April 19, 2026
• Rev. Dr. Rob Fuquay
St. Luke’s UMC
April 19, 2026
Confirmation
Rise
“The Altar in our Hearts”
John 20: 19-29
Have you ever considered how this area around me represents some of the most important decisions and events in lives. This is where people are baptized, often as babies or small children, just like some of you were baptized here. In fact, I baptized 12 of you… That means your parents wanted you to know you are a child of God. That’s important. You are not just the product of a biological reality, you are a spiritual reality.
This area is where people profess their faith and declare that God is of greatest importance in their lives. This is where people join the church just as you did a few moments ago. It means you are part of a community. You are not alone in this world. That’s important.
This is where some people get married. This is the place where people say to each other, “I do.” It is a special place for sure.
It’s a place where communion is blessed and shared. That means God meets us here to let us know we can be forgiven and that we loved no matter what.
This is where people bring their gifts to God. Sometimes those gifts are big sacrifices that come from a recognition that God is the One who gives us all we have. Our gifts are our way of saying to God, “Thank you.” Interestingly, an old Greek word for communion is eucharist. It means “Thank you.”
And, just over there, that’s where people light candles and pray for people they love.
And we have funerals here. Often caskets are brought right here, the last event of a person’s earthly life, where loves ones give a person back to God.
This is definitely an important place, a sacred place, where God meets us.
Now you would think that because of the importance of this area people would be crowding to get close to it, but they’re not, not all people anyway.
And probably not all of you.
Barbara Brown Taylor preached here a few years ago. In one of her books she said that the first adult decision most confirmation students make is not to attend church anymore. (Leaving Church, p202)
Now, I hope she’s wrong. I hope you don’t find yourself drifting away from church because we need you. We need your passion, your youthful energy, and most importantly your fresh vision for what the church should be like. We need you to help us understand what it means to live like Jesus in our world right now.
So I hope and pray you don’t go anywhere but I also know the statistics are against me. The vast percentage of confirmands aren’t active in the church by the time they graduate from high school.
So I’ve come to look at the significance of this day differently. Rather than talking about your need to stay close to this place and keep the church going, I want to talk about what will keep you going.
Honestly, I don’t believe God cares all that much about whether we keep an institution going. But I do believe God cares about you. And what you believe about that will make all the difference in your life. So I don’t want to talk about your responsibility to build up all the stuff that goes on around this altar, the building, the programs, etc. That’s important, but there’s something more important: building up the altar in your heart.
I want you to think about a character in the Bible, someone who was a part of the church, then left the church, then came back again and found his faith in a whole new way.
His name was Thomas. He was one of the disciples and we sometimes call him “Doubting Thomas,” because of what happened after Easter. The evening of Easter day all the disciples were together in the Upper Room, but they kept it locked because they were afraid. Jesus had just been crucified. They knew that his tomb was found empty that morning, but they didn’t know what to believe. Then Jesus suddenly appeared among them and they were overjoyed.
But Thomas wasn’t with them that night. We don’t know why, but we can guess. I imagine Thomas was disappointed and hurting. He had been a part of the disciples. He believed in Jesus, but then Jesus died. This wasn’t how he thought things would go. He couldn’t understand why God would let such a thing happen. And perhaps he just needed a break.
Sometimes people feel that way about church. For all kinds of reasons things happen in people’s lives that make them feel like they need a break from church.
But then the other disciples went to him. I like that. The church let Thomas know he wasn’t forgotten. “(They) told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!”
There is something important I want to point out here. Where it says the disciples “told” Thomas, that word for told wasn’t past tense. It is a present participle. In other words they didn’t just tell him one time, they kept telling him. “We have seen the Lord. We saw him. Really we did. We saw him!” That’s more like what they were doing. That makes sense because they are trying to help their friend. We understand that don’t we? The disciples know Thomas is struggling. He’s discouraged, and they know something he doesn’t. They just want to help him.
But Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” And that reply is kind of harsh, because Thomas “I don’t believe in God,” he was saying to them, “I don’t believe you!”
Yet, the next Sunday when the disciples were together again, Thomas was with them. And I love this picture of the church. They still welcomed Thomas. They made room for him even though they didn’t all believe the same thing. And Thomas felt comfortable returning even though he didn’t share their faith entirely. I wish all churches looked that way, communities that make room for people wherever they are in their faith journey. When we do that, God can breakthrough to people in amazing ways.
That’s what happened to Thomas. Jesus appeared again and said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Now, clearly it seems like Jesus is criticizing Thomas for doubting, but I don’t think that’s fair, because what was Thomas looking for? It wasn’t faith. Faith doesn’t depend on evidence. Thomas was looking for certainty. He wanted foolproof evidence. And if you can prove what you believe, you don’t need faith.
I think Jesus was challenging Thomas not to rely on certainty, because certainty is actually the enemy of faith, not doubt.
Certainty is what can get us in trouble. Certainty will make us less dependent on God. Certainty will depend more on our own convictions than God. Certainty is what will keep us from growing. Certainty will make us stay right where we are, holding onto our beliefs right now, even though those beliefs might be wrong.
That’s why we need doubt. Doubt keeps us from believing the wrong things. Doubt pushes us to ask, is what I believe right now fully in line with what I know and understand of God?
We actually need doubt to be faithful, until doubt gets away from us, and we find ourselves doubting everything and believing nothing because we can’t be sure.
The word from which we get doubt actually means double-minded. It means to try and look in two directions at the same time. Have you tried that? Have you tried looking two different ways at once? It’s impossible, but trying to do that will also keep us from moving. And the point is few things in life are certain. We can never look ahead at a direction and know with all certainty what will happen if we go that way. All we can do is trust, trust that our experience of God is real, that what we know of God right now is real. We might not fully understand it. And we can’t prove it, but something inside of us will say, “Yes, this is very true,” and all we can do is trust that, and act on it.
That’s what Thomas did. The Bible doesn’t mention Thomas touching Jesus’ wounds like he said he would have to do. And I believe that’s the Bible’s way of saying he realized he didn’t need to. He trusted what he was now experiencing and said, “My Lord and my God.”
Thomas took a break from church, but he didn’t stay away. He knew he could return, and when he did a breakthrough in his faith happened.
This story is an assurance for us today. We can come to places like Thomas where we aren’t sure what we believe or even if we believe any more. But when we know that we always have a place here, where God meets us all along the way in our lives, and we return, we never know when God might show up and do something we never experienced before.
James Harnish is a retired United Methodist pastor who served another St. Luke’s UMC in Orlando, Florida. When he was pastor there a young couple, Susie and William, joined the church. They had a young daughter. Susie’s father was a judge and her parents were very active United Methodist. They wanted their daughter to be active in the church, but when she became a teenager she wanted nothing to do with it. There was a lot of division in the country at the time. We were involved in a war that many people questioned why we were there. Susie felt like the church didn’t say enough about the problems of the world, and so she rejected not only her faith but her family. When she was old enough she left home and started traveling, often going months without letting her parents know where she was.
Then, she got married, had a baby, and found herself looking for something deeper. Something she had missed. She got involved in the St. Luke’s church and returned to her faith but in a whole new way.
When her father came to see them over Christmas, he was shocked when that Sunday morning she asked if he wanted to go to church with them. He would have never thought that would happen. Pastor Harnish noticed an older gentleman sitting with Susie in the pew. She said, “Pastor James, I am so glad to introduce you to my father Justice Harry Blackmum. James Harnish said he recognized the name right away. He was an active justice on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Well, it happened to be a communion Sunday, and people came to the altar where they knelt and received the elements. Harnish said he noticed that after receiving communion Harry Blackmum and Susie stayed at the altar rail for a long time, kneeling and holding each others hands. And when they got up, they were drying their tears.
We all need this (spread hands out) in our lives. We need an altar. Even when we leave it for awhile, God is always waiting and ready to meet us when we come back.
May you always know that. Amen.