Believing Thomas

Somehow, nicknames work better for gangsters than they do for Biblical characters.  Go figure.  Take Simon the Leper, for instance? Not so good.  Or, the purported brothers of Jesus, James the Just and James the Less?  Maybe, though I’d say Jimmy the Just has a better ring.  Without a doubt, a list of biblical nicknames would eventually bring us to our hero from today’s gospel -- good ole’ “Doubting Thomas” though he’s never actually called that in the Bible.

In the Gospels, he’s called Thomas Didymus, or Thomas the Twin, though no one knows for sure why especially since there is no mention of a brother.  Did he look like one of the other eleven disciples?  Did he look like Jesus?   I have no idea.  What I do know is that “Doubting Thomas” is the name that eventually stuck to this quirky disciple.  Ever since, the poor guy’s character has been about as flat as a paper cut out in some sad Sunday School diorama.  Based on his name alone we think we know everything there is to know about him so much so that we’ve probably never given his nickname a second thought.

Well…consider this. Where do we first meet Thomas?  In the gospel of John, it’s just before Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.  Do you remember the story from just a few weeks ago?  Upon hearing that Lazarus is sick, the disciples express concern that it would be too risky for Jesus to go to Lazarus given his increasingly high profile with the local authorities.  But Thomas the Twin pipes up with courage and conviction and urges the disciples to follow Jesus as he seeks out his friend.  “And let us go also that we may die with him,” he says.

The implication here is that Thomas was right there with Jesus when he raised Lazarus from the dead.  What’s more, Jesus commands those gathered, a crowd which presumably includes Thomas, to unbind Lazarus and to take off his burial clothes.  In other words, Jesus tells them to reach out and to touch him.  Now, in and of themselves, these observations are no big deal, but don’t you find it a little curious when we encounter Thomas just a few weeks later we suddenly expect him to be the epitome of doubt and disbelief when it comes to the risen Christ?  Imagine if Jesus was not the first person that Thomas had ever witnessed as having risen from the grave.  Imagine if his were not the first body of the living dead that he had ever touched.  The thought of it might just be enough to make us think us twice about his nickname, or at least to bring some new questions to bear on our understanding of this text and its meaning for our lives.  We think we know why Thomas appears doubtful and why he needs to put his fingers in Jesus wounds.  He wants evidence of the reality of the resurrection, right?  But what if the story were not so simple.  What if this doubting disciple was doubting something else?

You have to imagine my delight when I was doing this little background check on our man Thomas over the week .  Frankly, the whole “doubting Thomas” thing was starting to feel really old, even a little tiresome, to me.   Sure, I may be missing an opportunity here to share his story as evidence that even the first disciples were disbelieving of the resurrection, that even they had their questions and doubts.  For better or worse, Thomas has become an unexpected ally to the modern mind.  He has become a source of permission for us “to go and doubt likewise”.   Yes, I could talk about the ways that critical thinking and lasting doubts are integral parts of any authentic Christian faith.  God knows I’ve taken that approach before and I’m sure I will do so again when faced with this text in future years.  I even have my sermon title all picked out for when the time comes: “The Benefit of Doubt”.  For today though, I find myself doubtful of any interpretation that sizes up Thomas so easily.  How convenient it is to dress Thomas up in all his doubts and questions about the resurrection.  Before we know it he starts looking just like to look just like…who is it?…oh yeah, that’s right….he starts looking just like us!  The famous “incredulity of St. Thomas”, as the Caravaggio painting is titled, has for too long served as little more than a mirror for our own desire.  We want to know we are not alone in questioning the reality of Jesus’ resurrection.  And we want the Bible to tell us so!  Is it any wonder the common interpretation of this passage has grown stale?

Before I continue, let me be clear.  I’m not saying that Thomas was standing there before the risen Christ as if unimpressed!  “Pshhht…Resurrection!  You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all!”  This is not what I’m suggesting.  I am simply trying to check some of our age-old assumptions and to add a little context to what we think we know about Thomas.  We think we know his motives.  We assume he couldn’t believe his eyes.  We assume he couldn’t get his mind around the resurrection until he reached out and touched him for himself.  When he does, he proclaims Jesus as Lord and so we assume he finds the proof for which he was searching.  End of story, right? Not so fast.

Before jumping to such an admittedly understandable conclusion, it might help us remember the highly charged political context of what was going on during that Holy Week, the reason, for example, why the rest of the disciples were hiding in fear behind locked doors.  What if they were next?  We should imagine too the excruciating grief that they must have felt on that first Easter evening, to say nothing of the gut wrenching guilt for having abandoned him.  It was not merely the love and joy of their own hearts that they left on that cross.  It was the hope of the nations, the end of an empire, the promise of a new day of God’s kingdom come and God’s will be done.  Sure, the scriptures foretold some of this tragic fate but because they knew it was coming didn’t mean they were ready to live through it.  Given this context, and given all that Thomas had seen of Christ’s power to forgive, to heal and even to raise the dead, doesn’t our traditional image of Thomas requiring proof start sounding just a little flat?

You see our cut out version would have him merely doubting the appearance of the risen Christ.  But what if the risen part wasn’t the hardest part for Thomas?   He had already witnessed the raising of Lazarus.  He had been hearing the same testimony from 10 of his closest friends who had already seen Jesus and felt his breath upon their faces.   You’d think just seeing him might have been proof enough, but I think Thomas is after something more.  He needs to touch the wounds.

What if his challenge is not merely a scientific one (prove it!) but a theological one.  What if it’s not the resurrection that leaves him stumped but the crucifixion?  Think about it. What could be more theologically challenging than a plan of salvation that involves such torturous violence!  Could it be that Thomas needed to stick his fingers in Jesus’ holes because he simply could not believe that God would let such a thing happen.  What kind of God would take such horrendous violence upon God’s “only begotten son” on a cross of shame?  What kind of Lord and Savior gets stripped naked, beaten and nailed onto a beam? 

I think Thomas was aware of something that we all too quickly forget on Easter. In all our rush to explain how Jesus was raised, or at least to find worthy allies for our doubts, we risk losing sight of the crucial and inseparable reality of how Jesus died in the first place, namely by a state sponsored execution!

Could it be that when Thomas reaches out to touch Jesus wounds, he is doing so not only to prove to himself that that Jesus was a risen Savior, but so that could also come to terms with the fact that Jesus was a crucified and risen Savior!  If you think there’s no difference, imagine if Jesus had died of cancer, say or in some natural disaster, or in some way that had no bearings on the political machinery of the day.  Would his death and resurrection have been as powerful?  Not even close.  I think Thomas wasn’t struggling with the reality of resurrection so much as he was struggling the reality of the crucifixion.  His prodding of Jesus’ still gaping wound might as well have been a prodding of our very God.  How and why on earth could such violence be part of God’s plan?  Unless…unless…this violence was meant to be the violence to end all violence; unless Christ was meant to be the scapegoat to end the practice of scapegoating, the victim to end all victimization!

By virtue of Jesus’ peace giving response, by virtue of his vulnerability, by virtue of his utter lack of judgment, his love for enemies, by virtue of his forgiveness for all, he was showing the way to a world unbound from cycles of judgment, war and death. For what kind of leader goes to hell and back and appears before us without even a hint of spite, malice or revenge?  What kind of leader can turn the marks of his own torture into signs of mercy and forgiveness?   Who but a Savior and one endowed with the fullness of grace? Who but the Messiah could live the promise that the violence of an imperial’s regime will never have the last word! Could this be the power of a crucified and risen Savior?  When he drew his finger from the wound, Thomas believed beyond a shadow of doubt that it was.  And so it is that he makes the ultimate confession of faith:  My Lord and My God. “My Lord and My God” it is you!  Thomas is the first in John’s Gospel to call him divine!  Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, My Lord, My God, my personal and political savior!

Can we please give Thomas his long awaited and much deserved Amen? 

In the end, it’s not the doubting Thomas that interests me most, but the believing one, the one who sees first hand that Christ had died a brutal death and who then and only believes that God’s love and forgiveness reigns stronger than human violence and death.  The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has put it this way:  "There is no hope of understanding the Resurrection outside the process of renewing humanity in forgiveness. We are all agreed that the empty tomb proves nothing. We need to add that no amount of apparitions, however well authenticated, would mean anything either, apart from the testimony of forgiven lives communicating forgiveness.”  

More than anything, Jesus’ triumph over death marks an ushering in of peace on the grounds of God’s forgiveness. This is why this and other so called appearance stories always come with a commissioning from Jesus to share the gospel, to share that fullness of grace, mercy and peace with whomever will receive it. Indeed, that first Easter was a day of freedom and of new beginnings for us and for the world, a day unlike any other, a day for us to live and practice constantly.

Sisters and brothers, in our Good Friday world, we cannot afford to doubt this story or its message for long.  To take the words of this crucified and risen savior to heart is to bring into our world an assurance for ourselves, and for every survivor, for every victim, whether at Abu Graib or in the house next door. The assurance is the perpetrators of violence and dealers of death will never ever have the last word!  Only love!  Friends, let not our doubt give resonance to the warning that Edna St. Vincent Milay wrote in her poem entitled ‘To Jesus on His Birthday”:

 Nobody listens. Less than the wind that blows

Are all your words to us you died to save.

O Prince of Peace! O Sharon’s dewy Rose!

How mute you lie within your vaulted grave.

The stone the angel rolled away with tears

Is back upon your mouth these thousand years.

 If we can stretch ourselves not simply to doubt as Thomas doubted, but to believe as he believed, we too may be able to hear and un-mute the good news of our crucified and risen Lord.  Here his words now as if for the first time:  "Peace be with you. Let peace be restored to your troubled soul! Let violence be no more. You are forgiven. You are accepted. You are free.” And like Thomas, may we respond accordingly, with awe, with reverence and with believing praise, addressing Jesus by his proper name: “My Lord and My God” “My Lord and my God.” “My Lord and my God.”  Amen.