Monthly Archives: December 2015

Unknown's avatar Rev. David J. Schreffler 4:44 am on December 21, 2015
Tags: , Thomas   

St. Thomas — Rev. David J. Schreffler

                                                                                    December 21, 2015

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:1 – 6

“IMAGINATION WAS NOT Thomas’s long suit. He called a spade a spade. He was a realist. He didn’t believe in fairy tales, and if anything else came up that he didn’t believe in or couldn’t understand, his questions could be pretty direct. There was the last time he and the others had supper with Jesus, for instance. Jesus was talking about dying, and he said he would be leaving them soon, but it wouldn’t be forever. He said he’d get things ready for them as soon as he got where he was going, and when their time finally came too, they’d all be together again. They knew the way he was going, he said, and some day they’d be there with him themselves.

Nobody else breathed a word, but Thomas couldn’t hold back. When you got right down to it, he said, he personally had no idea where Jesus was going, and he didn’t know the way to get there either. “I am the way,” was what Jesus said to him (John 14:6), and although Thomas let it go at that, you can’t help feeling that he found the answer less than satisfactory. Jesus wasn’t a way, he was a man, and it was too bad he so often insisted on talking in riddles.

Then in the next few days all the things that everybody could see were going to happen happened, and Jesus was dead just as he’d said he’d be. That much Thomas was sure of. He’d been on hand himself. There was no doubt about it. And then the thing that nobody had ever been quite able to believe would happen happened too. Thomas wasn’t around at the time, but all the rest of them were. They were sitting crowded together in a room with the door locked and the shades drawn, scared sick they’d be the ones to get it next, when suddenly Jesus came in. He wasn’t a ghost you could see the wallpaper through, and he wasn’t just a figment of their imagination because they were all too busy imagining the horrors that were all too likely in store for themselves to imagine anything much about anybody else. He said shalom and then showed them enough of where the Romans had let him have it to convince them he was as real as they were if not more so. He breathed the Holy Spirit on them and gave them a few instructions to go with it, and then left.

Nobody says where Thomas was at the time. One good thing about not having too much of an imagination is that you’re not apt to work yourself up into quite as much of a panic as Thomas’s friends had, for example, and maybe he’d gone out for a cup of coffee or just to sit in the park for a while and watch the pigeons. Anyway, when he finally returned and they told him what had happened, his reaction was just about what they might have expected. He said that unless Jesus came back again so he could not only see the nail marks for himself but actually touch them, he was afraid that, much as he hated to say so, he simply couldn’t believe that what they had seen was anything more than the product of wishful thinking or an optical illusion of an unusually vivid kind. Eight days later, when Jesus did come back, Thomas was there and got his wish. Jesus let him see him and hear him and touch him, and not even Thomas could hold out against evidence like that. He had no questions left to ask and not enough energy left to ask them with even if he’d had a couple. All he could say was, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28), and Jesus seemed to consider that under the circumstances that was enough. Then Jesus asked a question of his own. “Have you believed because you have seen me?” he said and then added, addressing himself to all the generations that have come since, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (John 20:29). Even though he said the greater blessing is for those who can believe without seeing, it’s hard to imagine that there’s a believer anywhere who wouldn’t have traded places with Thomas, given the chance, and seen that face and heard that voice and touched those ruined hands.” (Frederick Buechner, Thomas, From his webpage and blog)

There is a lot we know about Thomas, and a lot we do not. For example, why was he absent when Jesus first appeared to his disciples? Why was he called the twin? These are things we may never know. We do know that he needed to see Jesus before he celebrated the resurrection – he has been unfairly called a doubter – and he wanted to one the way of Jesus. Thomas reminds us that people who question and people who need more facts are not condemned by Jesus – instead they are given what they request. Thank you Thomas for being you….and me.

Pastor Dave

Unknown's avatar Rev. David J. Schreffler 4:44 am on December 20, 2015
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A Christian Museum? — Rev. David J. Schreffler

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December 20, 2015
Sunday

“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Luke 1:41 – 42

“Christmas is G-d at work with rescue. Joseph was told to name the baby “Jesus” because He would be the Savior, the one chosen by G-d to redeem His people. Dimly but surely in the faith of the earliest people was this ingredient: that G-d had rescue in need, help from death. Above all, this was the hope of that faith: that G-d whom men might cast aside would not cast them off, that He might return and forgive, that He would have mercy. He (G-d) has done what He could, the Lord of heaven and earth, in order to rescue us: He has given His own Son!” Richard R. Caemmerer, Sr. (1904 – 1984) A Sermon: “In Advent, Wait for Rescue” “For All The Saints” volume III, (p. 125 – 126)

There is the old story told about the Life Saving Station that was built along a long strip of coastline far away from civilization. The station was famous for their quick action in the midst of a calamity. The station was a crude building housing just the basics needed for the rescue of those lost on the sea. But soon, members of the rescue station began to question their surroundings. If they were to be the first rate saving station everyone talked about, they should have a first rate building. So the people went to work to build a new life saving station building. While they were in the midst of their building campaign, the saving of lives continued in earnest. But those who were responsible for the rescue of strangers said they needed first rate equipment if they were to be housed in a first rate building. So the effort was put forth to secure first rate equipment, while the saving of lives continued. But over time,while the efforts to update their building and their equipment was utmost on their minds, it allowed less and less time to rescue strangers. And those who built the new building said “We do not want the building being ruined by these strangers who come in wet and soiled – they will ruin these first rate facilities.” And those who rescued the strangers said “All of these rescues of strangers are damaging our new equipment, or at least they are taking away their luster, and if we have a shiny new building, we want shiny new equipment.”

In time, the people of the area boasted of the first rate Life Saving Station, and they showed people the new shiny equipment housed in the first rate Life Saving Station. People were still being lost on the sea, but few people were rescued any more.

G-d wants us to be in the business of rescue. Our G-d, who rescues us from sin, death and the devil through Jesus Christ, asks us to do the same. We are to be the hands and feet of Christ. Yes, we all want to have first rate buildings, and first rate life saving equipment. But, if we focus only on protecting our building and facilities, rather than inviting strangers into our midst, we will have a beautiful building filled with shiny life saving equipment, but it will serve only as a museum for those who want to know what Christianity used to be about.

Pastor Dave