Great Hanwood: St Thomas

Sermon for Easter 2, Sunday 12th April 2026, by The Revd Graham Phillips

Acts 2.14a, 22-32

John 30.19-30

Imagine the scene

The disciples have been with Jesus 24/7 for 3 years. Their lives have been turned around and they have witnessed amazing things - Jesus walking on water, feeding 5000 people from 2 loaves and 5 fishes and Jesus bringing dead people back to life and healing anyone who came to him, whatever their illness or disease. They have also seen Jesus command evil spirits to come out of people and they themselves have healed others in the name of Jesus. They have experienced first hand the charisma of Jesus, his love for all, especially the downtrodden, and have been taught about the presence of almighty God among them and with them, and have learnt that God is a loving Father who wants a relationship with every human being. Such transformative, such life changing experiences, filling them with wonder and hope, laying before them a future of ushering in the holiness of God, the presence of God for the rest of their lives. One can imagine what hopes, and dreams they had of taking these things into the wider world.

Then in the space of 48 hours, everything had changed and their world had collapsed. Jesus Christ, the one who they believed to be the promised Messiah, God’s saviour and redeemer, God’s Son, had been arrested, put on trial and condemned to death on a cross. A death set aside for criminals. The one who had brought others back from the dead was now dead and his cold body lay in a stone tomb.

Yet on the third day, the day that our reading refers to, extraordinary news began to filter through. Two women who had gone to the tomb to finish preparing Jesus’ body for burial declared that the tomb was empty, that an Angel had rolled the stone away and told them that Jesus was alive. That they themselves then saw the risen Jesus, had spoken with him, that it was undeniably him, alive again.

We can imagine that this news was like a glimmer of light breaking into the fractured, broken emotions, of the disciples, a shaft of warm hope into their confused numb minds. Maybe ..possibly ..what he had told them was true, that he would rise again after three days. Such news is just too good to be true, so unfathomable.

So it is no wonder that Thomas needed to see him alive for himself. And I love his response, “My Lord and my God.” What a whole hearted, whole body response. He fully recognises Jesus is God himself, and he worships him and declares him his Lord, the one he will follow and obey all the days of his life. And tradition states that Thomas went to south India and formed a church there which is still thriving today.

So what about us?

Do any of you live with uncertainty, fear? Do you worry about global issues like climate change, the wars in Iran and Ukraine, the threats from Russia? Do you have personal worries about family members or practical things like will I have I enough food in the house for this week? Can I afford to heat my home, run my car? Do you worry about our church community here? What will happen when Emma and I retire in three months time, how will we manage?

So many things we can worry about. It is easy to lock ourselves into our own emotions and shut the world out and keep God at bay. Yet God wishes to come into our secret places, and no locked door can keep him out, whatever your situation he can come in. So I invite you for a moment - if there are things you are worrying about, just hold them in your mind for a moment, name them one by one…. (pause) ..

Now imagine the risen Lord Jesus standing before you and hear the same words he spoke to his disciples - “Peace be with you….Peace be with you.”

Peace like an ever rolling stream. Peace that surpassed all understanding. Peace that only God can give….The word carries the sense of the Hebrew greeting “shalom,” a blessing that connotes more than tranquility a deep and holistic sense of well-being — the kind of peace the world cannot give. We yearn inwardly for this peace, the reassurance that God is with us whatever the situation and the risen Lord Jesus, gives us that affirmation.

And he does more than that, for the next words he spoke to his disciples apply to us today. Firstly he sends us, sends us as his disciples to reveal his love for us, and he empowers us to do this by breathing his Holy Spirit upon us. That same Holy Spirit that he breathed on those first disciples, that same third person of the Trinity who descended upon Jesus at his baptism, and upon the disciples at Pentecost, that empowered Jesus for his three years of ministry and similarly empowers and guides us now. The spirit of truth, the counsellor and helper who Jesus promised is available for us today, and he helps us to take up Jesus’ command to take the good news of Jesus’s resurrection to others, to proclaim it to all we meet, to live it out so that others will know. It is not a secret to be hushed up, whispered furtively but a declaration to be made to the whole world. Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia.

The final words that Jesus spoke to his disciples are to forgive each other and pass on that forgiveness to others, letting it be a beautiful fragrance that lifts people out of the poverty of unforgiveness into the richness of life that God desires and promises for us.

(So all this points to why we are baptising Reggie today.)

The death and resurrection of Jesus is the greatest news we can ever talk about. Through the death and resurrection of God’s beloved Son, we are set free from the wrongs we commit and think, are given access to the Holy Spirit and the opportunity to trust Jesus and follow him.

(This is the hope we have for Reggie today. This is what we are asking God to do in this service today. To adopt him into his family

So with this in mind, I encourage you, today and every day, to say the words that Thomas said, and to say them with meaning: My Lord and my God.

Amen

Great Hanwood: St Thomas

Sermon for Sunday 12th April 2026

Safeguarding

Guardians of Ancora