A German was the guest of a Frenchman who asked him how they distinguished between an optimist and a pessimist in Germany. “It is very simple,” replied the German. “The optimists are learning English and the pessimists are learning Russian!” Thomas would be learning Russian! One person has described a pessimist as someone who burns his bridges behind him and then crosses them before he gets to them. Another claims a pessimist is one who, of two evils, chooses them both! That may well describe Thomas.

To Thomas, the cross was only what he had expected. When Jesus had suggested going to Bethany, when the news of the illness of Lazarus had come, Thomas’ reaction had been: “Let us also go, that we may die with him (John 11:16).”

Thomas never lacked courage, but Thomas was a natural pessimist. What Thomas had expected to happen had happened. When it came, Thomas was broken-hearted. So brokenhearted was he that he wanted to be alone with his grief. John picks up the story: “One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (called the twin), was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ Thomas said to them, ‘Unless I see the scars of the nails in his hands and put my finger on those scars and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ ”

So it happened that, when Jesus came back again, Thomas was not there. The news that Jesus had risen seemed to him far too good to be true, and he refused to believe it.

Thomas not appearing with the disciples on that first Sunday after Easter may have furnished a measure of the depth of his sorrow and disappointment. At the death of his child, one of England’s poets cried out, “Never will I risk such anguish again. I will never love anything anymore.” Thomas felt that way, too!

So another week elapsed and Jesus came back again; and this time Thomas was there. And Jesus knew Thomas’ heart. He repeated Thomas’ own words and invited Thomas to make the test that he had demanded.

“Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God (vv. 27, 28)!’ ”

In this story, the chapter of Thomas stands out clear before us. He made a serious mistake. He withdrew from Christian fellowship. He sought loneliness rather than togetherness. In the second chapter of Acts, we read how Christians are described. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers… All who believed were together and had all things in common… (Acts 2:42, 44a).” Because he was not there with his fellow Christians, he missed the first coming of Jesus.

We miss so very much when we separate ourselves from the Christian fellowship and when we try to go it alone. Things can happen to us here that can’t when we are alone. When sorrow and grief come to us, we often tend to shut ourselves up and to refuse to meet people. That is the time, in spite of our sorrow, when we should seek the fellowship of Christ’s people. It is there we are most likely to meet him face-to-face.

Our loyalty needs to go way beyond a pastor, choir director, church secretary, etc. This story of Thomas and his behavior is right on target for us now. If Jesus died on the cross and is now just a dead martyr, we can remember him with flowers on the altar and let it go at that. We can, then, dissipate our energies in choosing up sides over silly incidentals in the congregation like what hymns we sing, how we usher, how the parking lot is managed, and what the preacher’s kids wear to church.

But, if Christ came out of the tomb on Easter and is alive here, these considerations become so trivial compared to how we will see him alive in our church and who needs him most and how best can we love him in our getting together as a congregation. Christ alive makes us the resurrection people.

Thomas got side-tracked for a while. He left the other believers just when he needed them the most. So, he found himself mourning over a dead Jesus instead of being with a live Christ. This led him to be concerned with trivia, like his own ego and the size of the holes in Jesus’ hands and side.

Come on, Thomas, get off incidentals and get with the live God at your side.

We don’t know, either, what the other disciples were doing about Thomas’ absence. We hope they were concerned and perhaps had even delegated one of their group to seek him out and plead for his return.

It is a vital sign of the Christ of Easter now alive. His people get together. That being together calms fears and rids us of our misgivings. Like Thomas, we often separate ourselves from the fellowship of believers just when we most need it. What pastor hasn’t heard the heart-breaking comment of a member ashamed of his/her behavior: “I’ll never be able to go back to church again.”

Yet, that is precisely why the Christ had to come alive and come back to be with us. God well knows we’ll doubt; we will fall off the wagon; we sin over and over again. So the assembled believers, the called out of the world by God, become his life presence here in this town, in this neighborhood, where we can have again his forgiving love and his warmth and assurance.

How many times the story could be told. Some little thing like not liking the preacher’s spouse or the way the bulletin is printed or we don’t get our way in a meeting -- so we leave. However, that is the time we most need to be with the rest of the believers, so that we might work it through. So we might put earthly things in our lives into a proper perspective.

A person loses a child and so leaves the church;Another finds out something about the pastor and leaves;Still another goes to college and has those lovely Bible stories blasted to bits. That’s no time to leave. Together we, whom God loves and saves, need to be here with the rest over and over again. It’s a vital element to our spiritual lives. It’s a vital sign to the rest of the community.

One of the legends which grew up about Thomas relates that some years after the event, Thomas was again plagued with doubts about the resurrection. He sought some of the Apostles and began to pour out his soul’s troubles to them. But after a while, one by one, the apostles left him because of pressing duties. He made his way to some loyal women in the company of believers. They were surprised at his questions, but like Dorcas, they were busy in labors for the Master and let him know they didn’t have time for such thoughts as these. At last, it dawned on Thomas that it was because they were so occupied in the work of the Lord that they were free from the doubt that seemed to be torturing him. He took the hint. He went to Parthia and flung himself into preaching the Word and ministering to the needs of the saints, and was never again troubled with doubt.

“Thomas had two great virtues. He refused to say he believed when he did not. There is an uncompromising honesty about Thomas. He would never still his doubts by pretending they did not exist. He wouldn’t rattle off a Creed without understanding what it was all about. Thomas had to be sure. There is more ultimate faith in the person who insists on being sure than in the person who glibly repeats things which he/she has never thought out and which he/she does not really believe. It is doubt like that which ends in certainty.”1

The Interpreter’s Bible has said: “ ‘What this parish needs,’ wrote Carlyle, ‘is what every parish needs, a man who knows God at more than second-hand.’ Only when the gospel of Christ is for us no carried story, no rumor heard and passed on by us for what it may be worth; but firsthand evidence, what we have seen, what we have looked upon with our own eyes, what we have handled with our own hands, what we have proved in our own experience, not simply an unthinking acquiescence in what others say, which may be all very well as a beginning, but something that has happened to us -- only then does our belief grow vital. Yet Christ tells us here that there is a bigger faith even than that, a faith that can dispense with tangible proofs and visible evidence, that believes heroically even when there is no obvious and immediate confirmation, building unafraid and confident on God’s naked word.”2

It’s something to have the witness of a person like that, that Jesus was alive! No fly-by-night person, one who had to see for himself.

“Thomas’ other great virtue was that when he was sure, he went the whole way.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and My God (v. 28).” “There were no halfway measures about Thomas.” He wasn’t airing his doubts in order to get out of pledging or serving or giving. “He doubted in order to be sure and when he became sure, his surrender to certainty was complete. If we fight our way through our doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, we then attain a certainty that those who unthinkingly accept things can never reach.”3

It is this half-hearted surrender with reservation, cautious commitment, that works against our ever knowing him alive with us here. So often we try to live our Christian lives straddling the fence, mouthing the liturgies and creeds and worship of God; but still living our lives by the world’s standards and priorities. It’s a miserable way to live. We know real stewardship is to at least tithe our income to an alive Christ. Still, we tip him like a gift of memorial to a dead God. We know our lives are enriched when we share Christ with other people. However, we don’t. We are like rivers running into the North Sea -- all frozen up at the mouth! We know we should love our enemies; but we barely do that for our friends and so never know the cleansing effect that can have on our lives.

We heard all our life that we have complete forgiveness of our guilt here, but we rarely take that seriously. So, we don’t enjoy that “freeing up” to be the whole person God intended us to be -- ever.

We could go on and on:

The pure in heart are blessed.The peace-makers are happy.The meek will inherit.

But we don’t try for a completely pure heart, or a peacemaker, or a meek spirit. So we limp along like Thomas did for a while, never knowing for sure or realizing fully the alive God with us.

Paul said about some of his members that “they were neither hot nor cold” and that made him want to throw up!

When we can throw ourselves wholeheartedly into being a part of the live body, we no longer have to doubt nor do others who see us. For in us, then, they see one of the vital signs of a live Christ out of the grave and with us.

“When they began to fling that suspension bridge across the Niagara Gorge, it all began with engineers flying a kite across the chasm, playing out the kite string until the kite reached the farther store. Then twine was tied to the string, and rope to the twine, and wire to the rope, and cable to the wire. In due time, mighty cables were suspended from great towers and anchored on either side in the depths of the earth, and the bridge was built.”4

John Rilling says: “So the apostolic faith, erected by the hand of God, carries you and me and generations through time to the further stores. But it all began with the frail strands of men like Peter, Paul, James and John and Thomas -- doubting Thomas. What the Lord did for them he can do through them for us, if we only let him.”5

Faith of our fathers, living stillIn spite of dungeon, fire, and sword.Oh, how our hearts beat high with joy.When-e’er we hear that glorious word.Faith of our fathers, holy Faith,We will be true to thee till death.-- Frederick W. Faber, 1814-1863 Maybe Thomas has been maligned! Once he did voice his doubts and honestly worked through them, he went all out in his devotion and service.

I think I would be willing to have a congregation full of Thomases. Think what it would mean if we could get off dead center and commit ourselves fully to the alive Christ here:

If we all tithed, we’d triple the income and could support missions and ministry all over the world.

If we all witnessed to our faith, we’d grow by leaps and bounds. Hundreds would join at this altar every few weeks for baptisms and confirmations.

If we all loved and forgave and served others like we should as his disciples, we’d set this community on its ear.

Sunday school would not be able to hold all the adult students studying the Bible! We’d have to add twice the number of worship services to hold all the people! The choir loft would be bulging and you could hear the hymn singing all the way up Sixth Avenue! Musicals would take place. People would be talking about it all over town. It would be a mighty powerful vital sign!

No one was ever less of a stained-glass saint than Thomas. It was always Thomas’ first reaction not to do what he was told to do, and not to believe what he was asked to believe. The task offered to him was always too tough for him to attempt, and the good news too good to be true. But the fact he believed with some difficulty made him believe with a fierce intensity once he was convinced. And it was never an argument which solved Thomas’ doubts; it was always the presence of his Lord. He again and again made the discovery that every Christian has to make -- that by himself/herself everything is possible, but with God, nothing is impossible.

Let’s learn from Thomas:

Give ourselves completely to the Lord.Admit our doubts and work through them.Keep in the company of the rest of the believers. “We do not know for sure what happened to Thomas in afterdays -- there is an Apocrypha book called the Acts of Thomas which gives us some history.

After the Ascension of Jesus, the disciples divided up the world, so each might go to some country to preach the gospel. India fell by lot to Thomas. The Christians of India do trace their heritage to Thomas.”6

“Faith was never an easy thing for Thomas; obedience never came readily to him. He had to be sure. He had to count the cost. But once he was sure and had counted the cost, Thomas was the person who went to the ultimate limits of faith and obedience.”7 And so can we! Amen.