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 you; blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed” [John 20:27-29, NIV].
Maybe it’s because I share his name. Maybe it’s because that name comes from the Hebrew word “ta’om,” which means “twin,” and, as many of you know, I’m an identical twin. Or maybe it’s because the moniker given to this apostle—“the Doubter”—seems all too simplistic. All too often the world wants to tamp us down into a one-dimensional existence. “Thomas—he’s the one who doubted.” It’s a good thing that none of the rest of us ever have doubts.
Some years back, as I counseled a young woman who was contemplating Divinity School, she said, “Sometimes I feel as if Thomas is my twin; I have so many doubts, so many questions.”
It’s ironic that Thomas has his particular reputation for doubting, because if we examine the Scriptures, rather than listen to the quick judgment of those who want simple (and incomplete) answers, we’d see a different kind of man. Instead of a doubter, we’d see a man of faith. In John 11, for example, Jesus and the disciples hear that their friend, Lazarus, who lives in Bethany with his two sisters, Mary and Martha, is gravely ill. Jesus’ presence is needed. Most of the disciples caution Jesus against such a journey. It isn’t safe. Indeed, a short time ago, the authorities there had tried to stone Jesus [John 11:8].
Responding, Jesus utters words that don’t sound much like our Lord:
Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him” [John 11:15].
Thomas steps forward and sounding not like a doubter, but like a person willing to follow Jesus into the gates of hell says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” [John 11:16]. Later, in John 14, Jesus continues his long, final instructions to the disciples. Jesus advises that he goes to prepare a place for them, and he adds, “You know the way to the place where I am going” [John 14:4].
Thomas says aloud what the others were no doubt thinking, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” [John 14:5]. It is in response to Thomas’ question that Jesus gives us one of His most important “I am” responses.
I am the way and the truth and the life” [14:6].
A lot has been made about the fact that Thomas was not with the other Ten on that first Easter evening, when the group had huddled together in the room with the doors locked. I say “Ten,” computing the original 12, minus Judas Iscariot, minus Thomas. A number of NT scholars have pointed out that there is no reason to assume that others weren’t also in attendance, i.e., Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, Nicodemus, Mary, Martha, and other unnamed followers of Jesus.
“Thomas must have been somewhere off on his own—we all know he had his doubts.”
It’s odd; we tend not to assign doubt to the ten (plus any others there that evening). If they believed so strongly in the risen Lord, why did they need to lock the door? What were they afraid of? The authorities had done their best with regard to Jesus and all their best had produced was a Risen Lord! Isn’t it just as likely that Thomas had heard Jesus had risen and Thomas was out there looking for the Lord?
What do you think came to Thomas’ mind when the others said, “Guess who we just saw?”
I suspect it was some version of “Day late, dollar short.” A lot is made of the fact that Thomas declared that unless he saw the nail marks, unless he put his finger in where the nails had been, unless he put his hand in where Jesus had been stabbed in the side, he would not believe, and perhaps appropriately so.
On the other hand, Thomas appears only to be asking for the same sort of assurance that the others had already received without their asking. The others have seen, and they believe. All Thomas is asking is that the same thing happen to him.
One of the half dozen core things that I think I’ve learned over the last four or five decades is that, as a buddy recently said to me, “Faith is a gift.” Indeed, I’ve often said and written, “Faith isn’t something that you can get on aisle 7 of the local Harris-Teeter.” It isn’t something that you can strive to attain. One can’t really decide to go out there and get more faith. All too often, it seems we either have it or we don’t.
Put another way, perhaps, it seems that while for some of us faith comes through virtually no effort on our part, for others, faith is a difficult struggle, a frustrating exercise, perhaps even a discouraging affair.
I think of my mother. Daughter of St. Elizabeth—our Grandmother Lib taught Sunday School for 59 consecutive years—wife of T.E., for whom faith was as comfortable as a worn pair of slippers, our mother struggled in her relationship with Jesus. She was an avid reader—my brothers and I know that she read the Bible cover-to-cover multiple times. One of the few folks I’ve ever known who could talk more than me, she was almost always specifically silent about matters of faith.
Oh, that didn’t mean she avoided church. She made sure that everyone in the family was scrubbed, ready, and well-behaved every Sunday. Yet, if you watched her closely from your own position near hers in the pew, she exhibited a level of uneasy detachment, for even during the old, familiar hymns, her lips were usually silent. Decades later, when I had assumed the uncomfortable position of serving as a pastor of sorts to my own mother, I asked her, “When we were growing up at Olney, why didn’t you sing?”
Her response (as closely as I can remember):
There’s no easy answer. I prayed for years and years that God would touch me like He seemed to have touched so many others. I longed for the assurance that your dad and both your grandmothers so easily enjoyed. I spent hours reading the Bible. As you remember, your dad and I often listened to George Beverly Shea (for those of you under 60, you might click here), AFTER you’ve finished reading this piece). I wondered if I had done something that had caused it to be so difficult for me. Was there something missing within my essence? I had always heard that all you had to do was ask Jesus to come into your heart and yet, in spite of years and years of asking, it just seemed as if it never happened. I believed that He was there. I just wondered why He seemed to be hidden from me.
I think that in her own way, our mother put her finger on an awkward aspect of the Doubting Thomas story. You see, for me the difficult part of the story is that when Thomas confessed that he could not believe without some sort of proof, Jesus gave him the proof. Jesus appeared through a bolted door to provide the young man with bold assurance of His resurrection, of His love and concern for Thomas and the others, and of His sanctifying presence.
Alternatively, however, there were and are others, like our mother, who would similarly ask, who would similarly knock, and yet, who would not receive. The door would seem to remain closed. Oh, others might quickly say, “He’s there; you just have to accept Him.” But you see, that’s not the way the Gospel writer tells the story of Doubting Thomas. The twin wasn’t required to “just accept Him.” Jesus came through a wall to show him.
Jesus then looks at Thomas (and other others) and says:
Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe [John 20:29, a portion of the Gospel reading for the Second Sunday of Easter, RCL, Year A; the full reading is John 20:19-31].
Within our Lord’s special blessing, I think there’s room for folks like my mother, who found it difficult to believe and yet, who still kept trying. I think there’s even room within Jesus’ heart and, therefore, within His blessing, for those who have tried and who have given up. Just as Christ is fully present for us in the communion, in the feast, He is also fully present in the yearning, in the absence, in the hungry longing that fills so many hearts.
He will find a way, for He is the way. Thanks be to God!
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