29 May 2006 14:11
St. Marks AnglicanSunday, 22 April 2006
The Gospel of John mentions an incident between Jesus and his disciple Thomas that occurred a little over a week after his resurrection--an incident which earned him the honorary name of "Doubting Thomas". (John 20:19-29).
So the other disciples were saying to [Thomas], "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." (20:25 NASB)
The traditional approach to this passage is to read Jesus' response at the end ("Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." v29 NIV) and thereafter view Thomas somewhat condescendingly as an example of someone who screwed up but Jesus remained nice to. Meanwhile, we {proudly hoists his nose higher in the air} are exempt because we haven't "seen" Jesus in the flesh...therefore we must be of those who are blessed because we've believed without seeing.
The priest at St. Marks however, offered an alternative interpretation. I'll preface this by mentioning that he did a good job of presenting his message as just that, a "possible interpretation". I don't deny that the Holy Spirit often inspires pastors with their sermon material, but I will also confess that few things put me on edge faster than somebody who starts his sermon with "And God told me to tell y'all today...".
Perhaps Thomas doubted because the other disciples showed no indication of actually having seen Jesus beyond their spoken words. As an assumption, let's maintain that "seeing" Jesus (metaphorically or physicially) is a life-changing event. Let's apply this concept then to the passage. Verse 19 mentions that "the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews" (NIV) when suddenly Jesus pops in and says "Hi!". (some ancient authorities (most notably John) contend that he actually said "Peace to you" or "Peace be with you". But what do they know?)
Now look at verse 26, "A week later [Jesus'] disciples were in the house again. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them" (NIV). It is probably safe to assume that the doors were still locked for the same reason as in verse 19, "for fear of the Jews". Doesn't sound like the first visit was too extraordinarily life-changing, does it? Compare this week to the week after the Holy Spirit popped in and said "Hi!" to the disciples at Pentecost (Acts 2). Maybe if Peter and the disciples had been out doing a little testifying during that week after the resurecction instead of lurking about in locked rooms Thomas would have been a little more convinced of the authenticity of their story.
Picture me walking around with a 20lb iron ball chained to my leg. (okay okay! you don't have to relish the thought that much). Now you come across me one day hiding in a corner cuddling my iron ball and I tell you the great news that I found the key to take the thing off! Isn't that great news! ...Which leaves you to ponder why on earth I'm still wearing the thing, eh? A week later I'm still hiding in the corner for shame of my iron ball, I think you'd be perfectly justified in believing that I was making the whole story up about finding the key.
A person could even go so far (and I know a priest who did) as to suggest that Thomas was the one we should look up to in this story, instead of the disciples. The Bible doesn't tell us exactly what Thomas was up to, but he might have been out continuing with his normal way of life instead of cowering in a locked room just because some terror-mongering Jews were on a rampage (losing a corpse is enough to put anybody in a foul mood I guess). You'll recall that Thomas was the one who declared (whether melodramatically or in deadly earnest John doesn't clarify) to the other disciples "Let us also go [back to Judea], that we may die with him" (John 11:16 NIV).
Now Thomas wasn't the only one with a "fight to the death" attitude, Peter demonstrated one a time or two as well. Let's also look at the other two times Thomas is mentioned specifically. In John 14:5-7 he asks Jesus, "Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?" (NASB). To which Jesus responded with a rather key tenet, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (NIV). Finally, Thomas is mentioned in John 21 as going fishing with six other disciples after the "Stop doubting and believe" episode in the locked room.
Alas, finding Thomas back in the old lifestyle of fishing is a blow to the good priest's auxilary sermon point about Thomas being a little more proactive than the others. The impression I get from John is one of Peter saying, "Well, what do we do now? For lack of anything better to do, I guess we can go fishing."
"Yeah, good idea. We're coming with." says Thomas, Nathanial, James, John, and two other random disciples.
Granted, they hadn't recieved the great commission yet, and no telling how many days it's been since the "Stop doubting and believe" session. I fully understand their lethargy (and would have done the same or worse in their shoes), but I'm reasonably certain that if they'd continued traveling about preaching "The kingdom of heaven is near" God would still have "[Given] them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness" (Matt 10). We could also interpret this to mean that the disciples had gotten over their fear of the Jews, that they were going back to "life as normal" instead of living in fear.
Since there's really not enough material in the Bible to fully understand the nuances of Thomas' situation, we have to fall back on what we really do know. We really do know that even though Thomas doubted Jesus' resurrection on the testimony of the apostles, at least he readily believed when confronted by Jesus (20:27-29). As was pointed out by the priest in his sermon on Sunday, Thomas has been much maligned by Christians in general; maligned by many (myself included) who have required more than one confrontation by Jesus before we believe or obey. Didn't it take a confrontation with Jesus before the apostle Paul believed/accepted/obeyed? (Acts 9).
Perhaps the greatest argument against singling out Thomas would be the account of the same locked room from Luke 24, where even after they had touched Jesus' hands and feet, "they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement" (v41 NIV).
14:11 email me permalink / commentary (0)
