“Faith and Doubt: Two Sides of the Same Coin”Main point: St. Thomas the Apostle is a worthy muse to lead us into the realm of Christian faith rooted in the resurrection of Jesus.BLESSING THE CHILDRENSERMONIntroductionEaster greetings from Pastor Amy Dillard. She sent a text to me on Easter wishing you all the blessings of the resurrection. With all of the hubbub of that great feast day, I forgot to pass along her greetings, so I am doing that now.Also, Easter greetings from our Bishop Amy Current. You might like to know that four times/year the Bishop gives the gift of a pre-recorded sermon to the pastors in our synod. One of those is the Sunday following Easter to give us a chance to catch our breath. In these sermons the Bishop would be able to greet you herself. I arranged to use her gift this morning for worship, but I made the mistake of reading our gospel on Monday as I typically do when I prepare for a Sermon for the coming weekend. This gospel planted a seed so deeply in my mind that I couldn’t shake it. So I hope you all and the Bishop do not think me ungrateful for her gift, but I couldn’t help but organize a few thoughts of my own concerning this encounter with St. Thomas.The more I thought about Thomas this week, the more I was drawn into him. I wanted to study him, because there seemed to be so much more to this person and this episode that merits more than a casual glance. St. Thomas the Apostle is a worthwhile muse to lead us into the realm of Christian faith rooted in the resurrection of Jesus. Part 1: A Brief BiographyWho is Thomas?Often referred to as “Thomas the Doubter” or Doubting Thomas.Thomas the Apostle - Feast Day is July 3rd.Thomas the TwinThomas the MartyrSt. Thomas comes with his own unique tradition and story.Tradition tells us that the 12 apostles cast lots to decide who would carry the message of Jesus to the areas of the world beyond the city of Jerusalem and the region of Judea. You may recall that Jesus told his followers to carry the message of his victory over sin, death, and the evil forces of the world to the ends of the earth.The lot fell on Thomas to travel eastward toward what is now India. The story goes that Thomas desperately did not want to go to the east so the Lord appeared to Thomas to assure him that this was his calling and that he would not be alone. God would go with him.Thomas’ contributions are often overlooked in our western/latin church, but this is not so in the eastern church. In fact, there are entire church traditions, some of them Lutheran (co-members, like us, in the Lutheran World Federation), who trace their apostolic heritage all the way back to St. Thomas instead of St. Peter.

Ver todos los episodios