I wrote this nearly a year ago, but have been saving it for now. It’s a reflection on the passage John 20:24-29
I have a confession to make: I’ve never liked this story, in fact I’ve come to realise that I struggle with most of the resurrection stories. I know that might sound like a strange thing to say, especially since the resurrection is central to our faith, but somehow I’ve always found it difficult to navigate the journey between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The change in mood from distress to joy is too abrupt, I need more time to adjust.
We have this extended period of Lent to prepare ourselves for the awfulness of Jesus’ death on Good Friday. We have been soul-searching, penitent, and self-denying (in theory, at least) for this gravest and most tragic of days. Then on Easter Saturday, I don’t know what to do with myself. I find it hard to journey with the women and the disciples, because while we anticipate the good news, they are in a state of shock and grief. Then, over the course of one night from Easter Saturday to Easter Sunday, the mood totally changes and we are invited to rejoice; it all happens too fast for me.
We need time to recover from difficult experiences; even the best news in the history of the world takes a little time to sink in and heal our wounds. Here I wonder whether the story of Thomas can help us, and I beg your indulgence as I retell his story with a little poetic license.
Let’s try to put ourselves in his place. Thomas had come into Jerusalem with the women and the other disciples, full of hope and expectation, believing that Jesus would victoriously lead the people into the kingdom of God. Granted, Jesus had been rather opaque about the details of how this would work out, preferring to talk about yeast, seeds, coins and sheep rather than coronation ceremonies and forms of government; but a kingdom needs a king and so Thomas would have been expecting Jesus to claim his throne. He had thrown in his lot with Jesus, he had given up his livelihood, left his family, and followed this teacher around the country, believing that his future was inextricably linked with Jesus’ kingdom project.
And then it all went sour.
Firstly, Judas’ betrayal was an enormous blow, not only to Jesus, but to the rest of that tight-knit community. Traitors are particularly destructive, because when people betray our trust, it causes deep wounds, leaving us struggling to trust others again.
Secondly, there was the utter confusion about how Jesus had behaved during the last days of his life. Why had he refused to save himself? How could he establish his kingdom if he wasn’t there to sit on the throne? There were so many occasions where Jesus could have found a way out, as he did when he slipped away from the angry crowd in Nazareth – he could have overpowered the guards, or defended himself against the Sanhedrin, he could easily have charmed Herod and, even at the last, he could have cooperated with Pontius Pilate who clearly wanted to release him.
Thirdly, Thomas had witnessed Jesus being tortured to death in a long, drawn out, brutal way, which must have been incredibly traumatic to see.
And fourthly, on top of all this, Thomas’ hopes, dreams and expectations for the rest of his life had been shattered in one fell swoop. What was he going to do with himself, now that his leader, guide and friend was gone? The roadmap of his life had been ripped up in front of him.
What was there to comfort Thomas at this time? Well, there were the disciples and the women. But from his perspective, they were not dealing well with the grief. It’s a well-known fact that people in deep grief can imagine that they can see or hear their loved one. Instead of facing reality and trying to come to terms with it, as Thomas was, the disciples seemed to be fixating on grief-induced hallucinations, imagining angelic visitations and constructing a narrative to console themselves with – so desperate to believe that the adventure wasn’t all over. Thomas might sound cynical, but remember that the others had seen the resurrected Jesus while he hadn’t.
It was painful for Thomas to see his friends deluding themselves. He kept his thoughts to himself for as long as he could, but eventually he couldn’t contain himself any longer and exploded with the words ‘unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails, and my hand in his side, I will not believe’. Thomas got to the point of almost giving up on the disciples and returning home, but he joined them for one last meal.
Now this is where I start to have real problems with the story. I feel that the label ‘doubting Thomas’ is terribly unfair. He was feeling very fragile, and let’s remember that he had had a whole extra week of grief compared to the rest of the disciples. Certainly, they too were processing recent events, but at least the disciples had seen Jesus and been given new hope. Thomas was still in the thick of it.
Unfortunately, I think Jesus comes across as not very compassionate, he appears to take poor, wounded Thomas and make a teaching point out of him, almost reprimanding him for his lack of faith. Here, I hope you will forgive me for taking the liberty of locating the narrator of this story at the far end of the table. I am putting the disciple who observes and later recounts this story in a place where he cannot overhear the intimate conversation going on between Thomas and Jesus, he just sees Jesus show Thomas his wounds and fills in the rest himself.
Imagine Thomas’ feelings when he looks up from his bowl of soup and sees Jesus there, sitting opposite, looking at him with love. Shock? Shame? Joy? I like to think of Jesus gently teasing Thomas, insisting on showing him the wounds on his hands and his side. I imagine Jesus coaxing Thomas out of his grief and despair, helping him to start to experience the joy of the resurrection. I imagine them having a big bear hug of great warmth and joy – at which point, I’ll allow Jesus to make his proclamation of blessings for those who believe without seeing, but he does that from of a place of deep affection and compassion for his wounded friend.
So where might this take us?
Firstly, I think it gives us permission to take our time over the resurrection. To let the reality of Christ’s defeat of death dawn on us as slowly as we need it to. New life, the kingdom of God doesn’t all come in an instant. As it takes time for yeast to work through the dough, so God’s work also takes time. Yes, Christ defeated death in an instant, but we experience the effects of that on a longer timescale. Just look at what we are living through now – the multiple challenges that threaten our survival as societies and even as a species. What we don’t hear so much about are the counter-movements, the hopeful communities and projects that are part of that coming kingdom of God. Similarly, in our own lives, healing does come, but it rarely happens overnight, it usually takes time.
Secondly, I think it’s helpful in times of grief and sorrow to know that one of those closest to Jesus also experienced that grief. That he couldn’t be consoled by his comrades’ true, but unhelpful, encouragements. Yes, Jesus is alive, death is conquered, there is new hope – but when we are in that place of suffering these might just feel like empty words; it will take an encounter with Jesus himself to bring us healing. And that is his prerogative, we just need to make ourselves available to Him in prayer.
Thomas’ doubts didn’t exclude him from God’s kingdom, far from it. According to tradition, Thomas went on to found the church in South India, where it is alive and well today. God knows our weakness and our lack of faith; he meets with us in all that and keeps looking at us with love. We can and should bring difficult, confusing, and painful things to him in prayer.
We have five more weeks of Easter, which gives us plenty of time to digest the resurrection stories in the gospels. We have the time we need to adjust to the amazing news that even the worst things we do as human beings cannot overcome the life and love of God. Perhaps as we do this, we can keep in mind the journey that the disciples took. Thomas is an extreme example, because he was left grieving for an extra week, but all of them had been through betrayal, trauma and grief. And yet, after Easter, we come to the birth of the church at Pentecost and then we hear about the life of the early church. God took the disciples from a place of deep brokenness and breathed resurrection life into them. May he do the same with us and our broken world. Amen.
