Sermon précis, 16 April 2023, by Rev Dr Barry T Brown

Text:   John 20:19 – 31, with a focus on verse 31

Introduction:

Peace be with you!   Today’s Gospel reading is regularly read in worship on the Sunday following Easter Sunday. It is generally agreed by New Testament scholars that John chapter 21 is a Postscript or Epilogue that has been added at some later time, probably after the death of ‘the beloved disciple’ who is usually understood to be John the disciple of Jesus; or perhaps of John the Elder. This being the case, our reading, including our text for today, is the intended climax of John’s Gospel as originally composed.

John’s Gospel was very carefully and skillfully composed – in a way not always detected when we read it only in selected passages. In John’s Prologue emphasis is made on introducing Jesus as the divine Son of God – “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Today’s text from the close of John’s Gospel is clearly a climax of the drama of the Gospel narrative:

“But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).

I will attend to three key things from our text, each a major theme that is threaded through the Gospel as a whole – (a) Believe; (b) Jesus as Messiah, Son of God; (c) Life in his name.

(A) Believe.

John seldom uses the word Faith in the same way as the Synoptic Gospels do (Matthew, Mark and Luke).  Instead, to Believe is central.  Whereas the Synoptic Gospels refer to entering the Kingdom of God (or of Heaven in Matthew), John’s Gospel refers to entering Life.

My second name is Thomas. My father’s name was Thomas William Brown, as was his grandfather.  If I go back another generation in my family I have four great great-grandfathers called Thomas – Thomas Howe, Thomas Dodgson, Thomas Clay and Thomas Weaver.  The latter’s father was also Thomas Weaver.  So, in my relatively recent forebears, there are at least eight men named Thomas.  I am proud to have the name Thomas because it links me with today’s story in which a disciple called Thomas dared to say he would not believe unless he had physical proof. But then Thomas is the one who affirms the risen Jesus as “my Lord and my God” – the high climax of John’s Gospel.

A characteristic of John’s Gospel, which is often not noticed, is that there is a progressive revelation in the narrative concerning who Jesus really is.  In the early chapters Jesus is recognised as “a man” (Prologue and John the Baptist). Sometimes Jesus refers to himself as the “Son of Man.”  In later sections Jesus is recognised as the “Son of God” (Nathaniel, Martha, and some Jewish leader –  negatively).  Finally, in today’s story, as John’s Gospel comes to its climax, Thomas declares the Crucified-Risen Jesus to be “my Lord and my God”.

So, today’s passage represents the pinnacle of the revelation that has been unfolding throughout John’s Gospel as a whole. And these climactic words are declared by Thomas – my Lord and my God!

(B) Jesus as the Messiah, Son of God.

The words ‘Believe or Believing’ in John’s Gospel are not just about what Jesus taught, did, promised. They are not just about Jesus’ power to heal, forgive, raise from death, or set free those bound by evil. All these things are signs pointing to who Jesus is in relation to God.

The conflict between John’s Christian communities and those who opposed them was principally about Jesus and his identity in relation to God, and this is the central theme of John’s Gospel. This conflict is intentionally addressed in the Gospel narrative as interpretation – interpreting the truth of Christ for a Christian community in conflict.

I spent much of Easter Monday re-reading some of the issues that were debated at length by the early Christian Church – in a number of Councils during the formative centuries of the Christian Church. Interestingly, these Councils were mainly held in Türkiye. The last two and most important of these Councils were held in 325 CE at Nicaea, across the Bosporus from Constantinople (Istanbul), and at Constantinople in 381 CE. The outcome of these councils was The Nicene Creed, the creed we sometimes recite when celebrating Holy Communion.

The big debate was about the relationship of Jesus and the Spirit to the Father. And several technical words were adopted that can be variously translated as – of the same essence as the Father; of the same substance as the Father, of the same being as the Father. The paragraph of the English Language – Nicene Creed is a summary of the Councils’ agreement:

“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father, through him all things were made”.

Dr J Davis McCaughey, Master of Ormond College Melbourne and Professor of New Testament, was my professor and tutor during 1969-70. He was later the first President of the Uniting Church in Australia, and Governor of Victoria, 1986 – 92. I learned much from Dr McCaughey’s teaching and tutorship in my formative years of training, and also since then. His Commentary on the Basis of Union is helpful in understanding our text from John’s Gospel. I quote:

“… the phrase about Christ in the Nicene Creed translates into English ‘of one substance with the Father’ protects quite decisively the divinity of Christ against those who would divide the Son from the Father. Who Jesus was and is is important in itself; but it is also important for our understanding of God: God’s character and activity towards humankind are defined by the character and activity of Jesus Christ… “Here the Gospel of John is being summarised. In the presence of Jesus Christ we are in the presence of God…

“The Nicene Creed was designed to end controversy in the Church which threatened the true understanding of Christ’s person…   “For centuries men and women have used these words not because they already understand them, but because by their use they hope to understand them. There are some mysteries which we can only acknowledge fully in worship, and God in God’s threefold being is certainly the central mystery with which our lives are surrounded” (Uniting Church Press, Melbourne, 1980. Page 48, with minor alterations in favour of gender inclusive language).

In our Basis of Union it is stated that the Uniting Church ‘receives’ these as authoritative statements of the Catholic Faith – in the language of their day. It also commits its ministers and instructors to study these creeds and to interpreting their teaching in a later age.

In recent times I’ve reflected about this rather daunting task of interpreting the meaning of this creedal statement for ‘our age’. I hope you don’t think it to be irreverent, but my thinking turns to the relatively recent sciences emerging around the human genome – DNA.  I have nearly 1,000 matches to my personal DNA. Most ‘matches’ are to distant relatives; some are closer with a high percentage of common DNA. A few weeks ago we watched a program on TV in which two Korean women, who had each been adopted as infants, received their DNA results as a perfect, identical match. They found that they were not only related, not only full sisters, but identical twin sisters with identical DNA.  I wonder if the Church Fathers of the third and fourth centuries might have been helped by this new science. It seems to me that what the creed is attempting to say, and what John’s Gospel says about Jesus, is something like this: Jesus is what God is for they share the same unique DNA.  This not only means that Jesus is what God is; but also that God is is what Jesus is. In seeing Jesus and listening to Jesus we are seeing and hearing God. This is the mystery we are challenged to believe, and to live by.

I have come to the understanding that to Believe, as John means it, is not so much a matter of intellectual acceptance of a proposition as it is a matter of choice, commitment, determination, as well as a gift from God. And this is a mystery fully beyond our human apprehension and understanding. Yet, it is life-giving. “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe” (John 20:29).

(C) Life, Eternal Life, Life in its fullness, Abundant life.

The term ‘Eternal life’ appears 17 times in John’s Gospel (NRSV). ‘Life’ appears an additional 33 times on its own, mostly with the same sense. Our Gospel reading gives expression to the key theme in John’s Gospel – that you may have Life (with a capital L – eternal life) in his name.

Sixty years ago this year, in March 1963, the Reverend Alan Walker of the Methodist Central Mission in Sydney, founded Lifeline. This telephone counselling service soon spread throughout Australia and then to many countries around the world (30+), some using a different service name.  The first Lifeline Centre was in an old terraced house in Sydney, the inner city district of Darlinghurst. On the facade of the building was inscribed – “That they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). The same verse in the NRSV is “That they may have life, and have it abundantly”. That was the intention of Lifeline. It is also the central message of John’s Gospel, and this features in today’s Gospel reading.

Close.  Today’s Gospel reading is a challenge to our thinking. It is also a mystery. But in particular it is the gift of Good News.  This is good news to all who come to believe. However, it is more than that. It is also the motivation for action: To share the good news with others; and to live out of that good news in loving, practical concern for the lives of all God’s children.

Whenever you see the name of Lifeline appear on your TV screen in relation to some disturbing news story or exposé, may it remind you, as it does me, of the Good News, and of the mission of God’s people to share this good news in words and actions, even among those who do not yet know of this gracious gift.

Let earth and heaven combine, their voices all agree,

to praise in songs divine the incarnate deity,

our God contracted to a span, incomprehensively made Man.

Charles Wesley, 1707-88 alt.