Now can you see why John probably went into all that about the footrace? The very first believer in the resurrection, the first to believe in the triumph of God, came there by the same path that you and I take -- by not seeing the Risen Christ. To almost no one here, I suspect, has the Risen Christ personally appeared in a garden and called you by name -- as He did to Mary. No one here has touched His wounds and believed. We have believed on the basis of words, "He is not here."

"Blessed are those who have not seen" says Jesus (all of us) "and yet have come to believe."

How did the beloved disciple come to faith in Easter on that first Easter? Trust. The beloved disciple knew his beloved Jesus. Thus, when he saw the empty tomb he did not think abandonment, defeat, death. He thought freedom, victory, life. In a moment he sensed that Jesus had taken their relationship to a new, unexpected, and more wonderful plane.

Erik Eriksson said that a child develops trust in the first six months of life. The infant learns that, when it cries out, momentarily a voice will be heard saying, "There, there, what's wrong?" or a loving face will soon appear. The infant learns thereby that parents care, that the world is trustworthy.

Eventually, the infant will tolerate long absences of the parent. The infant does not need the parent physically present every moment of the day, clearly in sight, because the young child has learned that, even though the parent is not right there, in view, the parent is nearby; the parent will come when called. Trust.

The beloved disciple did not have "proof," as we call something proof. He had no legal certification of the resurrection. Yet he had his relationship with Jesus. He had his own experience of a sure, certain, determined love that would not let go, even in death. He thought he had run toward Jesus when, in reality, the Risen Christ had run toward him. And that was enough. He believed.

And so have you. That's how you got here. I made the mistake, a couple of Easters ago, of asking one of you (on your way out as you said to me how much you got from the service) how you liked the sermon. You said (you know who you are), "Sermon? Oh, Easter's usually much too great a challenge for a mere sermon. No, it's the music, the crowd, the building, I don't know. All that, the feel, more to the point than the sermon, don't you think?" Blessed are those who, having not seen, yet have they believed.

Blessed are you.

The following commentary accompanied this sermon in the printed order of service.

Notes: Forgive us preachers if we search a familiar biblical text hoping for some new insight, some weird discovery, some detail we missed in earlier readings. After all, many of us have been at this preaching business for some time now. Not only must we interest our hearers in the sermon, we also must interest ourselves!

John's story of the resurrection is vivid, rich, full of fascinating detail. In John, the little things, the details, are often pregnant with meaning. John renders a world in which, when Jesus appears, everything bursts open with meaning, therefore it seems fair for us to treat the details of John's narrative in some, well, detail.

Tom Long, great interpreter of the word, called my attention to an interesting detail in John's Easter. Everyone was busy running. The tempo has picked up in this gospel. After a long, very long, series of monologues by Jesus in which he bids farewell to his disciples, after a bloody crucifixion in which things moved terribly, tragically slowly, Easter bursts in upon us and everyone begins to run.

The race of the "beloved disciple" shall concern us most in today's sermon. He is surely meant to be the center of our focus. He is the one who, though he does not see, though he has no conversation with the Risen Christ, believes. And so shall we.