The following sermon was delivered by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on April 18, 1982. The title is, To Know Christ and to Make Him Known, and the scripture references John chapter 20, verses 19 through 31. 

... Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to John. I'm reading from the 20th chapter, beginning at the 19th verse. On the evening of that first Easter day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you.

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.

If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord.

But he said to them, unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and place my finger in the mark of the nails and place my hand in his side, I will not believe. Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you.

Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hands, and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not be faithless, but believing. Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God.

Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

The Gospel of the Lord. Three great themes emerge from this morning's Gospel reading, and I think it's fair to say that taken together they constitute a remarkably complete summary of our Christian calling. The first is that faith rests upon fact.

Faith rests upon fact. I don't know if you've heard it said that the disciples were silly, simple, gullible, superstitious fishermen, uneducated, ready to believe any nonsense that came down the pike. that's been alleged so loudly, so widely, so consistently.

And yet I challenge anybody who thinks that to take a look at the evidence. The disciples come off as anything but ready to believe. Jesus is continually rebuking them for their unbelief.

Sure, they were uneducated in a certain sense. They were not as sophisticated as we might be in a certain sense. But they were anything but ready to believe.

They were anything but gullible. As a matter of fact, it's not only the disciples, but virtually all the characters in the New Testament who, it seems to me, receive the things of faith with as tough-mindedness as the most contemporary of our scientists. The Gospel account begins with an angel coming in glory to speak to a man named Zechariah and tell him that his wife Elizabeth is going to have a child in her old age.

And Zechariah says, oh, praise God! No, he doesn't. He doesn't believe it for one second. He spends the next nine months in silence.

Mary comes to her espoused husband, Joseph, and she says, I'm pregnant with child by the Holy Ghost. And he says, sure you are. He wants to put her away.

he's not ready to believe neither at the beginning of the story nor at the end do you find gullibility Joseph may not know as much as you do about chromosomes but he knows that virgins don't get pregnant and he's not about to believe we come to the end of the story we were considering last week Mary Magdalene and the other women going to the tomb to complete the burial process and they arrive there Easter morning to find the stone rolled away, the body missing, and again an angel proclaiming resurrection. Does Mary Magdalene believe? No. She hangs around the garden weeping because she thinks somebody has come and stolen the body of Christ.

It's only when she meets Him personally that she's spun around from despair to joy. When the women go back and tell the disciples, huddled in an upper room, fearful of the Jews, the Lord is risen. Do you know what Scripture records their response to be?

The words seem to them an idle tale, and they didn't believe them. Silly women. They say about the women exactly what skeptics have said about the disciples ever since.

Gullible, silly, superstitious. We don't believe it. Two disciples, not part of the twelve apostles, two other disciples are on their way back to Emmaus.

They've heard about all this. They know the women's report, and they're going along moping, sad, confused, until Jesus himself comes along and joins himself to their little traveling party. And suddenly when they see him, they know.

but not until. They're not ready to believe. And then we learn that Jesus Himself appears amid the ten.

Judas has already gone out and hanged himself and Thomas is away for some reason. We don't know why. He was off on an errand and so there are ten left and they know what the women have said.

They don't believe it. Jesus Himself comes into the room. He makes Himself known to them and when Thomas gets back, They say, we've seen the Lord.

It's true. It's not just silly women. We've seen Him.

We men. I want you to get the dynamics of this. Thomas has spent three years of his life with these men.

They have gone through thick and thin together. They have given up everything and entrusted themselves not only to the Lord, but to each other. They've been dependent upon each other.

Thomas knows their character and their unanimous witnesses we've seen the Lord it's true and Thomas says unless I see it with my own eyes unless I can put my finger into the nail print unless I can put my hand into his side I'm not going to believe gullible ready to believe anything that comes down the pike not for a second Thomas' words sound defiantly skeptical yet it seems to me that beneath those words what he's expressing is a desire to know the truth for himself to know it personally not to acquiesce to it on second hand reports and the lovely thing about this gospel account is that Jesus honors that desire. Jesus sees beneath the words of apparent defiance. He sees that attitude of not being willing to settle for a second-hand report.

And Jesus comes and gives Thomas exactly the proof that he demands. I believe that if you take a look for yourself, you're going to find that the account is absolutely consistent in that. That Jesus does not rebuke honest inquiry, honest doubt, honest searching.

He welcomes it and he honors it. And he doesn't want people to leave their minds at the door and accept it second hand. He wants folks to know for themselves in every single case, the women, the ten in the upper room, the two on the road to Emmaus and Thomas himself, the thing that spun them around from despair to joy was an encounter with the living Christ.

And their faith rests upon fact, not hearsay. I take that as a great encouragement this morning. I believe that if your desire is to know the truth for yourself, that Jesus Christ will meet you in exactly the same way he met these earliest disciples. He may not come to you physically.

Those physical appearances were a very special thing. They lasted for 40 days and then he ascended. But he comes to the searcher no less really than he did to these first disciples.

He says, you'll know the truth and it'll make you free. He says, if anyone is really willing to do God's will, he'll know the truth of my teaching. That's the issue.

Are you willing to follow him makes Himself known to you. If it's just a game, show yourself to me so I can decide whether or not I'll follow you. I wouldn't wait too long for that prayer to be answered.

But if it's Lord, I want to know the truth. And I'm prepared to follow the truth where it leads me. If Jesus Christ is King, then I want Him to be my King and I'll follow Him wherever He leads.

But Lord, tell me, show me myself personally, I guarantee that prayer will be answered. I can't tell you how, but I guarantee it'll be answered. Jeremiah said the same thing. All of Scripture says the same thing.

Jeremiah said, you will search for me and you will find me when you search for me with all your heart. If you want to know the truth this morning, you ask God what to think about Jesus, and He'll meet you with an encounter with the living Lord. He does not want you to leave your brain at the door.

He wants your faith to rest upon fact, and He wants you to know Him personally. That's the first thing. Second thing is that Christ's presence equals His peace.

Christ's presence equals His peace. Did you notice? When he comes among the ten in the upper room, his first words are, Peace, be with you.

Then he has to repeat it a second time. Peace, be with you. When he comes back a week later, his first words to Thomas are, Peace, be with you.

He gives us an encounter with himself and that encounter is the gift of peace. And yet I want you to notice what he says immediately afterward. Peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. Think about that. How did the Father send him?

The Father sent him to mockery, to scourging, to crucifixion, to death and to hell itself. That's what he's just come through. He has just come through that.

And he says, as the Father has sent me, I send you. But I give you my peace. Do you understand what that's saying?

It's not the peace of comfortable circumstances. It's the peace of God in the midst of circumstances that might quite be intolerable. I'm reminded of the fact that earlier on, in the very same discourse where Jesus said, if the world has hated me, it will surely hate you.

If the world has persecuted me, it will surely persecute you. In the same discourse where he said that, he also said, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives. It's a different kind of peace.

It's not the peace of comfortable circumstances. It's the peace of God that keeps us in intolerable circumstances. It's the peace we speak about at the end of every communion service.

The peace of God which surpasses understanding. People will look at you and say, in the midst of that, how can you be at peace? And the answer is, because my peace is not dependent upon my circumstances.

It's the gift of God. My peace, says Jesus. To encounter Him personally is to come into the place of His support, His strength, His joy, His peace.

I say this because I believe that some of us, some perhaps in this very room, may be called to lay down our lives for this Lord Jesus. I don't think I've ever said that to you before. But that's a conviction that is growing in me almost daily.

As I see brothers and sisters around the world having to do exactly that, it is less and less conceivable to me that all of us would escape. Some of us may be called to some very tough things. And Jesus says, I've not called you away from tough things.

I've called you in the midst of them to know My peace. as the Father sent me, I send you, but I send you in my peace. That's the second thing.

Christ's presence equals His peace. And the third thing is that knowing Him carries with it the responsibility of making Him known. Because that's why He sends us.

He comes to us that we might know Him personally and immediately says, I send you out to do the very same thing that I've done to share this good news with others. He breathes on them His Holy Spirit. And He says, I want you to be the ones who would go out and release others from the bondage of sin just as you yourselves have been released.

I want you to go out and turn the keys of the kingdom in the door that has been locked and set people free to know Me and to come into reconciliation with Holy God. To know Him carries with it the responsibility and the privilege of making Him known. I've been listening to a tape this week from a lady named Marilyn Laszlo who is a Wycliffe Bible translator.

Some of us were at a meeting yesterday about Wycliffe Bible translation. We were studying a little bit about Papa New Guinea. That's exactly where she has been the last 16 years.

She wasn't part of yesterday's discussion, but it just happened that I was listening to her tape at the same time. She told about how she went out into the villages among some very, very primitive people by Western standards. Folks who have no written language previously.

And how she would listen to their language and she would begin to create a written alphabet for them and begin to reduce their language into written form. And that's the first step, so that she might then teach them how to read and write and then eventually share the Scriptures with them in their own language. And she told how the wonder of seeing their own language in writing was almost as great as the wonder afterward of hearing God's Word in that language.

The honor. They couldn't believe it. That their language was capable of being written down and read off that paper.

They couldn't believe it. They thought that was the white man's privilege. And she tells about this lovely old man who becomes her confidant and informer and who really helps her to learn the language.

He begins to see the dynamics of what's going on and spends a great deal of time with her. He's the principal source for this translation project. And one day, after quite a number of months have gone by, he says to her, Marilyn, did you know about us for a long time before you came?

It's a funny question, isn't it? Did you know about us for a long time? And she says, yes, I knew about you from the time I was a little girl.

and he says to her Marilyn why did you take so long? What took you so long to get here? God's talk in my own language those words are for me what took you so long?

You know that that's the experience of Wycliffe all over the world. That as they go into places that have never heard the Gospel, when people begin to hear it, they say, what took you so long? Some of us were studying the second letter of Peter not very long ago, and we came to the passage that suggests that the reason, the reason that Jesus has delayed His return is that we might tell others about Him.

The reason! There's only one reason why He didn't come back in glory during that first generation. And that's that more and more people throughout the whole wide world might know Him.

And that's why He's delayed till now. And I reflected on the question, supposing that Jesus were to come to me and say, John, the reason I delayed is that you might tell your next door neighbor. Supposing He came to you and said, I delayed my return so that you might tell that fellow that you work with.

That member of your family, that cousin or that brother or sister or that parent. That's why I delayed. And you didn't do it.

Knowing this Lord Jesus Christ carries with it the privilege and the responsibility of making Him known. So He comes to us in a personal way. That our faith might rest not upon fantasy, but upon fact.

And as we come to know Him, He gives us a peace that surpasses understanding. A peace that will keep us in the midst of whatever circumstances. A peace that is not dependent upon what's going on around us, but dependent on what's going on inside us.

And He says, I send you out to bear this good news to others. Others for whom I've died. Others that I love as much as I love you.

That's the reason that I delay my return. I empower you to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. And that's what Easter is all about.

Not just that we might have it to ourselves, but that we might share it with others. Let's bow our heads together. Lord Jesus Christ, we would come to You this morning.

It may be that there are some among us who have never really met You in a personal way. we'd ask you to make yourself known to them as you did to Thomas as you did to the other disciples as you did to Mary Magdalene we'd ask you to come to each one of us and make yourself known this day more powerfully than perhaps we've ever known you before and to give to us the strength the joy, the peace in knowing you that would keep us in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. And the courage and the enthusiasm to go and share this good news with whomsoever You would put in our path.

How extraordinary that You would entrust this Gospel to such as we. Lord, we would be bold in telling about You to those around us for your great namesake. Amen.

Amen.