That you may come to believe
The Rev. Canon Frank Logue gave this sermon
on a Diocese of Georgia livestream
from his home on April 19, 2020.
That you may come to believe
John 20:19-31
This morning, I want to focus not on Thomas’ doubts, but on John’s certainty. For the author of the Gospel just told us in our lesson why he wrote the book saying, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 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.”
The Beloved Disciple had seen many thousands of people who had never seen Jesus come to believe. The Gospel of John was written so that yet more people will come to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. So, I want to take this brief time this Sunday to spell out succinctly why I while I know what we teach cannot be proved in the same way one can demonstrate that the world is round, faith in God as known in Jesus is not irrational.
First, no one doubts the fact of Jesus in that historians of various religious backgrounds and perspectives all agree on some basic information on his life. Besides the Bible, we have records of Jesus from other sources, especially from people who were not Christians. Both the Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius wrote about Jesus, as did the Jewish historian Josephus.
Even skeptics can agree that:
- Jesus was a Palestinian Jew lived and died in present-day Israel and had a ministry that was connected to the also well-documented prophet called John the Baptist;
- The Romans executed Jesus by crucifixion; and,
- Jesus’ disciples continued following Jesus after his death, teaching that he was the Son of God.
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In order to say that Tutankhamen was a Pharaoh in Egypt or that Julius Caesar was assassinated by Roman Senators we rely on the same sort of evidence that tells us that Jesus was a real man. Of course, making claims about divinity is another order of statement all together. But let’s take this one step at a time.
After all, I can say that I know there is an Outer Banks of North Carolina and I know there is a Kathmandu, Nepal. I just don’t know those two facts the same way. I know there is a Kathmandu as Victoria and I spent two months there on our honeymoon. It’s not too much of a statement of faith to say that the city continues to exist even though we haven’t been there for 34 years. The same sources of information that told me the place existed before I visited, tell me of its continued existence.
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