Honest Thomas
John 20:19-31
If we are all honest with ourselves, all of us are “doubting Thomases.” All of us need to see, or hear, or touch something before we believe it is real. This story of “doubting Thomas” was always taught to me as a cautionary tale when I was a kid.
This was the character in scripture we shouldn’t be like because our faith needed to be “stronger” than Thomas’, who needed to “see” in order to believe. But I think Thomas gets a bad wrap. Thomas was honest: “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.”
I think Thomas’ honesty is refreshing. Because what we see at the end of this particular story is that Jesus never abandoned him—Jesus connected with him directly! Jesus even passed through a closed door in an effort to reveal himself to Thomas. And, friends, I think Jesus/God is constantly coming toward us and revealing themself to us—it’s on us to raise our awareness!
Additionally, instead of Thomas’ doubt being a character flaw—I think it was an asset. I think doubt and skepticism nowadays potentially will save us. Especially in the 21st century where, more and more, we seem to becoming a “post-truth” society.
The fact is, we have to confront the reality that truth as we perceive it is never objective. We have confirmation bias in how we receive information. We are affected by our alignments with other people or groups. We all have access to different kinds of information—and these differing gaps of information access have widened profoundly in a world where our information is tailored to either make us angry or stimulate us in order to generate an addictive habit that also subjects us to advertising. We see this in social media, and in the way that the news is delivered to us frequently with provocative “click-bait” headlines.
I say “Thank God!” for the Thomas’ who say, “I wont believe this until I see it for myself.” Because, surely Thomas would have been overjoyed that Jesus was alive—his friends all coming back to him and saying what they had saw could have been enough! But instead of following his own confirmation bias, or his belonging to this group, Thomas’ skepticism actually led to Jesus showing up to them again! Jesus who then invited Thomas to touch his wounds, to prove Jesus’ full humanity even as he was resurrected from the dead.
How can we rediscover the value and worth of things we might have once dismissed as a flaw in our faith? How can we reevaluate the role of doubt in our relationship with God—especially when we see that, at least in one sense, Thomas’ doubt brought him literally closer to Jesus?
And how can our faith and our church create a space where everyone’s doubt is welcome?
