Sermon - Aug 10, 2025 - The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas

If there was any Gnostic text that really should have been included in the New Testament canon, it was the Gospel of Thomas. After all, the manuscript is old as dirt – possibly even as old or older than 3 of the four other Gospels and its named after one of Jesus’ 12 male disciples, what more could they want?

Uniformity – or as close to it as possible, that’s what. Compared side by side, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are very similar—Jesus is baptized, Jesus ministers and does the miraculous, and considerable time is spent discussing the final week of Jesus’ life and resurrection from the dead.

 So, The first thing a reader will notice about Thomas’ take is that this document just doesn’t look at all like the other four. It is a collection of 114 sayings, many of them identical to those that appear in the other four gospels. It’s like a quote book—no rhyme or reason to what’s on the page at the same time. There’s not much by way of organized thought or synthesis—its just Jesus being Jesus the teacher; stanza after stanza of bite size spiritual wisdom with no narrative about Jesus’ life and death to be found. The name Jesus never even appears!

Instead, the reader must get used to knowing Jesus by his other moniker of Yeshua, which is the equivalent of Jesus in Hebrew. A few other noteworthy differences: unlike Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John where Jesus is clearly in charge, in Thomas’s Gospel Yeshua never pulls rank, never is associated with fancy titles like The Christ or Messiah, Master or Lord. Jesus is never presented as the unique or incarnate son of God, and absolutely nothing is said of a cross with saving significance or an empty tomb.

These missing pieces must have been enough to disqualify Thomas from joining his fellow disciples in the Biblical Canon. But with just a smidge more open mindedness than the early Church hierarchy could muster, there are some really interesting contributions in this Gospel for those of you willing to contemplate what the ancient gnostics so clearly valued above all else: Seeking Gnosis or knowledge – about God, and about self.

I gotta give another quick shout out to my Gnostic Gospel experts here for their help with this sermon series: Elaine Pagels, Jean Yves LeLoup, and the contributors of the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Bible.

In my preparation this week, I took pages and pages of notes—11 single spaced in all. Obviously I can’t cover all that ground in one sermon. So in a continuation of last Sunday’s Hide and Seek theme, we will emphasize Saying #2:

 “Whoever searches must continue to search until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed, they will marvel and will reign over All…”

In this one verse the author lays out the Gnostic Way as a 5 stage process: The Quest, the discovery, The disturbance of the discovery, the wonder and amazement, and, becoming One with The One, All with The All.

The Quest & Discovery

Anyone who has ever listened to anything from a commencement address to a eulogy to a parent getting hopelessly lost on a road trip has probably heard the phrase: it’s not about the destination but the journey. The same sentiment is found throughout the Holy Scriptures in passages about the search for God:

• Jeremiah 29:13 When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.

• Proverbs 8:17 I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.

• Psalm 27:8 “Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!” Your face, Lord, do I seek.

• Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.

As these Biblical verses indicate, Gnostic teaching is not alone on its Seek and Find emphasis by any means.

I love this quote from LeLoup:

“Seeking & finding means being more and more open to the gift that has always been ours.”

But there’s a catch: You’re most likely not going to like the knowledge you encounter on your journey. To get where you’re going, you have to confront all of these other layers of yourself and some of them are very tough to face, let alone get beyond.

The Disturbance of the Discovery & Marveling

For instance, for all the hassle we give kids today about screen time and procrastinating, how many of us adults (clears throat, ME) can’t stop our own screen obsession of scrolling, texting, posting, emailing, etc? So that’s a layer I am working on—how about you? Here’s another layer: setting aside time everyday to pray and meditate. That one is really embarrassing to admit as your pastor. Some days I barely come up for air in prayer, and other days I don’t even say thanks outside of table grace. I really don’t like that I can get so easily distracted nowadays, and just when I start to think about confronting that, guess what—I get distracted again. The human experience today is a marvel, isn’t it? Disturbing but marvelous all the same. Seeking the truth about ourselves and the universe sure sounds adventurous and fulfilling when we start out—but it gets super challenging, in a hurry doesn’t it? Destination or journey, Lord knows I’m not arriving anywhere any time soon.

From Unanswered or unfavorably answered prayers, the journey of seeking and finding … well, it just kinda sucks sometimes.

But I can’t get too down about it, especially when I think about those ancient explorers seeking and discovering---what? A barrage of illnesses, mutiny, storms, shipwrecks and very disappointed kings, if they even survived to chat about their adventures at all. And some of most successful quests don’t result in finding anything at all—just only more questions.

And so we keep going. We keep going from deep sea and space exploration to quantum physics to yes, even theology and the Bible (believe it or not), we keep going because the quest for more knowledge must continue lest we stagnate and accept “doing things as they’ve always been done” and keep getting nowhere as a result.

Becoming One with The One, All with The All.

And so we face what needs facing, one layer at a time, inching ever closer to that gift within that has always been ours to find. It’s truly the best quest of them all—the quest for God Herself. The quest for Jesus who showed us how its done “not only through his teaching, but also with his flesh, his blood, his laughter, and his tears. And those who had eyes to see, saw in him the Living One and were transformed.”

Forgiven and Free, attaining gnosis is therefore about seeking the courage to embody Jesus and to strive to do what Jesus did and finding that we are filled with light.

Then, according to Gnostic teaching, you will know that you are “One with that which reigns over All. (and that) The same Spirit, the same Breath, the same Energy that moves mountains and stars moves (you).”

Too Far for Orthodoxy

When push came to shove, the early Church hierarchy felt threatened by these writings. So, they ignored, rejected, and labeled them heretical and dangerous and that was supposed to be the end of it.  

If Christians today want to grapple with these Gnostic thoughts moving forward, then they must confront layers of thought and beliefs that are very different than what we’ve been taught. Layers like Jesus being less as the savior for our sins and more as the developer of our souls; Heretical? I guess. Dangerous? Not really. I think the Gnostics loved Jesus, but just differently. If seeking to be One with God is heretical, then what are we supposed to do with Gnostic-like passages of John when Jesus prays:

“As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me….  I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

Conclusion

I get it, what we’ve been studying isn’t everyone’s thing, but I felt like it was important for you to know at the very least, that they exist. Disturbing, disappointing, and weird at times? Of course, but so is the Bible. So read the Gnostics, or don’t read them, but please do not be afraid of them. You don’t have to embrace them, either, mind you—but even the slightest open mind might just be enough to discover new life within – isn’t that something we can all agree is worth looking for?

In the words of the Apostle Paul, May you never cease to seek and to find what “God has revealed to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.” Onward explorers, In Jesus’ name, Amen.