'Thomas' [John 20:24-31]

Jenny Baker, Sunday 30 March 2008

A quote from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll:

There is no use trying,” said Alice; “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Surveys of people’s beliefs are interesting – take with a healthy amount of scepticism. Survey of American beliefs last November found that around 82 per cent of people believed in God; 70 per cent believe that Jesus is the son of God, around a third believed in UFOs.

MORI survey of British beliefs last October – different questions, nearly one quarter believed in reincarnation, almost a third believe that governments around the world are concealing evidence of extra terrestrial beings, and 10 per cent that crop circles are the work of extra terrestrial forces.

Some people believe some strange things.

Teenagers in my house seem to believe in the washing fairy. When you ‘tidy your room’ and you move three quarters of your wardrobe from your floor to the laundry basket because that’s so much quicker than putting them back on hangers – the washing fairy sorts, washes, dries and irons your clothes and puts them back in the wardrobe by the very next morning, magically knowing exactly what you wanted to wear and making sure that’s on the top of the pile.

But two things to say about belief – just because you believe something doesn’t make it true. There is no evidence for the washing fairy – he doesn’t exist. And Alice was right - true belief cannot be manufactured – you can’t make yourself believe something just because you want to.

Couple of weeks ago our supermarkets had whole aisles of shelves groaning with Easter eggs. This week few battered eggs left, marked down to half price. As a marketing opportunity Easter is long gone and the same shelves are optimistically being filled with barbecue charcoal and the next seasonal opportunity. But here in the church we have the privilege of lingering with the Easter story over the next few weeks, of seeing the ripples and the repercussions of the resurrection in the lives of the disciples and beyond .

Because the Easter story doesn’t end on Easter Sunday. It’s not enough that Jesus defeats death and rises from the dead, world changing though that is. He still has work to do, to make sure that the disciples have caught the vision of what comes next and of their role in the kingdom of God.

The disciples had all reacted differently to his arrest, – some wanting to fight back, most of them scattering, a few staying close and one denying him. And they all react differently to the news of his death and then resurrection. Mary Magdalene consumed by grief, wants to be close to Jesus, even if only to his body and so goes to the tomb early on the Sunday morning. Peter, heavy with guilt and failure goes back to his old job of fishing.

And Thomas as we heard just now chooses at first to distance himself from everyone else. When the other disciples met together behind locked doors, Thomas was not there. Perhaps he was the kind of person who needs to grieve on their own. Perhaps the contrast between his hopes of what Jesus would do and what had actually happened were so great that he couldn’t face the people that he had shared those hopes with. Whatever his reason, he stays away and so he misses out on meeting Jesus.

He hears rumours of impossible things to believe – rumours of resurrection, but rumours are not enough – he wants evidence – to see the wounds from nails and spears, to have proof that this man who says he’s Jesus is the same man who went through that horrific ordeal just a few days before. ‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands,’ he says ‘and put my fingers where the nails were, and put my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ Thomas didn’t want to go along with the crowd. He didn’t want to pretend, to force himself into a box marked ‘belief’. He wanted to know for himself that it was real.

Thomas is one of two characters in the Easter story whose names have found a home in the English language. To be a Judas is to betray someone. To be a doubting Thomas is to be a sceptic, someone who demands proof. But we’d be wrong to think that both are bad as each other – that to doubt is a negative thing, that he ought to have been able to do better.

Because I think there’s a lot we can learn from Thomas’ example. Firstly I don’t think Thomas would have used that label – doubting Thomas -  for himself. He doesn’t let himself be defined by his doubts. He puts himself in the place where he might meet Jesus. Next week he’s there with the disciples in that same upper room where Jesus had appeared before – doesn’t allow his pride to keep him away or expect God to do all the work. Like Zaccheus climbing the tree, like the men who let their friend down through the roof of the house, like Bartimaeus shouting for Jesus from the side of the road, like the Syro-Phonecian woman who persisted in asking Jesus to heal her daughter – Thomas takes action to address his doubts, to put himself in the place where he might meet Jesus.

This needs to be carefully said and carefully heard but doubt and hurt can become too comfortable and safe if we stay there too long and hold on to them too tightly. There’s a time to grieve, to question, to be angry, but we too need to take a risk to meet Jesus – whether that’s through prayer, through being honest about our doubts, or simply telling our own stories in the company of others. To have doubts about the Christian story, to have questions is not something to run away from – we shouldn’t feel that we have to make ourselves believe things that seem impossible – but those doubts and questions need to be treated with respect, to be wrestled with, we need to put ourselves in the place where we might meet Jesus.

And secondly it was not just Thomas who saw Jesus that evening. Honesty about doubts and Jesus’ response to it opened the way for all the disciples to see Jesus again. This painting by Caravaggio’s captures an element of the story that we might otherwise miss.  – Incredulity of St Thomas – offers us his interpretation of this story. Shows a beautiful Jesus placing Thomas’ hand in his side. Thomas is portrayed as an older man, worn and hard working, seams coming apart on his clothes, wrinkled forehead as he peers at Jesus side. But just behind him are two more of the disciples staring over his shoulder having a good look for themselves. Caravaggio seems to be saying that it wasn’t just Thomas who needed to see, that other disciples had similar reservations as Thomas but they had kept quiet. They certainly wanted to see more of Jesus. Because something as amazing as the resurrection – whether it’s just happened or whether we hear about it 2000 years later - takes time to come to terms with. It turns your whole understanding of reality upside down And so it’s ok if it takes time for us to wrestle with its implications, if we need to come back and look again and again, if we have questions and doubts about it. In my forties I am less certain of many of the things of faith that I was convinced about in my 20s. But that’s ok – Jesus can cope with that.

So perhaps Thomas doubt and his honesty about it was a gift to the whole community of disciples. Sharing the faith journey of a friend who has lots of questions, or who is going through a difficult time can be challenging – it moves us out of our comfort zone; it makes us question things that we thought we had settled a long time ago. Sometimes walking with someone through their doubt can be a gift that leads you into deeper conviction for yourself. We can’t force faith or manufacture certainty in others or in ourselves. But we can ask Jesus to meet us, to show us what we need to see, to lead us into truth.

After the resurrection, Jesus met each of the disciples where they were in the needs that they had – Mary at the tomb, Thomas in his doubt, Peter on his fishing trip – to give them this commission, as the father sent me so I send you. He meets us too in this resurrection word with our many different needs, our different stages of belief and unbelief, acknowledging our need and inviting us from there to be part of God’s resurrection work in the world.