They say history is written by the victors, but I'm not always so sure. The forces of the Union roundly and rightfully defeated the forces of slavery known as the Confederacy, but 140 years later I'm not sure it's the victors who tell the whole story.

Some things are known by their Union name. The decisive battle of September 17, 1862 is known as the Battle of Antietam, not Sharpsburg, as the Confederates knew it.

Then there's the little-known Battle of Monocacy. Get off In­terstate 70 at Fredericksburg, Maryland, and follow the signs and you'll learn how a raw group of Union soldiers held off crack Con­federate soldiers for a single day, preventing them from getting to an undefended Washington DC before it could be refortified. But there are monuments everywhere funded by the Daughters of the Confederacy that call it a Confederate victory. Their monuments went up first. Victory?

Think about the famous charge that took place during the Battle of Gettysburg. Generals Pickett and Pettigrew led 15,000 on a doomed march, but it came to be known only as Pickett's charge. Moreover, despite the fact that it was a bad decision and a horrible waste of life, it has been commemorated for its gallantry and bravery.

A few months later, General Grant would lose 15,000 of his own troops in the Battle of St. Petersburg, but it is remembered as an example of cold-hearted butchery, not Southern gallantry.

The name given to something or someone matters. Your par­ents were wrong when they said, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Words can hurt.

I call this to mind because one of the characters in today's Bible passage is referred to by a name that is neither given to him by Jesus, nor is it used in scripture. I am referring to Doubting Thomas.

That's a defeatist name. Where is the victory of the resurrec­tion in a name like that?

Now maybe he would prefer Doubting Thomas to the name sometimes used, Thomas the Twin. All twins are different but many prefer to be known as individuals rather than simply as part of a pair. Maybe he would have preferred to be known as a doubter instead of just a twin.

Note that the word doubt appears nowhere in the story in the Greek. Ignore the English translation. The Greek says, "Do not be unbelieving but believing." Unbelieving is different than doubt­ing. And in John the difference is crucial.

There is no agreement either about exactly when, how, and why the gospel of John was written, but some guess that John was writing to Christians in Ephesus. The believers in that city had two radically different opinions about Jesus. There are some believers in Ephesus, evidently, who believe fully in the human Jesus and some who believe fully in the divine Jesus. John wanted these two groups to realize it's not a matter of either/or, but both/and. Both human and divine.

John is written to address the need for both the divine and hu­man Jesus. Jesus is the example we are to follow but is also the one with the power to forgive sins. Jesus is the one in touch with both people and with God. Jesus is the bridge. He stands at the intersec­tion of heaven and earth. But there were evidently Christians of Jewish background who thought of him as just a great teacher and the others from the Greek world who thought of him as a spiritual presence.

In John's time the first group was best exemplified by those in the community at Qumran, associated today with the Dead Sea Scrolls. They preached and practiced radical obedience to the Law of Moses in Qumran. At the other end of the spectrum were the gnostics, those who practiced a mystery religion involving secret knowledge that was gained by initiates through long study and rejection of the physical world — body and spirit — human and divine. John made it clear that these differing understandings in­tersected in the real world in the life and work of Jesus.

John called the church to radical obedience to the law of Love, the commandments of Jesus Christ. There is walking in light or darkness in both. John is writing with regards to both Jewish and Gentile mysticism — more obedience to the letter of the law than ever, escape from the world, and more obedience to the Spirit of the law than ever, disconnected from the world. John wants us placed firmly in the world. This is what is real. Jesus is at the intersection.

In the gospel of John, believing in Jesus means you get it. It's not just seeing, it's not just intellectual assent, it's understanding what you see to the core of your being. It means you are ready at last to change everything about your life because you get it.

When Jesus tells Thomas he must move from unbelief to be­lief he's hoping he'll get it.

This story takes place a week after the revelation of Easter. Jesus had appeared in the midst of the disciples and blessed them with peace — shalom — perfect wholeness in every aspect of their lives. They were all there — but Thomas. When the others en­thused about the wonder of the resurrection, Thomas replies, "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" (v. 25).

Actually, I can't say I blame Thomas. Remember, when it came to doubting, the apostles come first, all of them. They doubted the women. They doubted Mary Magdalene. Thomas just doubted some runaways, the disciples who abandoned and denied Jesus in his hours of pain and suffering.

Do you remember the first day of summer vacation? No shoes, no shirt, no getting up until you wanted to. And the best part was that a week later it was still true!

A week later — Easter is still true, but Thomas has not re­ceived the memo — until now. Again, Jesus shares the peace that passes understanding. As Thomas, at least in my imagination, stands there dumbfounded, Jesus says, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe" (v. 27).

What follows is the most extraordinary confession of faith in the gospel of John or maybe anywhere, and it shows why it's wrong to refer to him as Doubting Thomas. That would be a defeat. These are not the words of a doubter. These are the words of someone who gets it. That's why I prefer to call him Believing Thomas, a name of victory. Standing face-to-face with the risen Jesus he says, "My Lord and my God!" (v. 28).

That's it in a nutshell: Lord — example for my life, teacher, guide, mentor. God — the divine on earth. John begins his gospel by stating:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. — John 1:1-4

Later, he states, very clearly, "And the Word became flesh and lived among us ..." (1:14).

Believing Thomas can be all things — Brave Thomas, Deter­mined Thomas, Confessing Thomas, and Converting Thomas. There is a tradition in the early church that Thomas traveled as far as India to share the wonderful Word made flesh. That does not sound like the work of a doubter.

So what name do you claim? Believer? Unbeliever? Jesus has yet another name for you. Speaking to Thomas — and to us as well — Jesus says, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to be­lieve" (v. 29).

There's your new name — blessed. If you want it. And why wouldn't you? The world hurls all sorts of names at us for the things we do and things we have never done. Epithets are flung here and there, medical diagnoses, pop psychology, clichés. But Jesus calls us blessed because we have not seen, yet we believe. We get it.

We get it that Jesus is the Lord of life. In him there is light and the darkness is unable to overcome it. We see lives changed. We come to know peace.

This peace enables us to do all things. The late Clarence Jor­dan, a minister, a scholar, and a Civil Rights activist who founded an interracial community in the South during an era when this was not only foolhardy but downright dangerous, translated the scrip­tures from the Greek to the vernacular of the South. He called this the Cotton Patch Version. He translated a verse in another one of John's writings, which we call 1 John 3:18, in the following way: "My little ones, let's not talk about love. Let's not sing about love. Let's put love into action and make it real."

If we believe, if we get it, then we can take this love of Jesus and put it into action and make it real.

Hate can be transformed by love. We see this no better demon­strated than with the relationship between the United States and the German people. There were two brutal wars fought between those nations in the twentieth century resulting in the deaths of millions of people. In some ways we can trace the origins of the second war to the harsh treatment of the vanquished by the victors after the first war.

However, though these two nations have been competitors, they have not fought a war in the sixty years hence, and it seems incon­ceivable that such a war could ever take place. Why? First of all Christian groups were actively involved in programs of rebuilding and reconciliation work among the ruins in Europe. Hatred was repaid with kindness.

More important, it was the national policy of the United States to study the conquered enemies, even before the war ended, and through what became known as the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economic and political structure of the defeated nations, while pre­serving their dignity and autonomy.

That's getting it — that a war, however justified, is not a long-term solution, and that sacrifice and love, even for one's enemies, is the true work of Jesus.

This passage closes with these words:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through be­lieving you may have life in his name.  — John 20:30-31

I find these some of the most frustrating words of scripture. I'm just getting started. I want to know more. After all, I can buy a 1,000-page or larger paperback novel at my grocery store or at the airport with no problem. If the novel is well written it'll hold my attention until I'm finished, at which point I'll just wish there's more. The gospels are so short, comparatively. I want more. In­deed, John must have heard that often enough because eventually he added one more chapter.

His point is well taken. It's not the length, but the effect that matters. John could have given me a thousand pages but if I don't get it, if I don't believe, if I don't start living right now as an Easter person, it doesn't matter. These words are written so that we may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God — that's the point of this story of Believing Thomas.

These words are written so that through believing, we may all have life, eternal life, real life, in his name.

Because, after all, and to quote once more from this very short and very important book, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life" (John 3:16). Amen.