So, what can we say about Thomas, whom we commemorate each year on the Sunday after Easter? Who was this Thomas? What’s his deal?
We first encounter Thomas when Jesus and his friends hear the news that Lazarus is near death. Jesus feels compelled to go to Lazarus’ sisters but there had been a threat. If Jesus showed up near Jerusalem again, he would be stoned to death. The disciples are hesitant and afraid. But Thomas boldly challenges them, saying: “Let us also go, that we may die with him!” Thomas is deeply loyal here but also somewhat impetuous.
The second time we see him is at the Last Supper. Jesus delivers what will become known, over time, as his “Farewell Discourse,” where he says: “I go to prepare a place for you.” Thomas responds: “Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we find the way?” Thomas is not given to metaphors…
And so we now come to this third encounter. The disciples are in hiding. In fear of the enemies of Jesus, they are secure behind a locked door. They were no doubt also filled with despair and disillusionment. They had failed Jesus but at the same time, Jesus had failed them. The dream that they had given their lives and their hearts to for three years was now dead. I see Peter as a broken man. His three denials of Jesus “I tell you, I don’t know the man!”, echoed in his heart. But Thomas has his own echoes: “Let us all go and die with him.” Thomas, on Easter night, is missing. Shut away. Humiliated? No doubt.
On Easter night, Jesus comes through the locked door and the disciples are terrified. He says, “Peace be with you” and shows them his wounds. This one you are seeing is not a ghost but is that self same Jesus. And Jesus breathes the Spirit on them.
In John’s gospel, this is the Pentecost event. The imagery echoes the Genesis story. As God breathed life into the nostrils of the first man Adam, so here Jesus breathes new life into spiritually dead disciples. The dream is not dead but alive. As I was sent, so I send you. The disciples – students – now become apostles - “ones who are sent.” The language here about forgiving or not forgiving sins is baptismal language. For John, sin is rejecting Jesus. The commission here – as in Matthew’s gospel – is to be evangelists, to extend the community.
Of course, Thomas, in his shame, missed all of this and when he’s told the story by those who were there, he rejects it all out of hand. His friends are clearly overwrought. Perhaps, as occasionally happened with Jesus’ disciples, they had entered into, as it were, an alternate state of consciousness, seeing and hearing things which are preposterous. Belligerently he cries: “Unless I can touch it…” Right?
And the next Sunday night, Jesus comes for Thomas. Without anger or judgment comes a word of invitation: “Come and touch.” At that instant, at the sight of that wounded body, Thomas’ heart breaks open and he sees with the eyes of his heart what his physical eyes can not confirm and he declares: “My Lord and my God!”
Peter, the Rock, had proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah, the anointed of God. Thomas goes so much further: my Lord and my God.
Jesus responds to Thomas, with what we might call the last beatitude: “Blessed are those who have not seen and believe.”
The gospel of John ends as it began. We have come full circle. The gospel of John begins, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was - [what?] – God.” The gospel ends with Thomas’ bold acclamation: Jesus is Lord and God.
Thomas’s story does not end there. Legend has it that after this, the disciples drew lots and it fell to Thomas to go to India, arriving about the year 52 CE. It is said that along the way, he met the Magi, those wise men of the East present at Jesus’ birth. He founded seven and a half churches - ? – and became the Patron Saint of India. The Anglican church to this day is known as the Mar Toma Church. And Tomas is a favorite name given to Indian Christian boys.
My favorite legend about Thomas is that at the Assumption of Mary, the Catholic doctrine that the Virgin Mary was taken up to heaven bodily at the end of her life; an optional doctrine in our Anglican tradition – that Thomas had been summoned from India to witness this event and that Mary gives him her girdle as proof for him to show the other apostles, since Thomas prefers physical proof.
Thomas returns to India afterwards and was martyred in the year 72. His relics are said to have wrought several miracles. Clearly, once Thomas had surrendered his cynicism, he surrendered all.
The moral John would have us take from this story is that like his community in Ephesus around the year 100 CE, bereft of the original witnesses, we – you and I – are called to be people of faith based on their witness. As St. Paul wrote in Romans 10:17: “Faith comes from hearing!” We are to be, like Thomas, an apostle – ones sent with a message. Well and good.
But let’s flip the narrative today. Let’s change the tune. Instead of “doubting Thomas,” I’d like to call him “Tardy Thomas.” The issue here is that the dude was just plain late – well, yeah, seven days late. He withdrew from the fellowship and sought isolation instead of community.
How often have we known folks – friends, relatives, and maybe sometimes even ourselves – who in sorrow or sadness or pain, cut ourselves off from the fellowship of the Church? And that estrangement can last for a time or for a season – or a lifetime.
“Doubt is not the opposite of faith; fear is.
Fear will not risk.
That even if I am wrong, I will trust that if I move today
by the light that is given me, knowing it is only finite and partial,
I will know more and different things tomorrow than I know today,
and I can be open to the new possibility I can not even imagine.”
- Verna Dozier
The phrase “do not fear” or “fear not” appears 365 times in scripture.
One for each day of the year.
Thomas, unlike Peter, chose in his fear and despair to absent himself from the company of the faithful and missed the initial blessing. When we choose to isolate ourselves, the whole community is diminished by our absence. New Life is indeed on offer but we need to be present to grasp it. So, suit up, show up, and never give up, friends, never give up. Amen.