"I Believe”
- Dr. Todd R. Wright
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
I think John is exploring something slightly different in his gospel: how people believe.
John 20:19-31
April 12, 2026
Dr. Todd R. Wright
Almost 20 years ago a book, This I Believe, based on the NPR series of the same name, collected short essays by eighty Americans. Some of the names you would recognize – like Bill Gates or Colin Powell or Anthony Fauci, but the rest are by people like us. They cover topics like:
“There Is No Job More Important Than Parenting”
“The Benefits of Restlessness and Jagged Edges”
or “The Power and Mystery of Naming Things”
But I was struck by one that seemed to tie in with today’s text: “An Honest Doubter”[2]
When this essay originally aired in the 1950s, Elizabeth Deutsch (then 16 years old) became the youngest contributor to the radio program. She shared three phrases that guide her …
“The one rule that could serve anyone in almost any situation is, ‘To see what must be done and not to do it, is a crime.’ Urged on by this, I volunteer for distasteful tasks or pick up scrap paper from the floor.
‘The difficult we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer.’ This is the motto of a potential scientist, already struggling to unravel the mysteries of life. It rings with the optimism youth needs in order to stand up against trouble or failure.”
And finally, “Jonathan Edwards, a Puritan minister, resolved never to do anything out of revenge. I have accepted this resolution. Since revenge and retaliation seem to have been accepted by nations today, I sometimes have difficulty reconciling my moral convictions with the tangled world being handed down to us by the adults. [I will] follow my principles, with the hope that enough of this feeling will rub off on my associates to begin a chain reaction.
She concludes, “I have a simple faith in the Deity and a hope that my attempts to live a decent life are pleasing to Him. Many of my friends have already chosen a religion to follow, usually that of their parents, and are bound to it by many ties. I am still ‘free-lancing’, searching for beliefs to guide me when I am an adult. If I am mistaken, I am too young to realize my error. Sometimes, in a moment of despair, I think of the words, “God loves an honest doubter,” and I am comforted.”
Most of the essays in the book, including Deutsche’s, focus on what people believe.
I think John is exploring something slightly different in his gospel: how people believe.
He recounts Thomas’s escalating demands:
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands …;
[no, unless I] put my finger in the mark of the nails …;
[no, unless I put] my hand in his side … I will not believe!”
He needs to see and touch and feel to be able to believe.
Some have labeled him as a doubter; but really, he’s just asking for what others experienced.
So what would it take for you to believe?
Would you need to see? To hear? To touch?
About 5 years after the This I Believe book came out, Michael Landy produced a piece called “Doubting Thomas” for the National Gallery in London. (It’s reproduced on the cover of your bulletin.)
The write-up says …
“Inspired by the kinetic sculptures of Jean Tinguely, [Landy’s piece] combined found objects and scrap materials (cogs, springs, and pipes) with [a] renderings of Christ’s torso and Thomas’s hand as represented in Giovanni Batista Cima’s ‘The Incredulity of Saint Thomas’.”[3]
But here is where things get interesting! The guide reports:
“Visitors were invited to press a foot pedal, which activated a mechanism causing the finger to poke the wound.”
Can you guess what happened? Did people feel the need to poke the wound? It goes on:
“A piece of metal attached to the finger eventually bored a large hole in the torso, which had to be replaced several times throughout the [seven month-long] exhibition.”
Apparently, lots of people needed to touch.
Now, maybe they were just curious, or swept up in doing what everybody else was doing, but I think this exhibit showed where a lot of us find ourselves.
We are no more ready to believe, spontaneously, than Thomas … or Mary Magdalene, or the rest.
We need to touch, or see, or hear in order to believe.
The obvious problem is that while Jesus appeared to many people in the hours, and days, and weeks after his resurrection, he eventually went back to heaven.
Some will say that doesn’t bother them. They trust the witnesses. They don’t need to touch or see or hear. In fact, they say, if you need proof, then you don’t really believe.
Others will say that without tangible proof, they cannot believe.
I think that’s why so many have latched on to the Shroud of Turin. If it is real; if it really does show the face and wounds of our Savior, then they have their proof.
But, what if we could hear and see the risen Lord?
We have the scriptural accounts of what Jesus did and said after Easter.
These witnesses allow us to hear him: greeting his followers with words of peace, of forgiveness, of commission. Words that, by extension, are for us too!
Sometimes we go looking for Jesus’ words, and sometimes they are delivered to us on the lips of wise mentors, or somebody at work, or a child asking questions.
When they quote Jesus, his words are just as comforting, inspiring, hard, or hopeful as they were for his first disciples.
They tell us to love God with all we have, to love our neighbors, to love our enemies.
They tell us stories about the kingdom of God and challenge us to build it together.
They ask us who people say Jesus is, and what belongs to God and what to Caesar.
They promise that the storm will still and that he will always be with us.
And when they do, I swear I can hear Jesus’ voice.
And it is not just scripture that invites us to believe.
We see Jesus in the faces and actions of others.
Sometimes it’s the saints who have been trying to imitate Christ, so it’s expected.
Like when we made breakfast yesterday at Ronald McDonald House for people who are blessing the little children.
Or Friday, when we hosted a bunch of people in our fellowship hall who, in the face of powerlessness, turn themselves over to God’s care and seek to help others to find help too!
Or today, when we make soup – not enough for 5,000, but enough to feed the hungry.
But sometimes, if we squint, we see the Risen Lord in unexpected places and people:
Like those volunteers who offer water and snacks to runners in today’s marathon, like Jesus offering fish and bread to his bewildered disciples on a beach.
Or Shabnam Nasimi, whose family fled Afghanistan, who has taken to YouTube in the wake of the President’s threat to wipe out the entire Persian civilization, to call for mercy for ordinary Iranians who have risked their lives to protest an unjust government, like Jesus showed consistent mercy to Samaritans, that old enemy of the Jews.[4]
Or the guy with the carboard sign who says not “thank you!” but “bless you!” just like Christ!
So, in the wake of Easter, how will you believe? And how will your belief be formed by what you see and hear? Amen
[1] “Doubting Thomas” by Michael Landy, Installation view, The National Gallery, London
[2] For the transcript of the radio essay, see https://dl.tufts.edu/concern/audios/9306t843x#transcript
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