John 20:19-31
In the name of the Father, and of Son and of the Holy Spirit… Amen.
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. People say, of course, that seeing is believing. When you explain an incident to someone they often respond with ‘I see’, when actually there is nothing to look at and they were not present during the event you are describing. Perhaps Thomas was one of those people for whom ‘seeing is believing’. If so, and we believe Jesus’s words, then he got a little bit more than he bargained for, he got to touch as well as see. Jesus Thomas sees, Thomas touches, Thomas believes.
Rather unfairly Thomas then goes on to be known as the doubter when in actual fact he is the one who makes a beautiful, fulsome profession of faith—my Lord and my God—that clearly expresses the truth of who Jesus is. And Jesus does not chide or criticise Thomas—he simply makes himself available, literally, bodily, so that Thomas can behold him, can see him, can touch him. And who can blame Thomas for wanting to see for himself. After all, the last time he has seen Jesus is to watch through tears as he is captured, mocked, beaten and crucified. Knowing that the apparent end of the story was a lifeless, broken body, how could he possibly have appeared to the disciples?
In God’s overflowing and abundant love there is space for Thomas to be himself, to have this perfectly reasonable doubt. But Jesus breaks through this doubt quite literally by appearing through a locked door. He reaches out to Thomas, he is determined to touch Thomas, to respond directly and personally to the words ‘until I see the mark of the nails’ … Jesus does not allow doors and bolts to stop him connecting to the faith that he knows Thomas still has, beneath his despair. And then, Jesus gives him the great gift of seeing and touching, the great gift of the opportunity to affirm his faith.
Casting Thomas’s doubt as a negative thing, is something to be avoided. It is unfair to Thomas (who was a faithful disciple of Christ) and it also fails to recognize the importance of doubt to our life of faith. We all experience times when we doubt. We doubt whether God loves us when we do something of which we are ashamed. We doubt whether God listens to us when an earnest prayer seems to go unanswered. We doubt whether God is there at all when faced with pain or anguish, the loss of a loved one, or terrible tragedy in the world. We doubt ourselves, we doubt God.
Doubt is—if you like—a facet of faith. Because part of having faith means that you have decided that you will believe, even though there might be many reasons why you should not. And where faith leads doubt may well follow, poking at the edges, stirring up the waters that we might wish to keep becalmed. Because to have a living—a lively—faith means that you are open to question, to ponder, to think and inevitably at times, to doubt. Faith without some doubt, at some point is a very odd type of faith indeed. The way we believe as a child is not the same as how we grasp the issues of faith as a teen ager, as a young adult or as an older person. Real faith—living faith—is seen through the prism of who we are, it moves and flexes and changes just as we grow, live and change.
So we should never be afraid of times of doubt—rather we should see them as times of opportunity—times when God might be able to break through the locked doors of our minds and hearts, to reach out to us as he reached out to Thomas. Those might be the very times when Jesus comes to find us just as he did to Thomas. He reached out to Thomas in love. And just as the disciples seemed to find it difficult to recognize their friend and Lord in his post resurrection appearances, so we too sometimes fail to recognize Jesus when we are wandering on the path of doubt, unsure of where we are going.
So if we are confused, or struggling with issues of faith, how will we recognize Jesus when he reaches out to us? St John tells us that Jesus—in each of his appearances—said ‘Peace be with you’—so we will know that Jesus is present in those moments where peace is offered. And because the risen Christ still bears the marks of his passion, we can also be sure that whenever we are hurt, or lonely, in those moments when we experience the difficulties of life at their most acute, most painful, then the Risen Christ stands with us.
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe … How will we recognize him? One writer describes Jesus in the clothes of those who we might meet around us, those who show us glimpses of the Divine. So, Jesus may come to us in fine, rich garments—the garments of celebration and joy, worn by those whom we love, who uphold and sustain us, who bring us joy. Or we might glimpse him in dirty, stained clothing—in the clothes worn by someone who will remind us that love is costly, that Jesus lives with the poor and marginalised, the forgotten and unloved. We might glimpse him again in the deepest black of mourning, when we stand with those who have suffered tragic loss—in the clothing of those who weep with us. We will find him in the wounds and we will find him in the love.
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe … On the retreat before ordination a wise old priest told the story of the pulpit on which were inscribed the words ‘Sir, we would see Jesus’. A rather frightening idea for a young priest—that when one speaks the congregation will expect to see something of Jesus. It can make you doubt that you will ever be up to the task. But perhaps it is best seen as a gentle admonition to us all—that it is our task to show something of the divine life. To be—as St Teresa of Avila describes so beautifully—Jesus’s hands and feet. It is our task to try to live a life of real faith, faith that at times is messy, less than perfect but always real and able to cope with times of doubt. For whenever we doubt, he will undoubtedly find us.
In the name of the Father, and of Son and of the Holy Spirit…
Amen.