I've never bought into the easy, and quite lazy, naming and shaming of the apostle Thomas as 'doubting Thomas.' He's the disciple who argued they should all go to Jerusalem and die with him. For whatever reason he wasn't with the gathered disciples when Jesus first came, stood amongst them, said 'Peace be with you', and proved he was alive.
When Thomas said he wouldn't believe till he saw and touched Jesus, he was asking for no more than had already been given to the others. Incidentally, Thomas didn't say he needed to hear Jesus, though it was hearing, not seeing that opened Mary's eyes.
I think the clue to understanding the resurrection stories in John lies in the imagination applied to the text, and demands of us far more psychological understanding than we usually bring to our interpretations of what happened. Centre, front and inescapably there, in the consciousness of all those who loved and followed Jesus is the combination of shock, grief and loss.
Peter couldn't face going into the tomb. If Jesus was still there and dead he didn't want to see him. If Jesus was indeed risen then Peter wasn't ready to meet him. The Beloved Disciple did go in, saw Jesus wasn't there and believed – but he still had no evidence and Jesus was elsewhere. Mary simply thought Jesus body was stolen. It's not only tears that blur her vision; grief closes down her perceptions, the defensive inner denials that are grief at its most raw. Until Jesus spoke her name.
Then there is Thomas. Passionate, courageous, intelligent and realistic Thomas, not to be taken in by the wishful thinking of others. What is telling about John's telling of the story is that Thomas who had demanded to see, and touch and invasively poke the wounds of Jesus, did none of these things when the time came. Jesus invited Thomas to touch the evidence, but Thomas is far ahead of such needs for proof. His confession, "My Lord, and my God." are the crowning words of faith in the entire Gospel and of John's art as a storyteller of the Gospel.
The Gospel of John starts with "In the beginning was the Word", the creative, light-shining, life-giving Word. And Thomas saw that Light of Life. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us, full of grace and truth," and Thomas was persuaded and won by that same grace and truth. Throughout John there are signs of Jesus as the Word of God, water into wine, the feast of the 5,000, the raising of Lazarus, and now Thomas was seeing in the risen Jesus the new wine, the bread of life, and the resurrection as promised.
The words of the Word, and the signs of the Son of God, are concentrated and connected to this One who stands this side of resurrection and says, "Peace be with you." John draws us, his readers, into and through the story, to this point, when finally and fully Jesus is addressed in the fullness of his deity, "My Lord and my God." That is the cry of recognition from hearts that believe the deep truths that intersect in the story of the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn't get it, cannot extinguish it, and recedes before the Light of the world.
Painting is by Fra Angelico, Mary Magdalene and Jesus. 'Noli me tangere'.
Leave a Reply