On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he 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." A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe." Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
(John 20:19-31)
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It strikes me that at least in some respects we have a harder time than Jesus’ original disciples, whose doubts and fears could be overcome by actual encounters with the risen Jesus. We, on the other hand, have to live and believe simply by faith. We may sense the presence of Jesus, but we don’t experience it in the same way the first disciples did. Which makes this passage interesting to me. For those first disciples, it was Sunday night. The empty tomb was discovered perhaps 12 hours earlier. They have the testimony of at least Mary Magdalene, who had seen the risen Jesus, and yet still they’re huddled in a room, afraid of the world around them. To be honest that sounds like a lot of Christians today. We know the story of the resurrection. Perhaps we believe it - but there are some doubts now and then and those doubts make it a bit frightening to think of sharing it. So we cloister behind the walls of our churches in safety, but we don’t take our faith out in public very much. Just like those early disciples, we keep our faith hidden away. We buy into the idea that religion is a private thing. Publicly proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus, after all, leaves you with a good chance of being dismissed as naive at best and delusional at worst.
I wonder what those first disciples believed? As they gathered together, sheltered from the outside world, did they believe at that moment that Jesus had been raised? Or was it all just a mystery to them? A strange story? Whatever they believed they didn’t have the courage to do anything about it, until Jesus appeared and offered them peace - and the chance to see his hands and his side. Ahhh. Proof! That’s the difference 2000 years later. We don’t get the proof. We just have to believe. "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." That’s us. And if we can get to the point of believing without seeing, then surely Jesus still gives us peace - and peace is the power that allows us to move forward in faith, bearing witness to what we believe. The key to being a disciple of Jesus is to have the peace to take our belief out of the safety of a closed room and face the possible hostility of the world around us.
In some ways, things haven’t really changed all that much and we really aren’t all that much different than Jesus’ first disciples - which is both troubling and hopeful. They were very limited, very weak and very sinful people - but empowered by the Holy Spirit they accepted the commission of Jesus and went into the world to proclaim what they believed. Are we willing to do the same? Do we have the peace to live our faith openly and honestly and with integrity? A challenge to be sure, but surely it’s the goal of every person who claims to be a follower of Jesus. But it’s not easy. There’s a lot of reason to doubt, and there’s a lot of people who want to raise doubt in our minds. Robin Wright - a scholar at the United States Institute for Peace, wrote that radical atheists today - who are growing in numbers - are determined "to make it not just uncool to believe, but cool to ridicule believers." And ridicule is maybe the worst thing a person can have to face. It makes us question ourselves. So doubt is a powerful force - because when we doubt we doubt not just Jesus and not just our faith; we doubt ourselves and our own strength to be able to handle the jabs that might get thrown at us. Thomas had a lot of doubts - but was it just that he couldn’t believe something so wonderful as the resurrection had happened, or did he doubt his own ability to act as the resurrection would call him to act?
Thomas is a special man. "What?" you might say. "What’s so special about Thomas?" That occurred to me as I thought about this passage. What’s so special about Thomas? Really. We usually call him Doubting Thomas - and that’s not a compliment. I’m someone who believes that doubt is an essential part of faith - that it’s doubt that pushes us ever deeper into faith, but even though Thomas can be used as an example of that, the story when I think of it still raises that question: what’s so special about Thomas? In a way he got special treatment. He got proof. None of the rest of us get proof when we start to have doubts. The other disciples had the same proof offered to them, but Thomas demanded proof from God. He wanted to touch Jesus’ wounds. Jesus invited him to do that, but the rest of us get told not to put God to the test. So what’s so special about Thomas? Why does he get proof to overcome his doubts while I’m left to struggle with mine?
Or, maybe, thinking in a historical context, it might not be that Thomas was special. It might just be that his circumstances were different. These disciples, after all, were important. They were the eye witnesses; the leaders of the movement. With one (Judas Iscariot) already gone, maybe Jesus couldn’t afford to lose another. So a concession gets made - "you need proof? I’ll give you proof!" And, of course, I’m always struck in the story by the fact that in the end Thomas didn’t actually need the proof. He didn’t touch Jesus’ wounds. The encounter with the risen Jesus was enough.
So far it’s been enough for us as well. We haven’t needed proof. We’re here, celebrating the risen Jesus in our midst. We’re convinced. I’m sure there are times of doubt for all of us. I’m sure we all fall into sin periodically. I’m sure we don’t always live as we should or as Jesus would want. But we do believe. And, when one reads the whole story, one discovers that Thomas wasn’t actually special because he got proof. The special ones are those that come after that first Christian generation. "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." I haven’t seen Jesus. I’ve encountered him, been confronted by him, been changed by him, been comforted by him and been guided by him - but I’ve never seen him. You could probably all say the same things. Which seems to earn all of us after that first generation a special blessing - not a reward, but that peace Jesus spoke of on that Sunday night so long ago when he appeared to his disciples. The point of the story isn’t that Thomas is either incredibly special for being given proof or particularly bad for having doubts. The point of the story is that doubt is OK, and that Jesus doesn’t abandon us just because we doubt - instead, even in doubt, blessings abound!
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