Second Sunday of Easter Meditation: John 20:26-28

(video at the end of the post)

“…Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” (Jn 20:26d-28).

Thomas the doubter. We have more patience for the denials of Peter than we do the doubt of Thomas. In the history of “The Top Ten Best Moments of the Disciples,” it seems (often) that Thomas’s doubt ranks just above Judas’s betrayal. Don’t be such a doubting Thomas. Words that silence questions and confusion unto shame and condemnation. It’s only slightly better than being called a Judas.

Shade is thrown in Thomas’s direction because his disbelief hits too close to home. That Thomas’s doubt is recorded for all posterity reminds me, at least once a year, that doubt is…is possible. It reminds me that I do, in fact, doubt. It reminds you that you doubt. Thomas’s story hits the core of our insecurities and tells us that it doesn’t matter how many degrees we have or how many times we’ve read through the bible or how reasonable and rational our apologies for God are…we doubt. All of us.

This doubt feels deadly in a tradition that is orthodox, meaning (simply): right thought. Doubting can seem like unfaithfulness and willful rejection of what God has done and said and this means divine rejection. If I doubt, am I lost? If I am lost, will I be found? Is it all up to me? Jesus even says to Thomas, “‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,’” (Jn 20:29). In this moment it seems that Thomas is chastised for not believing because he wanted physical proof (a very human and rational thing to ask for). We are scared to doubt because there seems to be big risk attached.

The good news is, Thomas isn’t lost, left, and abandoned. Zoom out and look at the story as a whole. What we see are those characteristics that are the trademarks of God: long-suffering, patient, merciful, abounding in lovingkindness, and gracious. Thomas doubts; Jesus shows up. In his doubt, Thomas comes face to face with God. Thomas encounters God in the event of faith and what bursts forth from his human lips is a confession: confession of faith and confession of his lack of faith.[1]

In this story, Thomas is truly human. In the first instance he stands on his reason alone where he cannot believe what has been told to him by his peers. In the next moment, Thomas is encountered by God in Christ and believes. “My Lord and my God!” Says Thomas. Thomas sees here what he could not see before based on mere testimony. Thomas, in this moment, sees Jesus as he desires to be seen as the incarnate word of God (John 1). Behold, God!

It is not that we think, but that we doubt where we find ourselves at the core of what it means to be human. Because it is here, in doubt, where we look beyond ourselves, beyond the narrow framework of our mind and imagination. Doubt is our confession of being human. And it’s in this confession where we are, ironically, so very close to God. More often than not, doubt is not that we are far from God, but that we are so close…as close as Jacob, Israel, wrestling with God.

[1] Thoughts here and following influenced by Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Trans. GR Beasley-Murray and RWN Hoare, JK Riches. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1971. (pp. 689-697).