DOUBTING THOMAS ENCOUNTERS THE RISEN LORD
The first Easter Sunday morning was a time of indescribable joy - Jesus had risen from the dead. Friday was the day of the funeral, but Sunday turned it into a festival! It was almost too good to be true. The disciples could hardly take it in. One moment they were terribly downcast because their beloved Master had been taken by cruel men and put to death. That was on the Friday. Saturday had been a dark day, almost like death itself. But then came the first day of a new week. It was the beginning of the Christian era, because it saw the climax of God the Father’s plan of redemption. Jesus rose from the dead in great triumph as proof that the sacrifice of his life on the Cross had been accepted by the Father as the atonement for the sins of the world.
What a day that was! What excitement at seeing the empty tomb. There was the drama of hearing from the lips of Mary how she had actually seen and spoken to the Lord Jesus himself. And yet by the end of that Sunday evening we 1earn from John’s gospel that things were far from well for Christ’s followers: "the disciples were gathered together behind locked doors, because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities" (20:19).
Jesus had risen from the dead and yet his closest followers were living in fear. I sometimes wonder what God makes of human beings. We sometimes act very irrationally. It must be our fallen nature. What could have happened in the minds of the disciples for such a change of mood, from newly received hope to deep, deep gloom?
The answer lies in the fact that the disciples had yet to have a personal experience of the risen Lord. Yes, they had heard about the resurrection; they had even seen some of the evidences of it - there was the empty tomb and the discarded grave clothes. But what was missing? They had an intellectual knowledge but somehow it hadn’t entered into their experience.
Let’s try to put ourselves into the disciples’ shoes to see what we can learn of the meaning of the resurrection. Looking back at the event from the standpoint of history we can see the happy ending but it was different for the disciples on that first evening. They had passed through a tremendous upheaval. For three years they had left home and loved ones to follow Jesus, but now their dear friend had suffered and died on a Roman gibbet, like a common criminal and all the city was talking about it.
The Jewish authorities had plotted the overthrow of their Lord and they had reason to believe their own safety was at considerable risk - no wonder they took refuge behind closed doors. When people go though a traumatic experience it often results in their being disorientated. Don’t let’s forget that the disciples had suffered the bereavement of their dearest friend. Emotionally, they were thoroughly confused.
It’s very easy to pass judgement on people, especially if we haven’t passed through their experience. People who have lost a loved one, lost their job through being made redundant or lost a position of responsibility, often go through a valley of bereavement which can’t be understood second-hand. It requires a true friend to stand by them. When our opportunity comes to be a friend indeed, let’s be sure to rise to the occasion.
The disciples were disappointed and despondent behind their locked doors, but then, like a shaft of sunlight piercing the gloom, we read the heart-warming words: "then Jesus came and stood among them." Surely, that’s God’s answer to the need of mankind. The risen presence of Jesus is the remedy for our perplexity of not being able to understand what is happening to us. He blows away the fog of confusion with his words, "Peace be with you," and he gives a sense of purpose for the future.
One of the disciples was missing from that safe house in Jerusalem - it was Thomas. We don’t know a great deal about him but it does seem that he was a natural pessimist and he’s had a bad press. If something could go wrong, Thomas was the one who was sure it would! He seemed to have a sense of foreboding. When Jesus heard that his friend Lazarus had died in Bethany and Jesus announced that he would go there, Thomas’ reaction had been: "Let us also go, that we may die with him" (John 11:16). But although Thomas may have been a pessimist, he didn’t lack courage. He loved Jesus and was willing to go to Jerusalem and die with him when the other disciples seemed hesitant and afraid.
For some reason Thomas had been absent on the first Easter Sunday morning when Jesus appeared to the disciples as a group. We can only guess why he wasn’t present, but could it have been because he’d fallen into a state of spiritual despondency and he just wanted to retire into his shell and grieve? It can be the right thing to withdraw and think things through for ourselves, but only up to a point. We have then to emerge from our private world to test our conclusions in the fellowship of believers, to check that we haven’t gone off at a tangent.
No one person is a sole repository of the truth and it requires humility to admit that, perhaps, there’s just a possibility that we might have got it wrong in the trauma of life’s shattered dreams. A quiet time of sharing with a trusted Christian friend can go a long way in restoring the balance. Happily for Thomas he did return to the fellowship of the band of disciples although still in the gloom of deep despair. What a surprise he had! He was greeted with the words, "We have seen the Lord." Thomas was absolutely astonished. It just couldn’t be true!
This was quite the opposite to his line of thinking and frankly, he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. He put into words the scepticism and doubt he felt: "Unless I see the print of the nails, and unless I put my hand into his side, I will not believe." He couldn’t have stated his condition for believing more clearly. Hearing about Jesus wasn’t going to be sufficient to move Thomas from doubt to faith. He insists that the other senses of sight and touch be brought to bear. He wants to see with his own eyes; he wants to touch the wound marks with his fingers! He must have tangible evidence. If the risen Christ will satisfy all these demands he will believe, but nothing less will do. It sounds like an ultimatum.
The disciples heard Thomas’ words, but there was an unseen listener as well. That’s something we all need to remember. The risen but unseen Christ witnessed Thomas’ dogmatic statement of doubt, just as he knows ours, whether spoken or only in thought. Thank God, he knows the frailty of our human nature better than we know it ourselves, and why not, for he is our creator. While we haven’t the right to make outrageous demands on God to help us in our unbelief, there’s no doubt he does understand and care, especially if we are truly honest in our search for truth and not play-acting.
The first appearance of Jesus to the disciples minus Thomas was on Easter Sunday evening. We might think that Thomas’ outburst of honest doubt would have resulted in a further appearance there and then, but that was not to be. God’s timing in dealing with people is his own affair. Thomas was left to reflect on his words for another 7 days - it can’t have been a happy week. Day after day he heard the repeated story of Christ’s appearances and he waited for him to come again so that he might be put out of his misery. The days must have dragged as he turned over the issues in his mind over and over again, tossed between hope and fear, doubt and faith, wondering if he would ever be able to share that something which the other disciples had.
Thomas wasn’t to be disappointed. A week later, the disciples, with Thomas present were gathered together behind locked doors - the same place; the same circumstances: seeking refuge from the authorities and further confirmation of what lay ahead of them as Christ’s followers. Then came that wonderful statement: ’"But Jesus came and stood among them and said "Peace be with you"’.
I wonder how Thomas felt when Jesus turned to him. Was he in for a severe scolding for his sheer unbelief? Our Saviour doesn’t treat an honest seeker like that. When Isaiah spoke of the coming Servant of the Lord, the Messiah, he said, "a bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench" (44:3). Jesus himself quoted these words earlier in his ministry, and they are recorded like this in the Good News version, "he will be gentle to those who are weak, and kind to those who are helpless." How true! Jesus doesn’t want to reject anyone who seeks him; he comes to restore and strengthen.
Jesus is a model of gentleness and patience with Thomas. His words to Thomas recall the conditions for believing that Thomas had made, "I must see the mark of the nails and put my finger in the place and my hand in his side." "Well," said Jesus, "go ahead, here are my hands and my side - see and feel for yourself!" What condescension! Here is the Lord of glory, risen from the dead, miraculously appearing in bodily form and offering a personal inspection of the marks of his passion.
The invitation to Thomas to make the test that he demanded wasn’t taken up. There was no need. Thomas was overcome in love and devotion, and all he could say was, "My Lord and my God." Jesus had urged him to stop his doubting and to believe. In a moment of time he had made the transition from doubt to faith. We are all individuals; our circumstances will differ but we all need to make that journey into faith one way or another.
John Wesley’s journey was like an obstacle course. As a young man at university he had the keenest desire to serve God and through the self-discipline of the rules of the Holy Club he tried to make progress to a knowledge of God but had no assurance of sins forgiven. He entered ordained ministry and served as a missionary in the American colonies but still lacked certainty. Just two days before the turning point in his life he heard a powerful sermon on trusting in Christ for salvation, but he just couldn’t take it in. "I could not understand," he said, "how this faith should be given in a moment; how a man could at once be turned from darkness to light, from sin and misery to righteousness and joy."
His biographer says that John Wesley turned to the Acts of the Apostles and found that almost all conversions which were recorded there were instantaneous but he thought that God no longer worked that way. But two days later at a meeting in Aldersgate Street in London he had the same experience that Thomas had, of meeting with the risen Lord. He recorded in his journal: "about a quarter before nine … I felt my heart strangely warm. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me."
Thomas had a negative characteristic of doubt, but he also had a positive side. He absolutely refused to say that he understood what he didn’t understand, or that he believed what he did not believe. There’s an engaging honesty about him. He wasn’t the kind of person who would rattle off a creed or sing the words of a new song without understanding hat it was all about.
His other great virtue was that when he was sure, he went the whole way. "My Lord and my God" he exclaimed. There was no halfway house about Thomas. Yes, he had doubted Christ’s resurrection, but when he became sure, his surrender to certainty was complete. It’s often the case of the harder the struggle to faith, the more doubt there is to overcome, the greater is the wonder and joy when the Christ of history becomes the personal Saviour and Lord.
But it isn’t the pathway to faith that matters; it’s the end result that is the vital point. The other disciples had already had their encounter with Jesus but they couldn’t believe for Thomas; he had to make that decision for himself. This is something that is still true today. Each of us have to hear the words that Jesus addressed to Thomas, as if they were said to us, "stop your doubting, and believe!" Let’s hear the words of Jesus as a very personal word.
The story of that first Easter encounter with the risen Christ is nearly finished, but not quite. Jesus had a question to ask of Thomas. "Do you believe because you see me?" Jesus didn’t wait for the answer, which would surely have been "Yes". He went on, "How happy are those who believe without seeing me". Jesus was preparing his disciples and all who would live in the years to follow that very soon he would no longer be visible to human eyes. There was nothing wrong with the words that Thomas used, but there was something lacking in the way he reached his faith. He should have believed even apart from sight.
The resurrection appearances of Jesus were a short but unrepeatable interlude between his earthly ministry and his ascension into his return to heaven. Jesus was giving advance notice that very soon the time was coming when the evidence of both physical sight and touch would no longer be possible. His ascension would put him beyond physical sight but yet he would still be visible to the eyes of faith.
Jesus is looking forward to the Christian era. It’s true we can’t see him, we can’t touch him. His resurrection appearances are no longer in human form but they are just as real to those who seek after him, hear his words and works through the scriptures, and put their trust in the risen Christ. As a "one off" situation, for Thomas seeing was believing, but for future Christians believing is seeing!
The story of Thomas is a moving example of God’s dealings with a human being. He’s been dubbed, perhaps unfairly, as "Doubting Thomas". He did doubt but it was honest doubt and he was prepared to face up to the evidence. It’s been said that it’s not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting: rather it has not been tried! The story of Thomas gives hope to doubters if only they are willing to make the leap of faith in Jesus. The word of Jesus to us today is the same as it was to Thomas, "reach out … stop doubting, and believe." May we do that, and be able to say with Thomas, "My Lord and my God."
