Show Me

Based on Luke 24:36-49

Missouri is famously known as the “Show Me” state. There are many stories about how Missouri got this moniker. The one that is most likely the right story, according to Missouri’s government website, goes like this:

The most widely known legend attributes the phrase to Missouri's U.S. Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver, who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1897 to 1903. While a member of the U.S. House Committee on Naval Affairs, Vandiver attended an 1899 naval banquet in Philadelphia. In a speech there, he declared, "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me." Regardless of whether Vandiver coined the phrase, it is certain that his speech helped to popularize the saying.

“Show me, don’t tell me”, “seeing is believing”, these are often heard phrases that point to our need for evidence to support what people are asserting to be true. Certainly, for those who are skeptical and don’t want to be duped, they are unwilling to take things at face value. They want to see the data. They want to go and see for themselves. They want video evidence. Especially if the stakes are high, we want claims and assertions to be backed up with facts and evidence. Nobody is going to trust a Coronavirus vaccine just because a drug maker says it is effective. There needs to be a lot of evidence to support that claim before the vaccine is injected into the arms of millions of people. People are found guilty in court trials based on evidence, not on what someone claims. There must be proof to back up the accusation. But what do you do if you know something to be true, but you can’t produce any evidence to back up your claim? I shudder to think of how many perpetrators of assault have never been held to account for their actions because there was no evidence to back up the claim. Sometimes truth claims have to be believed without visible evidence. You have to take it on faith and trust that what the person is telling you is the truth. That’s easier for some to accept than others.

Let’s consider what the disciples of Jesus had to contend with after Jesus rose from the dead. They were blessed with physical evidence that demonstrated that Jesus truly was alive. He showed them multiple ways that it really was him and not a ghost. He had them see the wounds in his hands and feet. He let them touch his body. He ate a piece of fish in their presence. This was clear evidence that he was alive again. The disciples did not have to take the word of the two disciples who said that they were with Jesus on the road to Emmaus. All the disciples could see for themselves physical evidence that it was true. Jesus is alive.

Having seen for themselves that Jesus is alive, Jesus now opens their minds so they could understand the scriptures that were written about him in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms. Which scriptures were these? Oh, how I wish Luke had been more explicit! Which scriptures did Jesus point to when he opened the minds of his disciples? Maybe from Moses Jesus pointed to Numbers 21:8-9, “So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.” Or Isaiah 53, “He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, and by his bruises we are healed.” Or Psalm 22, “Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn.” Whatever the scriptures were, we see a process unfolding. Jesus had pointed to the scriptures while he was with them but they didn’t understand. They had to have some experiences first. They had to experience Jesus being arrested, beaten and executed. They had to endure the grief and confusion of the immediate aftermath. They had to experience Jesus standing in their midst as the resurrected Christ. It was after these experiences that they were ready for Jesus to then open their minds so they could come to an understanding of what the scriptures said about Jesus. Experience is followed by or informs the interpretation of scripture as their minds are opened to a clearer understanding.

The disciples are now equipped. They have had these experiences. They have seen with their own eyes and touched with their own hands the resurrected Christ. They have received from him these scripture based teachings that demonstrate who Jesus is as the messiah who suffered and then rose on the third day, the one from whom repentance and forgiveness of sins can be obtained. Once they are empowered with the Holy Spirit, they will begin in Jerusalem and then move out into the rest of the world proclaiming Jesus and witnessing to their experience. And from generation to generation this witness of the resurrected Jesus has been passed down up to this very day. Billions of people on earth currently believe that Jesus rose from the dead and that in his name there is forgiveness of sins. 

Still, there is that nagging need for evidence. Jesus gave the disciples physical evidence of his resurrection. He enabled them to understand the scriptures. But the disciples could not bring Jesus along with them when they went out to proclaim the message. Jesus left. For people to believe the disciples they are going to need some kind of evidence to back up these claims without having the evidence, which is the physical presence of Jesus. How will they do this? How will they be able to back up their claims to a “seeing is believing” world?

I think this passage from Luke gives us a few clues of the evidence that the disciples will have available to demonstrate the truth of what they are saying. The good news for us is that what evidence they had to use is also available to us as we continue this work of bearing witness to the resurrected Jesus.

I talked about this last week, but notice that when Jesus appears in the midst of the disciples the first words he speaks are, “Peace be with you.” Jesus is the giver of peace. In the midst of confusion and fear, Jesus offers inner peace. This is one of the pieces of evidence that the disciples carried with them as they went about their work of bearing witness to Jesus. They experienced much persecution and abuse. But when faced with great resistance, they possessed an inner peace that Jesus bestowed on them. It was that inner peace that provided evidence of the truth they were proclaiming. And if the many stories of the martyrs are to be believed, in which Christians were tortured and killed in many creative ways, and faced their suffering and death with an inner peace and calm, that is some powerful evidence.

So, Jesus gives the disciples peace as evidence, and he gives them the capacity to forgive sins. I immediately think of how Jesus models this when he is on the cross and looks down at his accusers and says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” That capacity to forgive is also a powerful form of evidence. When the disciples contended with their own suffering and abuse as they gave witness, they had the capacity to offer forgiveness to their accusers and abusers. Evidence of the risen Christ.

There is one more piece of evidence that Jesus supplies to the disciples that is hinted at in verse 49. Jesus said to them, “I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” What is it that the Father promised? The Holy Spirit, which descended on the disciples as they were gathered together in that room on Pentecost, the fiftieth day after the resurrection. The presence of the Holy Spirit within the disciples is a powerful demonstration of evidence. The book of Acts catalogues many of the ways that the Spirit provided evidence to support what the disciples were saying about Jesus. For us, we can look to the fruits of the spirit as the ways we can provide evidence of at least our trustworthiness: the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

This is the big point that I want to make. Our mandate is to bear witness to the good news that Jesus is the messiah and that in his name there is forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. The evidence we possess to support this claim really lies in our character. Lacking the physical evidence of Jesus walking around with us, the only way our witness can be convincing is by a demonstration of our trustworthiness, our personal credibility. We build and demonstrate that credibility in our capacity to maintain inner peace in the midst of chaos, the capacity to forgive people, and the demonstration of the virtues that manifest the Holy Spirit. These are the evidences that we provide to support our claim that the resurrected Christ is the savior of the world.

There’s another popular phrase coined by St. Francis that perhaps many of you have heard: “Preach the gospel at all times, use words only when necessary.” So much wisdom in that statement. For people to come to belief in the gospel they have to experience it first and then be given the language to unpack and understand what they have experienced. It’s the same process that we see in this passage from Luke. The disciples had to experience for themselves the grief of losing Jesus and the joy of seeing Jesus with them again before they could comprehend the words about Jesus in the scriptures. Experience leads to openness and understanding. This is the method that we are called to embody in our daily lives. In a way, our lives become the evidence of the truth of Jesus. We become known as followers of Jesus by our love. And as people experience us, and the Spirit stirs up openness to receive our words, we may yet have that necessary opportunity to speak with words the good news that in the name of Jesus there is forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God along with the promise of everlasting life in our own resurrected bodies.