“Doubting Thomas”?
The wonderful thing about this story is that even if John the storyteller is disgusted with Thomas, he can’t stop Jesus simply offering Thomas what he needs for faith. And Thomas’ need is a gift to us. We see his unbelief proved wrong. True scientific method is applied; Thomas expounded a theory of unbelief, then disproved it by a repeatable experiment. The result; unbelief swept aside; bodily resurrection proven by scientific method and Thomas, a sceptic converted by empirical proof.
…the others told [Thomas], “We have seen the Lord.” But he replied, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” The others use the words Mary Magdalene used to them when she came from the tomb. “I have seen the Lord.” Like Magdalene, it took a tangible experience of their risen Lord before they could proclaim this. All Thomas asked for was the same experience,
And Jesus gave him what he needed. … “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not be in disbelief, but believe.” Thomas’ faith was more important to Jesus than any noble reasons we might want him to have for faith. He doesn’t run him down; he just gives Thomas a sign, and enables him to believe. Jesus had done the same for Magdalene that morning at the tomb. He said her name and broke through her blankness, and she seized hold of him. When he offered Thomas what he needed, it evoked the most powerful and complete confession of Jesus anyone had given in the Gospel: “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus speaks to Thomas, but this story is very much addressed to you and me; “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” That’s us, isn’t it! We are blessed. Jesus reaches out those hands through the Gospel to you and me so that [we] may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing [we] may have life in his name.
These are stories of the transforming moments in the lives of Jesus’ earliest followers. When we read a story and someone touches another, our hand goes out and touches them too, doesn’t it. The gospel today is about a transformation that starts with a physical need being met.
So I actually believe Thomas is an image of hope, not of doubt.
The other two times we meet Thomas in John’s Gospel, we find a loyal realist. We meet him first when Jesus finally turns to that dangerous place, Bethany, where Lazarus is entombed, Thomas… said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Jn 11:16 He knows how foolish it is to go back to Judea, but he won’t be left behind.
The next time we meet him is at the last supper. Jesus is saying good-bye to his friends, and he re-assures them: “… if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jn 16.3-5 Trying to get it straight. But not because of doubt. Thomas needs clarity and he needs to understand. But what he does is done out of loyalty.
Again, to him it all sounds like foolishness, but he won’t be left behind. What drives this determination? I think we find it in the image we started with: Thomas with his finger poised above the nail-wound in Jesus’ hand.
Thomas needs to see to believe—he wants help with his unbelief. In most of life, to see is to believe. In the spiritual life, to believe is to see. C R Wood So when the opportunity of proof is right under his fingertip, suddenly he doesn’t need to go through with it. And all at once, Thomas answers “My Lord and my God!” This isn’t doubt: it comes from hope fulfilled at last.
Magi Abdul-Masih says that hope is different from optimism. Hope is centred on God, while optimism is just focussed on reality. Hope says that no matter how bad things may get, every moment we are closer to the coming Kingdom of God. Optimism, on the other hand, just denies facts until it can’t any more, then collapses. Marguerite Abdul-Masih, 2002. Despair and Hope. Presented at: Canadian Commission for UNESCO Youth Forum, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1 Jan 2002.
Thomas stopped having to rely on empirical evidence; he could recognise the goodness of God in Jesus. Suddenly, his finger above that outstretched hand, he saw his hope poised above the wound. When you know God is so committed to you, you can hope. And that means everything.
When your finger is poised over the depth of God’s commitment and you hope in that, you’re transformed into a champion of that hope. You can tell people with utter integrity that God can be trusted. You can point to the wounded hands that were raised and nailed. You can say that those hands seized betrayal in hope. They and their bearer were raised and honoured by the God to whom they were lifted in hope. And now those hands are our hands: the hands of Christ. Look; your own hands. Amen
St. Thomas the Apostle Malcolm Guite
“We do not know… how can we know the way?”
Courageous master of the awkward question,
You spoke the words the others dared not say
And cut through their evasion and abstraction.
Oh doubting Thomas, father of my faith,
You put your finger on the nub of things
We cannot love some disembodied wraith,
But flesh and blood must be our king of kings.
Your teaching is to touch, embrace, anoint,
Feel after Him and find Him in the flesh.
Because He loved your awkward counter-point
The Word has heard and granted you your wish.
Oh place my hands with yours, help me divine
The wounded God whose wounds are healing mine.