Acts 3:12a, 13-15, 17-26 | Psalm 118:19-24 | I John 5:1-6 | John 20:19-31

Good morning everyone. I am a bit nervous this morning. This is the first time I have preached before Father Certain. For those of you that remember the first time I preached here, he was conveniently out of town. Yesterday, after two hard weeks of working he took a very much deserved day off. You know who he sent to hear me preach last night since he was not here was the President, Gerald Ford and the secret service.

But as we gather here today continuing in the Easter joy and we had a joyous Easter here at St. Margaret's. I am still recovering from bumps and bruises from knocking over the three and four year olds at the egg hunt. I had more chocolate then I had had in a long time and I was up till about 3am, it was great.

It was a glorious week here. We had Maundy Thursday where we celebrated the Eucharist. We went through Good Friday as we remember Christ's crucifixion and death. Then we had the Easter Vigil service. This was the first time we had had one in a few years. Fire outside, parade around. Part way through the service I caught a glimpse of someone in a purple shirt with a white collar and a big cross on his chest. I said, "Great, a Bishop." The Bishop from Los Angeles was here. Easter Sunday was just glorious.

I would like to tell a couple of quick stories about Easter morning. I got here early and Father Robert was all ready here setting up chapel. He is working with the lights and they were blinking and the microphone was not working at 100%. Father Robert had that stern look on his face. We finally things working. We entered the church and the motor from an air conditioner unit in the back shorted out and there was a puff of smoke. Father Robert looked at me and said, "Bower what did you do?" I said, "Boss, I did not do anything." He must have heard about one of the churches I had been at in Texas, it was raining during our Eater Vigil service and we had the bright idea of bringing our fire into the church. I was carrying this hibachi grill inside with a big fire going and when they opened the church doors the air conditioner blew strongly and singed my eyebrows and I dropped the hibachi and the carpet caught on fire and the smoke alarms and sprinkler turned. Everyone was stomping out the fire and an older gentleman turned to me and said, "You wanted smells and bells, you got it."

Our altar guild and everyone who helped make it a wonderful day. Praise to John Wright and the choir for their beautiful music. It reminded me of a time after Easter when a man came up to me, "I want to talk to you about Easter." I am thinking, "Great." He looked at me and said, "We had great music, great flowers, and an Easter egg hunt." I said, "Yea!" He looked at me and said, "So what." My heart just sank. He said, "I have kept the paper for the last week and the Monday after Easter some kid walked into a school and shot some people. Tuesday, somebody declared war in a country way far away. On Wednesday, some young person in Israel strapped a bomb to himself and blew himself up. Thursday, some CEO was indicted for bilking millions of dollars out of a 401K account. Now you tell me where God was. Father I am beginning to doubt."

This gentleman, like many of us are afraid to test out faith. Somehow we think that doubt is a sin that has to be confessed in church. We are afraid to show our doubt. Throughout the all of scriptures we see how people have had doubts. Abraham, Moses or Job. For thirty chapters, Job in the old testament, he doubts everything. In the new testament, Peter doubts so much that he ends up denying Christ three times. Doubt is part of our human condition.

In the Gospel story today we meet Thomas. It is a wonderful story about doubt. Thomas says, "Unless I can put my finger on his palm and my hand on his side, I just can't believe." I think Thomas shows us three qualities that can lead us to conviction of belief. I would like to share them with you this morning.

Number one, Thomas shows courageous doubt. There are two types of doubting. One is the cowardly doubting that says I do not want to believe. Believing is too much work. You have to study too much and read too much of the Bible. Every belief is okay. Every belief is random and every belief is equal and I am comfortable in my doubting. That is cowardly doubting. Courageous doubt is the doubter that says, "I need to experience truth. I need experience God in my life so that I may know in my heart and mind that Jesus and God are truly present in our world. I have to experience that." That is courageous doubting. We are called to be people that doubt that are moved to believe.

When I was talking to Father Robert back in January about coming here, I did not know whether this was where God was leading me. It was very uncertain for awhile and God kept showing me the way. God kept applying himself but it is okay to doubt. There was a philosopher who once said, "When we meet God, we meet God in the fringe of skeptical doubt." On the fringe, when I am most uncertain, that is where I meet God.

The second type of quality that Thomas show us is what I call courageous humility. We have been reading in the 20^th chapter of John's Gospel where Jesus comes in the room of the disciples. Earlier on in the story, the night before when Jesus meets with the disciples before he dies and he tells them while Thomas is there, "I have to go, I am going to be crucified and die and I will prepare a place for you. I will show you the way and prepare a place for you to go." Thomas says, "Wait, I do not know the way." Remember the wonderful lines that Jesus says, "I am way. I am the truth. I am the life." Thomas has the humility to say, "I do not know." We are called to be people who admit that we do not know all the answers.

It is interesting that Thomas means, the twin, two. If you look up the word `doubt' in the dictionary, it comes from a latin word that also mean s two. Doubt is a wavering between two decisions, two ideas, two truths, or two ways. Belief is having one in mind that this is the truth. But somehow we have decided to say that doubting is a bad thing. People have told us throughout history that the opposite of faith is not doubt, it is indifference. Doubt is okay. It is when we are indifferent that God is angry, I think. We are called to be passionate even in our doubt. Thomas said passionately, "I have to know. I have to put my hands in the nail prints and on his side to believe."

It is that sense of I don't know and courageous humility that leads us to the third quality of Thomas. I call it courageous surrender. When we are having that sense of courageous doubt and humbled before God and say "I don't know." Our only choice is to surrender ourselves and lives to the Lord. The scriptures says, "I have to put my hands in the nail prints and hands on his side." So Jesus comes into the locked room and tells Thomas to put his hands on my hands and on my side. The scriptures tells that Thomas knelt to the ground and said, "My Lord, and my God." Jesus is my Lord and my God. Did you notice what the scriptures did not say? They don't say whether he actually did it or not. We have no clue whether Thomas actually put his hand on Jesus but with faith and humility he surrenders himself.

We are called to surrender our lives to the Lord. To give everything we have. If we do that, we will understand what the readings say this morning. From First John, "Who are the conquerors of the world?" The conquerors of the world are the people who believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the Living God. We have the ability to transform our lives and transform our families, transform our churches and our world. We can conquer the world for Christ if we allow that to happen. God so desperately wants to change your life this day. It is with that complete surrender that Father Robert talked about in his Easter message last week. He talked about the prodigal son story and the father in the midst of his son's doubt he runs to him and throws his arms around him and kisses him on the cheek and says, "Welcome home, my son."

Then we are called to be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. To be converted for Christ. To be changed people. If the Easter miracle happens, and it happens to me, I treat my wife differently and spend more time with my children. I will treat my friends and colleagues differently. I am transformed and if I can transform myself I can transform the world.

The Easter miracle, the resurrection simply does not create thing, it releases it. Something that is formed within us and with God's grace we are called to reconcile with God and say, "Lord, we are a sinful people. I surrender myself. I surrender my doubts, my uncertainties. I now believe in you."

I would like to close with a quote that I found the other day. In my life doubt sees the obstacles, faith sees the way. Doubt sees the darkest of nights, faith sees the light of day. Doubt dreads to take a step, faith soars on high. Doubt questions, "Who could believe." Faith answers, "I."

If we have courageous doubts, we have courageous humility. If we have courageous surrender, we can conquer the world with our beliefs. Truly the Easter miracle will happen. We will say as Father Certain proclaimed with us earlier in the service, "Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord has risen indeed. And it has happened to me."

Amen

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