Introduction
As I was preparing for the homiletical challenge that is Holy Week, a couple of themes kept standing out to me—both in the Passion narrative and in the resurrection appearances—as things I wanted to address and connect the dots on, but the sermons I was preaching didn’t seem like the right place for them. So I want to do some of that here.
The first is a theme that runs throughout every resurrection appearance in every Gospel: doubt. It isn’t just Thomas who doubts. We’ll look at this in some detail, but what struck me is how remarkable some of these moments of doubt actually are. In one account, Jesus is physically standing before his disciples, yet the text still says that some doubted.
I think the doubt creeps in and surprises us, maybe a little bit, because we don’t really feel the full weight of Good Friday, especially from the perspective of Jesus’s first disciples. We feel the weight of Good Friday retrospectively. We are thankful for our Savior and horrified by what he suffered on our behalf. So we do feel that weight, but we’re looking backward.
Try imagining being in that moment. Try imagining being one of Jesus’ first disciples. You’ve followed Jesus for years and left everything to do so. You hope, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, that he will “be the one to redeem Israel.” You know the Isaianic promises. You know the Danielic timetable. You’ve heard him say that the time is fulfilled, that the kingdom of God is at hand. You’ve seen him perform healing miracles. You’ve seen him perform feeding miracles. You’ve seen him have power over the wind and the waves. You’ve even seen him raise the dead. And then … the Roman Empire did what empires do. They killed him. And with his death, all your hopes and dreams came to a sudden, catastrophic end.
Failed Messiahs
What should have happened after Jesus died is that every one of his disciples should have just dispersed and gone their own way. We know this because when Jesus died on Good Friday, it wasn’t the first or last time a messianic claimant had succumbed to the power of Rome. Simon of Peraea proclaimed himself king after the death of Herod and was hunted down and beheaded by Roman forces around 4 BC. Theudas led his followers to the Jordan River, promising to part it like a new Joshua, and the procurator Fadus had him beheaded around 44 AD.
In 56 AD, a figure known only as the Egyptian led thousands to the Mount of Olives, promising the walls of Jerusalem would fall at his command; Roman forces killed or scattered his followers, and he vanished. In 70 AD, Simon bar Giora led the Jewish revolt against Rome. When Jerusalem fell, he was marched through the streets of Rome and publicly executed as the capstone of Titus’s triumphal procession. And sixty-five years later, at the effective end of Second Temple Judaism, Bar Kokhba, hailed as the Messiah by Rabbi Akiva himself, died fighting Rome at the Battle of Betar in 135 AD.
In all these cases, the pattern is consistent and without exception. When the leader died, the movement ended. His followers dispersed. Nobody went home and claimed the dead leader had risen from the grave. Nobody continued to proclaim that the leader was alive and reigning at the right hand of God. That idea — that a would-be Messiah executed by Rome had risen bodily from the dead in the middle of history — would have been absurd to anyone in the first century. Even if you were a Jew who believed in resurrection, that was a corporate event that would occur at the end of the age for all the faithful. The idea of individual, bodily resurrection in the middle of history was unthinkable, or maybe better, unbelievable. When Jesus died, what his disciples must have thought was: it’s over. We put our hope in him. We thought he was the one, and now it’s over.
The Doubting Disciples
This historical context makes clear why, despite Jesus’ clear claim that he would die and rise again on the third day, his disciples appear to have doubted the claims of others that he had in fact risen from the dead. In John 20, we have the famous “Doubting Thomas” episode that everyone knows. But Thomas isn’t unique in his doubt. This theme runs throughout the post-Easter scenes.
When the women returned from the empty tomb and reported what they had seen, Luke tells us that the disciples considered their testimony “an idle tale, and they did not believe them” (Luke 24:11 ESV). On the road to Emmaus, two disciples discuss the reports of resurrection with the risen Jesus himself walking beside them, and they remain unconvinced — and so Jesus calls them foolish and slow of heart to believe. When Jesus appears to the disciples in Luke 24, they think he is a ghost. He has to show them his hands and feet and ask for something to eat, and Luke says they still “disbelieved for joy” (Luke 24:41) — a remarkable phrase that suggests the news was too good, too impossible, to process.
Matthew describes a resurrection appearance in Galilee in which Jesus is physically present before the eleven, and the text plainly states that “some doubted” (Matt 28:17). Matthew is not saying that some had doubted beforehand and that, now, that doubt has disappeared. He is saying that, right there in that moment, even while Jesus is physically standing in their presence, some still doubted. Even Mary Magdalene, the first to witness the empty tomb, assumes the body has been stolen and initially mistakes the risen Jesus for a gardener until he speaks her name.
The doubt runs through every account, in every Gospel, among every category of witness. Thomas’s doubt is not the exception; it’s part of the pattern.
The Claim No One Expected
I say all of this so that we can be unambiguous about what Jesus’s first disciples claimed about the resurrection. From a historical perspective, Jesus’ death was not unique. Jesus was just one of several messianic upstarts that Rome dealt with the way that Rome does. But where Jesus is absolutely historically unique is in the claims that his doubting disciples made about what happened after he died. They didn’t say that Jesus had been raised spiritually to the right hand of God. They didn’t say that he lived on in their hearts. They didn’t say that they were going to keep him alive by furthering the movement he had started. If any of that had been what the early Christians wanted to say, there was no reason for doubt. The doubt only arises when they make the impossible claim that the one who died is bodily, physically alive again.
They claimed, unlike any of the followers of the other would-be messiahs put to death by Rome, that Jesus was alive bodily. Look at what Peter says in Acts 2. His argument is stunning:
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know — this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:22–24).
And then, as if he wants to drive the point home, Peter quotes Psalm 16, where David says, “You will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.”
Then Peter says:
“Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day” (Acts 2:29).
That’s the claim. David’s tomb is still occupied. Jesus’s tomb is empty because God raised him from the dead. The claim was so outrageous that even the disciples didn’t believe it at first, even though Jesus had told them plainly what would happen. When he tried to communicate it to them, they rebuked him. They tried to figure out what he really meant by saying he would die and rise again on the third day. Even when he told them plainly, they didn’t have the mental categories to understand what he was telling them. And frankly, I don’t think we have the mental categories today to understand this incredible event fully.
The Posture of Faith
All of this means there is room for doubt in the Christian life. The claim we make about Jesus is historically incredible. It is, by any ordinary measure, the most unbelievable thing anyone has ever asserted about something that happened in human history. And we believe it not because we have seen it with our own eyes but because we trust the testimony of those who did. That’s faith.
The disciples didn’t believe it until they saw him. Thomas didn’t believe it until Jesus stood before him and invited him to place his fingers in the wounds. Thomas said, “I will never believe.” Notice what Jesus does not do. He does not rebuke Thomas. He does not shame him for his doubt. He returns specifically for Thomas, stands before him, and gives him exactly what he needs to move from unbelief to belief. And what Thomas does in that moment is fall to his knees and make the greatest Christological confession in John’s Gospel: “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). The man we remember for his doubt is the first person in John’s Gospel to say out loud what John has been arguing from the very first verse.
And then Jesus says something truly remarkable, something that reaches straight past Thomas to every generation that has ever come after him:
“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).
That is us. On this side of the Second Coming, we will never see Jesus the way Thomas saw him. We were not there in that room. We will never touch the wounds.
We believe because the apostles testified, because the Church has carried that testimony across two thousand years, and because, by the grace of God, that testimony has found us here, in this room, on this Sunday. That belief is not a lesser form of faith. Jesus calls it blessed.
Peter understood this. That first chapter of his first epistle is extraordinary, and I regret that it doesn’t come around in the lectionary more often. Peter is writing to communities who have never seen Jesus bodily, who are suffering for their faith, who have every reason to abandon the claim as too costly and too incredible. He doesn’t tell them to try harder or to stop doubting. He marvels at what he sees in them:
“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” (1 Pet 1:8).
To love someone you have never seen. To trust a testimony about the most unbelievable event in human history. To keep believing in the face of suffering and doubt and the ordinary grinding difficulty of everyday life. Peter treats that not as the bare minimum of Christian faith but as something extraordinary, something commendable, something to be awed at.
So if you are here today carrying doubt, if you are feeling the weight of the world and wondering whether any of this is really true, you are in good company. The disciples doubted. Thomas doubted. The claim is genuinely incredible, and faith in it is not always easy or settled.
And it’s no good pretending that it is.
What matters is that you are here. What matters is that you have not walked away from the testimony. The disciples who doubted were the same disciples who eventually fell to their knees before the risen Christ. Doubt is not the end of the story. For Thomas, it was the beginning of the deepest, truest confession he ever made.
To believe this outrageous, historically incredible claim without having seen him, to love him without having seen him, to gather and worship him without having seen him — is not a deficiency. It is not second-rate faith. It is not a consolation prize for people who came into the world just a bit too late.
It is faith that comes as a gift from the God who raised Jesus from the dead and poured his Spirit into us. And that faith, Jesus says, is not in vain.
Jesus calls it blessed.
Amen.
Life Group Discussion Guide
Intro Prayer
Lord Jesus, we come to you with our questions and our doubts, our settled convictions and our uncertainties. Thank you for not shaming Thomas for his doubt, but for coming back specifically for him. As we open your word together, give us the honesty to wrestle with what we actually believe and why, and the faith to trust the testimony of those who saw you face to face. Amen.
Ice Breaker
Has there been a moment when something you were told turned out to be far more extraordinary than you had imagined? What was it like to realize the full weight of it?
Questions
Fr. Michael argues that the doubt in the resurrection accounts is not incidental but structural: it runs through every Gospel, among every category of witness. Why does that matter? What would we lose if the disciples had believed immediately and without question?
The disciples had heard Jesus say plainly that he would die and rise on the third day. And yet they still doubted. What does that tell us about the nature of the claim he was making, and about the limits of our mental categories for understanding it?
Luke says the disciples “disbelieved for joy.” What does that phrase open up? Have you ever found yourself unable to receive something because it was too good to process?
The historical pattern is consistent: when the messianic leader died, the movement collapsed. No one went home and claimed the dead leader had risen bodily. What does it tell us that the disciples, who had every cultural and historical reason to give up, made exactly that claim, even though they initially didn’t believe it themselves?
Peter’s argument in Acts 2 turns on a single contrast: David’s tomb is occupied, Jesus’s tomb is empty. How does that contrast function as an argument? Why does the bodily resurrection matter? Why wouldn’t a spiritual resurrection have been enough?
Thomas said, “I will never believe,” and Jesus came back specifically for him. Jesus does not rebuke him or shame him. What does that tell us about how Jesus handles doubt? What does it tell us about what Jesus wants from Thomas, and from us?
Jesus says those who believe without seeing are blessed. Peter, writing to people who have never seen Jesus, seems to marvel that they love him anyway. Do you experience your faith as something extraordinary, or has it become ordinary? What would it take to feel the weight of what it means to trust a two-thousand-year-old testimony?
Fr. Michael ends by saying that faith is not something we generate but something we receive as a gift. What difference does that make for how we relate to our own doubts and struggles?
Life Application
Identify one area of genuine doubt or uncertainty in your faith and bring it into the open this week, in prayer, in a conversation with someone you trust, or in a journal. The disciples who doubted were the same disciples who fell to their knees before the risen Christ. Doubt is not the end of the story. Treat it as the beginning of a question worth asking honestly.
Key Takeaways
Doubt in the resurrection appearances is not the exception. It runs through every account, in every Gospel, among every category of witness.
The claim the disciples made, bodily resurrection in the middle of history, had no precedent and no category. Even they didn’t believe it at first.
The historical pattern of failed messianic movements makes the disciples’ testimony more credible, not less. They had every reason to go home. They didn’t.
Jesus does not shame Thomas for his doubt. He comes back specifically for him and gives him exactly what he needs.
Believing without seeing is not second-rate faith. Jesus calls it blessed. Peter treats it as something extraordinary.
Faith is not something we produce. It is a gift from the God who raised Jesus from the dead and poured his Spirit into us.
Ending Prayer
Lord Jesus, you are the one who came back for Thomas. You are the one Peter’s communities loved without having seen. You are the one this testimony has been carrying across two thousand years, and by your grace, it has found us here. We confess that we have not seen you, that faith is not always easy or settled, and that we do not always know what to do with our doubts. Meet us in them. Give us what we cannot produce on our own. And let the faith you give us be the beginning of the deepest confession we have ever made. Amen.