Doubting Thomas ( 2nd Sunday of Easter A -- 16th April, 2023)

Doubting Thomas

Wolf Kirchmeir

[ Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31]

O Holy Spirit, assist us we contemplate your word, that we may be enlightened by your truth. Amen.

Dear Friends in Christ,
     Today we’ll think about Doubting Thomas. I’ll start with a few questions.
     How do you react when somebody tells you something unbelievable? Do you just smile tolerantly? Do you tell him he’s out to lunch, and it looks like he won’t be back for a while? Do you frown skeptically, and ask for more facts? Do want to see for yourself? Do you decide to check with a more reliable source, one that likely knows what really happened?
     Nowadays, it feels like we’re drowned in unbelievable stories. We likely all know someone who has disappeared down a rabbit hole of unbelievable stories. And I’m sure we all like to believe we won’t be caught up in crazy beliefs or crazy theories. But we all have weak spots. None of us can be sure of never going down a rabbit hole.

     So how can you tell whether some story is worth at least a second look? It all depends, doesn’t it? Some stories are more outrageously wrong than others. Some stories are more believable than others. Some stories we want to believe, because they confirm something we’ve suspected. And some stories we do not want to believe for exactly the same reason.

     Seeing is believing, they say. Well, not any more. What with computer generated images, you can’t even believe your own eyes.

     Here’s a story about that. It happened a long time ago, well before radio and TV. An elderly relative told it to me, so it must be true. It’s about a cousin of a neighbour. He lived way back up in the hill country. He’d never been further than the next village down the valley, until one day his cousin invited him to Vienna, the capital city.

     The old man was duly impressed with the Imperial Palace, and the parks, and the grand avenues with their shops and restaurants. He enjoyed riding the tram cars, and was amazed at the horseless carriages. On the last day, his cousin took him to the zoo, which the old man found very interesting. He was always willing to learn something new about livestock. He admired it all, the buffalo, the elephants, the lions and tigers. Then he came to the giraffe. He stared at it for a long time. Then he turned to his cousin and said, “You tryin’ to fool me. There ain’t no such animal.”

     We all have our notions of how the world works, and what may be a reasonable story to you may be pure fantasy to me. Or vice versa. Sometimes, it seems, seeing isn’t enough. There ain’t no such animal.
     We’ve all met with a few things that we’ve found very hard to believe because they conflict or disagree with what we think we know. We pride ourselves on our skepticism. But much of the time skepticism just an excuse to hold onto our prejudices and favourite superstitions.

     Today’s Gospel tells the well-known story of Thomas, who refused to believe what his fellow disciples told him.
     It didn’t square with what he thought he knew. It conflicted with everything he understood about how the world works.
     His name has become a way of scolding skeptics: Doubting Thomas.
     So what can we learn from Thomas?

     I think the first thing we should recall is that his story is only one of several. There are many stories about what happened in the time between the Resurrection and the Ascension. Thomas wasn’t the only one who wanted to see for himself. On the contrary, his skeptical attitude, his desire to see for himself, his need for confirmation of a hope he hardly dared to hope –  this was how pretty well everybody responded to the news of Jesus’s Resurrection. Thomas was after all an ordinary human being, just like you and me.
     When the women returned from the tomb and said it was empty, Peter and James ran there. Why?
     To see for themselves. They wanted confirmation. Were they skeptics? The Gospel writers don’t use that word, because it wasn’t in their vocabulary. But I think they were. After all, nobody rises from the dead. Besides, in those days women weren’t considered reliable witnesses.
     On the other hand, Jesus had said something that sounded like foretelling his resurrection. So what were Peter and James to do when the women came and said the tomb was empty? What were they to do, when Mary Magdalene said she had seen and spoken to Jesus?
     What would you do? You’d want to see for yourself, wouldn’t you? Even if you already believed that Jesus would rise from the dead, you’d still want confirmation that this was it, that this was what you’d been waiting for. You would want to be sure that what other people reported was in fact what Jesus had said would happen. That this was in fact the event that would change everything. That this was not some hopeful hallucination deluding grieving women and sorrowing men.
     You too would run to the tomb.
     But seeing isn’t the same as understanding. We see what we expect to see, and we don’t see what we don’t expect to see.
     When Mary Magdalene first saw Jesus, she did not expect to see the risen Jesus. And she didn’t see him. She saw a gardener. She was sure that someone had taken Jesus’s body away. That’s all she could think of to explain the empty tomb. So she asked the gardener where they had taken the body. When Jesus answered her, that was when she recognised him.
     Then there’s the disciples on the road to Emmaus. They didn’t expect to see the risen Jesus either. All they had to go on was other people’s reports. Puzzling reports. Reports that didn’t make sense. When a stranger joined them, they didn’t see who he was. They didn’t see the stranger as Jesus until he said the blessing over the meal they shared with him when they arrived home. Then, of course, they told themselves they’d known all along there was something different about the stranger. Had he not spoken so wisely about the Scriptures and the Messiah?
     Ah yes, hindsight. Hindsight is comforting, It’s the illusion that we already knew something that we did not actually know at the time. It’s a way of telling ourselves that we are smarter than we really are. Or that the world isn’t really a mystery that we can’t solve. Too often hindsight confirms our face-saving belief that we knew it all along.
     Hindsight is likely to make us mistake the meanings of the story of Thomas. After all, we know that Jesus was raised from the dead, right? In fact, every Sunday we say we believe it. Besides, we are the blessed ones who haven’t seen and yet believe, aren’t we?
     Poor Thomas.
     Aren’t you glad you aren’t like him, and believe without seeing Jesus in the flesh?
     Hindsight makes it easy for us to think of Doubting Thomas as some sort of failure, someone who should have known better, an awful example of the dangers of doubt.
     But is that the best way to think about Thomas?
     I don’t think so. He was merely doing what we all do. He wanted proof, some supporting evidence, some facts that would confirm what he was hoping for. For Thomas, I think, hoped for exactly what the other disciples hoped for. He hoped what we all hope for: That Jesus was really resurrected, and that this would confirm his promise of renewed life for us, too.
     Now on the face of it, that’s a crazy hope. Never mind that people have argued about exactly what it means to be resurrected. Never mind that people have tried to figure out how it will happen given all our bits and pieces will be widely scattered atoms when the last day comes. Never mind that we can’t do more than hint at, wave our hands, give our best guess, put together some words that sort of, kind of, in some way, so to speak, suggest what we mean.
     Or what we believe.
     Or what we hope for.

     Suppose someone showed up right now and claimed he’s seen Jesus, really seen him, and talked with him, and broken bread with him. Watched him pour milk in his coffee. Pick up a cookie and bite into it. Well, wouldn’t we demand more than that person’s word for it? I would think that the more you hope against hope that Jesus really did show himself, the more skeptical you’d be. Somebody else’s word just wouldn’t be good enough.  You wouldn’t want to take him up on it and give in to a false hope.

You would want confirmation.

You would want proof. 

You would want a personal encounter.

You would need a personal encounter.

And that I think is at the heart of the story of Thomas the Doubter. 

He wanted a personal encounter. He wanted to know Jesus directly, not at second hand.

And that’s true for us, too.

     Someone has said that faith is the ability to tolerate doubt. That I think describes Thomas. He didn’t doubt because his faith was weak. He was uncertain, unsure. But he was hopeful. He didn’t want to accept a false hope. Listen again to what he said: Until I see and touch the marks of the nails, and the wound that the spear made, I will not believe. That is, I think you may be mistaken, so until I can see for myself that this is the same Jesus that died on the Cross, I will not believe.

     And when Jesus appeared among them, Thomas did in fact recognise him. And Jesus said to him, You believe because you saw me. Blessed are those who didn’t see me, but yet believed.
     Indeed, we are blessed. We have the testimony of many witnesses who have told us, and still tell us, of the reality of Jesus in their lives. That reality can be and is yours and mine also.
     We weren’t there when Jesus died, we weren’t there when the disciples said they had seen the risen Christ, we weren’t there when Thomas saw Jesus with the marks of his cruel death visible on his body. But we can hear the story of Thomas, and with him know the hope and joy of the promise of the Resurrection.
     And by the grace of God, we can experience Jesus in our lives. We can know the transforming power of the Spirit. We can do the work the Creator has given us to do. We can do all this because the promise of the Resurrection has become a reality for us, as it did for Thomas.

Let us pray.
God Father, Son, and Spirit, give us the grace to know the presence of the Risen Christ in our lives, that our faith may be confirmed, and that we may be strengthened and comforted by the hope of renewed life. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.