used it as a teachable moment to stress the absolute necessity of having faith in Him, believing that He’s risen indeed.

 

Jesus said, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

 

We humans have always had excuses to reject Jesus and not believe His Gospel. Here Jesus shows us that none of them are valid.

 

We may say that in this age of secularism its especially hard to believe in God, and that His Son became man, and died and rose for our salvation.

 

But that excuse is no more legitimate than any of the other excuses we fallen humans have conjured up over the ages; they’re all made-up excuses to not have to repent and believe. 

 

And that’s the key: faith in Jesus is a repentant faith; it’s a significant shift away from worldly ways and beliefs; and away from our stubborn, sinful, fearful nature that resists godly change.

 

But the Gospel of God’s Son comes to us with His Spirit, who is our power to believe and change for the better, to be more like Jesus.

 

The Holy Spirit helps us overcome the fear the world has of believing in and following Jesus. 

 

Because God’s Word comes with the Holy Spirit’s power to believe, John can say, these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

 

If the Gospel came without the Holy Spirit, we wouldn’t be able to believe. 

 

But it does; and so as we just let go and let God; He will bring us to that place of faith and life in His Son. 

 

Thanks be to God that He has set the Good News of His Son in stone.

 

With His Word written in stone, we need not doubt Jesus; He proved His love in dying for us, and He proved His power to save, by rising for us.

 

In a world where its’ sometimes hard to know what we should and shouldn’t trust and believe, that we can know and believe for sure.

 

We need not doubt God’s Gospel, and we need not doubt His commandments, because Jesus kept them all for us, proving that they’re good and true, and they’re always to be trusted and obeyed.

 

So by the power of His Spirit, let us deny and resist every temptation to doubt Christ and His Word; and let us rejoice to believe. 

 

When we find ourselves doubting, let us talk about it to the One who can help us; as the centurion said to Jesus, “I believe. Help my unbelief.”

 

And believing by His grace and with His help, let us be bold to share the Good News, and to declare: Alleluia! He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

And as we believe, we receive the peace of God which passes understanding, and guards our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus, our Lord, who is risen indeed! Amen.