I have always thought that Thomas got a bum rap.  Down through the centuries we have called him “Doubting Thomas,” when, in reality, he was the greatest believer of them all.  He ended up proclaiming the highest profession of faith we find in the Gospels.  Beholding the risen Christ he said, “My Lord and my God!”

I.  THE FIRST GLIMPSES WE HAVE OF THOMAS IN THE GOSPELS PORTRAY HIM AS A MAN OF CONSIDERABLE COURAGE.  Actually, “Thomas” is not a name.  It means simply, “The Twin.” Of course, over the years it has become a proper name.  But in the beginning it was not.  “The Twin”—to whom?  Some apocryphal Gospels give him a real name, and it is Judas.  One even suggests that he was Jesus’ twin...but that is so fanciful as to be absurd.  It does indicate that Thomas had a special relationship with Jesus, however.  One writer suggests that Thomas was a twin who lost his twin brother to death at an early age.  This was a blow from which his faith never quite recovered.  Then he transferred his affections to Jesus, and was content to tag along in the crowd, allowing Jesus to replace the twin brother he had lost.  But then Jesus died, too!  Thomas’s faith was shattered!  That was the last straw!  When the disciples gathered in the Upper Room that first Easter evening he could not bring himself to come.  What hope was there?  Where was God when the persons he had loved most in life died?  There was reason for his bitterness and skepticism.  There usually is.  There are a lot of people who have doubts because of tragic experiences they have had, especially the loss of a loved one.  Others doubt for less serious reasons, however.  I know some who doubt because God didn’t get them a new bicycle on their fourth birthday.  Or because they once came up against some obnoxious ministers, priests, or Sunday School teachers.  Thomas’ doubts came from a deeper source. 

Thomas first appears in the Lazarus story.  (John 11:1-16) News had come to Jesus that his friend Lazarus was ill.  But for two days Jesus made no move to do anything at all.  Then he started off for Bethany.  Bethany was sort of a “bedroom community” for those who worked and worshipped in Jerusalem, situated just over the Mount of Olives, a couple of miles away from the Holy City.  The disciples knew that in going to Bethany, Jesus was putting Himself perilously close to His enemies who were plotting to kill him.  To go there seemed suicidal and reckless.  What made it worse is that word had come that Lazarus was not only ill, he was dead.  So now the journey was not only reckless, but pointless.  When Jesus said that He was going anyway, the disciples came close to deserting Him.  Then there came the voice of one who was normally silent: Thomas, who said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (John 11:16) Thomas was a born pessimist.  He could see nothing ahead but disaster.  But he was willing to go anyway.  I suggest to you that that took a heap of courage and faith!  To lose your faith and hope and still keep on going requires courage of the highest order!  More than most of us could muster, I daresay! 

Then, in the Upper Room, Thomas was the one who was most bewildered by Jesus’ strange talk about the Cross and Resurrection.  Jesus told them that He was going away.  Their hearts were broken with sorrow.  He said to them, “Where I am going you know, and the way you know.” Then it was that Thomas spoke up once again and said, “Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way?” (John 14:5) William Barclay says that “Thomas was a man who could not live with an unasked question.” (THE MASTER’S MEN, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1959, p.  49) It does seem that way.  Thomas was the man who was always asking questions. 

Finally, Thomas was the man who was absent when Jesus appeared on that first Easter Day.  His absence fits his character, for he found Jesus’ teaching about resurrection too good to be true.  And he simply could not believe the second-hand information he got from the others after the event.  There is no doubt that the early Christians saw this resurrection appearance in the Upper Room as a description of what happened to them when they gathered together on the Lord’s Day, for “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20) But, when Jesus appeared on that first Easter evening, Thomas was absent.  The others tried to tell them what they had seen and heard, but Thomas was skeptical about the whole deal.  “Unless I see, I will not believe,” was his credo. 

II.  THOMAS SEEMS TAILOR-MADE FOR OUR SKEPTICAL AGE.  I know a lot of folks who are hesitant to accept the Christian faith because they simply cannot accept what they cannot see.  They have seen too many people who have been conned and they don’t want to be rubes at the County fair, walking around with eyes wide open to the wonders and with wallets hanging out of their pockets.  They don’t want to be gullible, and so they are skeptical.  “Unless I see, I will not believe,” is their credo.  But it is a normal reaction.  You or I might have felt as Thomas did. 

Actually, doubt is not a bad thing.  There can be no true faith without it.  In late-19th century Denver there was a preacher named Myron Reed.  I came across this excellent epigram from brother Reed: “A man who says he has never had a doubt in matters of faith wears a No.  6 hat.” (Quoted in Context by Martin E.  Marty, Jan.  15, 1989) Tennyson once wrote: “There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.” But note that he said “honest doubt.” I’ve seen a lot of doubt that is far from honest.  Often it is merely taking the easy way out, refusing to think or to look beneath the surface of life.  Many times it is only intellectual laziness.  Someone once said, “Some people think; others think that they think; and the rest would rather die than think!” I have no worries about those who have examined the Christian Faith from every possible angle, but I worry a lot about people who believe it to be so far beneath their contempt they don’t even examine it.  Closed-mindedness is not limited to religious folk; irreligious folk are guilty of it, too. 

We all have doubts.  Woody Allen is right: Faith would be easier if only God would show Himself by depositing a million dollars in a Swiss bank account in our name.  Why doesn’t God do something spectacular like that?  We can sympathize with British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell who was once asked what he would say if after death he found himself confronted by God.  Russell replied, “I shall say to Him, ‘Why did you make the evidence of your existence so insufficient?’” There is a part of us that says with Thomas, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.” We all long for certainty.  A giant comet streaking through a dark winter night with its tail sky-writing in our behalf, “I love you, signed, God,” or something like that.  Why doesn’t God do that?  It would be easy.  Of course, if that happened, immediately a group of cynics would get together and explain to us that it was just a freak accident resulting from certain atmospheric conditions. 

Why does God not reveal His existence more forcibly?  Probably because He does not want to overwhelm us.  If God’s aim is to produce mature spirits fit to spend eternity in His presence, it makes sense that He would not reveal Himself in His fullness to us.  Such certainty would keep us perpetually immature.  If a child knows that his father will always be there to solve every problem, to resolve every crisis, to get him out of every scrape, the child will never develop self-reliance.  Our insecurity may be essential to spiritual growth.  All of us, when we are honest, admit to having doubts.  And doubt is not necessarily a bad thing.  Especially today. 

III.  OUR AGE, IF ANYTHING, SUFFERS NOT FROM DOUBT, BUT FROM “OVER-BELIEF.” It seems to me that we could use a good, healthy dose of Thomas’s skepticism.  It almost seems that today we are ready to believe anything that comes down the pike...and the weirder the better.  I am continually amazed at the wild things people believe nowadays: from magic pyramids to crystals to channeling.  William Willimon tells of talking with a member of what he called one of the “stuffiest” Presbyterian churches.  She talked with him while peering out from under a gold cardboard pyramid.  “Why are you wearing that on top of your head?” he asked.  “Because I am a bit depressed today.  It lifts me up,” she said.  “What if you’re not depressed?” he asked.  “Then I wear a silver one.” (Christian Century, December 22-29, 1982, p.  1301) The word “doubt” derives from the Latin dubito, which means “seeming to be two,” so that, etymologically, to doubt is to be of two minds—“to stand at the crossroad,” “to look in two directions.” Many believers don’t seem to have looked in any direction these days, but merely accept blindly whatever is handed to them, especially if they see it on television. 

I find it significant that the highest confession of faith in Jesus we find in any Gospel comes from Thomas.  Not Thomas the Doubter, but Thomas the Believer.  Doubt can lead to faith.  Only those who have had their faith shattered by the hammer blows of pain and adversity, by their own personal Calvary, can get to the other side of Calvary and experience resurrection faith.  We can’t get to Easter without passing through Good Friday.  Faith is always a venture, a risk, a reaching out into the void without any more assurance that Someone is there than the promise of His presence.  It’s easy enough to have faith when things are going well, and problems do not loom on the horizon.  Real faith is betting your life on God when that bet seems more foolish than betting on the state lottery.  Thomas is not a villain.  He is a model for most of us.  In his story we discover that Christ comes to meet us in the midst of our shattered and broken world of doubt and despair.  He knows our doubts, but He comes to us anyway. 

One final note: THOMAS MISSED CHURCH...AND LOOK WHAT HE MISSED!  The risen Christ was present, but Thomas was away somewhere, doing something he thought more important.  But can there be anything more important than meeting the risen Christ on the Lord’s Day?  They had a party with Jesus, but Thomas missed it because he wasn’t there!  Where do you think he was?  Was he off somewhere trying to drink himself into oblivion and forget the whole wild-goose chase he had entered upon with this crazy rabbi from Nazareth?  Had he taken a coffee break?  Had he gone to the park to feed the pigeons?  Where was he?  We do not know where he was—any more than we know where the other 60% of our church’s members who are not here this morning are.  Maybe they are out doing good, I hope so.  All we know is that Thomas was absent.  And he missed something (or Someone) very important. 

I find it fascinating that although Thomas did not believe in the Resurrection, the early Church didn’t throw him out!  They seem to have been much more tolerant than any modern-day church would be.  They probably said: “That’s old Thomas.  He wasn’t there when the Lord came.  He doesn’t believe in the resurrection.  But give him time.  He will.” I remember when the late Bishop Pike was dean of the Cathedral of St.  John the Divine in New York.  Ever the radical, he held a worship service honoring Sigmund Freud in 1945, six years after Freud’s death.  “But Freud was an atheist!” people protested.  Came Pike’s reply: “He’s not now!”

Jesus seems to have had infinite patience with Thomas.  Perhaps He had not forgotten that Thomas was the only one who wanted to go with him to the side of Lazarus, not because he believed that all would be well, but because, pessimist that he was, he believed that nothing would be well, and he might as well die with Jesus.  Life wouldn’t be worth living without Him!  And Jesus remembered that Thomas’ enquiry at the Last Supper opened the door for Him to teach them about the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  So Jesus never lost patience with Thomas, for He seems to have valued honest doubt more than blind belief.  Would that the Church had followed His example down through the ages!  Jesus valued the skeptic, for He knew that only a converted skeptic would have the power to convert other skeptics. 

Note this about the story: Although Christ invited Thomas to touch Him, there is no record that he actually did so.  Merely meeting the Master was sufficient to convince him.  From that day forward, Thomas’ faith was no longer second-hand.  He had met the risen Christ.  Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) said of his parish church in Scotland as it was searching for a new pastor: “What this parish needs is what every parish needs, a man who knows God at more than second-hand.” That’s what this church needs in its ministers—and in its laity.  People who know God at more than second-hand. 

“Reach out and touch someone” is the slogan of one of our telephone companies.  It might also be the slogan of the Fourth gospel as well.  Or, even better, let that Someone reach out and touch you!  The history of the Church records that millions have experienced that healing touch as they gather about the Lord’s Table to celebrate the Eucharist.  The story of Thomas was put into the Gospel to remind us that Christ is in our midst.  He invites you.  He invites me.  He invites all.  Reach out and touch and be touched.  Listen again to the words of our Lord, “Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” That’s us.  That is us.