Rumours, Doubt, and Facebook

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

What is our Gospel really about today? On the surface it is about belief. It is about believing the Good News that Jesus preached during his life. It is about believing that Jesus was the Son of God. It is about believing that Jesus rose from the grave and walked among the disciples. It is about believing that Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is still among us today.

All of that is true. Our Gospel is about these things, but that is only the surface. Like so many passages in the Bible, the surface meaning is very powerful, but there is much more to learn. The words that contain God’s Word are not so shallow. Words seldom are.

Let’s look at our reading more closely. Jesus and his disciples were Jews. They were an upstart sect of Judaism which did not fit with the most powerful group or groups of Jews. By the time this story was written, they had been thrown out of the Temple. If anyone found out that you were one of Jesus’ followers, it could be very bad for you. They were afraid and they were hiding what they were doing. So our story is about fear.

Jesus came and talked to them. He proved who he was and told them what they were to do. He breathed the Holy Spirit upon them and gave them the power to forgive and retain sins. This is the first ordination in Christ’s church. Our story is about priesthood.

Thomas, who had by now spent years with this small group of friends, wasn’t there when Jesus came. Thomas did not believe them. He had to see for himself. (I can’t imagine that made them feel very good). So our story is about doubt and mistrust and pain.

Then Jesus comes again when Thomas is there. Thomas sees and believes. So our story is about belief again.
Finally, Jesus did many other signs that are not recorded. So our story tells us that we should trust the message of Jesus without knowing the whole story.

So let’s see. Our story is about fear, priesthood, doubt, mistrust, pain, belief, and trust even when we don’t have all of the information.

Words have great power.

Have any of you ever played the rumour game? The game where a group of people sit in a circle – one person whispers something in the ear of the next person – that person whispers in the ear of the next – and so on around the circle?

What happens by the time it gets back to the first person?

How about this? Have any of you heard of facebook?

What happens when something gets posted on facebook?

Does facebook know if it is true?

Things posted on facebook are just like the rumour game. They can take on lives of their own. If the item posted grabs on to peoples’ emotions, such as fear, it spreads faster and quickly becomes exactly what is feared.

A rumour about something that we fear can make us just like Thomas. It can make us doubt a person that we have known for years. A person who has consistently done good things for us. A person that we have no real reason to distrust.

Now to bring it back to today’s Gospel. Jesus died and rose again. After his death, people were spreading rumours about Jesus. They were saying that Jesus was just an ordinary man. They were saying that those who said that they saw Jesus were either having delusions or that they were lying. Those rumours led to Thomas doubting his friends.

Jesus sends us out to spread the Good News. And what is the Good News in our Gospel today? “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Not one of us here today has seen Jesus, the man, in person. None of us have felt the wounds on his hands and feet or in his side. At least I haven’t. Maybe one of you has. But despite this, we believe. We are here because we believe the incomplete, good story rather than the rumours. We are here because we believe that our sins are forgiven and that we have the power to forgive others.
We believe.

I pray that if I fall victim to rumours, and I’m sure I will because words have power – I pray that when I fall victim to rumours, others will forgive me. I also pray that when others hurt me because of rumours, I will be able to forgive them.

This is my prayer for myself. What is yours?

Music for Thought

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.



As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. (John 9:1-3)


Music has always been an important part of my life. I love all kinds of music, but the music that feeds my soul is the music that we sing about God.

Does anyone know what this is? (Hold up hymnal)


I love hymns. I love to sing them. I love to read them. I suck at writing them. It’s a gift I’ve always wanted and never had. One of my personal sins … envy.


You might be wondering why I’m saying all this about hymns this morning. Don’t worry. I’ll eventually get there. But first I’m going to sing you the first verse of a hymn. If you want to follow along, it is number 371.

(Sing verse 1 of “To God Be the Glory”).

What a great hymn of praise to God. Here is another that has always been a favourite of mine. It’s not in our hymnal, but I have it in another one. I know it from my childhood in the Presbyterian Church: "All the Way My Savior Leads Me." (Tab 2) It tells about how Jesus leads us through the difficult times in our life. I have another one here that you might know: "Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine." (Tab 3)


Now to get to what you’ve all been waiting for. What do hymns have to do with today’s readings. Well, actually nothing.


But these hymns all have something in common. They were all written by the same person. In fact, that person wrote quite a number of hymns. Only one of them is in our hymnal. Her name was Fanny Crosby.

When Fanny was six weeks old, she had an eye infection. Her regular doctor was out of town, and a man posing as a doctor gave her the wrong treatment. Within a few days, she was blind. If that happened to me, I am afraid I would be very bitter and I would probably spend a lifetime feeling sorry for myself. Fanny was never bitter and she never felt sorry for herself. When she was only eight years old, she wrote this poem:

Oh, what a happy child I am,
Although I can not see.
I am resolved that in this world,
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don't.
To weep and sigh because I'm blind,
I cannot and I won't!

Instead of being bitter and feeling sorry for herself, Fanny used the gifts that God had given her to write over 8,000 hymns and poems to praise and glorify God.

One day Jesus was walking with his disciples when they passed by a blind man. When they saw him, the disciples asked Jesus who was to blame for the man's blindness. Was it because of his sin or was it because of his parent's sins? Jesus answered them and told them that no one was to blame, he was blind so that God's works could be shown in him. Then Jesus healed the man and the people praised and glorified God for his goodness.

What about Fanny Crosby? God didn't heal her blindness. Perhaps if God had healed her, she might never have written all of those beautiful hymns -- and the world would never have heard of Fanny Crosby. She used the tragedy of her blindness to glorify God. I pray that tragedy will never come into your life, but if it does, remember that everything that happens can be used to praise and glorify God!

Dear Lord, the difficulties in our life seem small when compared to what others may be facing. Help us not to grumble and complain, but to praise and glorify you in every situation. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.


based on sermons4kids