Thomas has earned the nickname “Doubting Thomas.” I don’t think this is fair, as it singles him out as the disciple with the least amount of faith after Jesus is raised from the dead. We seem to forget that Scripture is full of doubters; whether they doubted God or doubted their own abilities to carry out whatever it was that God called them to do.
Sarah scoffed at the promise of a child in her old age. God remained faithful and gave her and Abraham a son. Their descendants would be the nation of Israel. Moses doubted he could carry out God’s call to free Israel from slavery in Egypt. At first, he flat-out refused God. Elijah doubted God would protect him as he called out the idolatry of King Ahab and his wife Queen Jezebel. Not just one person, but an entire people, the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, whined about wandering in the desert and asked to be slaves again in Egypt. They even created another golden calf to worship when Moses, in their opinion, spent too much time communing with God on Mt. Sinai.
Mary Magdalene didn’t know it was Jesus standing before her at his empty tomb until he said her name. When she told the disciples she saw Jesus raised from the dead, the disciples didn’t believe her because in the next passage, we are told they are not rejoicing or racing out to find Jesus, but are still hiding behind closed doors for fear of the authorities. It’s only when Jesus appears to them that they believe.
Thomas, unfortunately, was not with them, which is why Thomas did not believe their report of having had Jesus miraculously appear to them. It’s then that Jesus appears to Thomas just as he did for the other disciples. Notice that Jesus isn’t mad at Thomas. He doesn’t lecture him about his lack of faith or his need for more. Instead, he says to him: “Peace I give to you. See my hands and put your hands on my side.” Instead of an angry response, Jesus gives Thomas peace to relieve his anxiety and fear, and helps him believe by granting his wish to see and touch his wounds. It’s only then that Thomas believes.
I love the quote by Anne Lamott that is on your bulletin.
“The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.”
I appreciate that she describes faith as not ignoring or denying the mess, the emptiness, or the discomfort, or in other words, the doubt that anything good can still happen. Faith, instead, is sitting with that doubt and all the discomfort, emptiness, and fear it brings, while holding onto the hope that goodness and comfort eventually appear. I also hold onto the words of Hebrews 11:1: ” Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Just because hope can’t be seen in the present doesn’t mean hope isn’t coming. That is faith in a nutshell. Faith doesn’t mean you never doubt, but it means you hold onto hope that Jesus will eventually make all things right. And this isn’t something we can do on our own. It says this in Ephesians 2:8: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
We can’t even have faith in God without God’s help. We see this in how Jesus meets his disciples cowering in fear after his resurrection. Jesus reassures and comforts them. He didn’t have to. Jesus could’ve scoffed in disappointment and ascended back to God without visiting with the disciples one last time. It’s as if God expected they would be overcome by fear. Yet Jesus still goes to them.
This passage says more about the faithfulness of Jesus Christ than it does about Thomas’s doubts. This passage is about how Jesus not just meets us in, but infiltrates, the darkest and most difficult times of our lives to let us know that Jesus is true to his promises: He will never leave or forsake us. Even when we think all is lost, Jesus finds us.
During the time that he was feeling doubtful, lost, and afraid, Thomas did many things right. He returned to his friends the disciples. He could’ve left completely, thrown away every friend and belief about God that he gained while following Jesus. Instead, he remained with his community of faith, his friends the disciples, as he grapples with the loss of Jesus. Thomas also admits his doubts. He says them out loud and names them unabashedly. This is why I think he’s a faithful doubter, the title of this sermon. In the end, Jesus honors his honesty and gives him and the other disciples what they need to believe again and to move forward.
What we can take from this passage is that God is not afraid, nor is God offended by our doubts. But we see that in Jesus Christ, God desires to be our hope, comfort, and strength. God always wants us to move forward – away from the captivity of fear. Only Jesus can make that happen because Jesus did what we could not – be perfectly obedient to the point of death on the cross so that we would know that not even the darkest depths of death could ever separate us from God.
I’ve been thinking about moments in history when people could have succumbed to hopelessness and given into the lie that God had abandoned them. The black church could have done that in the ‘60s, but instead, they relied on God to demonstrate nonviolence in their fight against segregation. What I never learned in school about the civil rights movement is that it was a Christian movement. To restrain oneself from returning violence with violence does not just need physical and emotional strength, but spiritual strength as well. Christian author and speaker Jemar Tisby says this about the civil rights nonviolence movement: “The people we now admire for their stance against injustice didn’t just show up and protest. They first examined themselves to test their motives and count the cost. They learned to channel their emotions instead of lashing out in retaliation to mistreatment. They looked to God and their faith as sources of moral power against the worldly forces of oppression.”
Tisby goes on to say: “Evil wins when it provokes us to mimic its methods. But goodness—fierce, holy, embodied goodness—has the power to break cycles. To interrupt injustice. To change hearts…strength forged in the fire of self-restraint. The strength to believe that another way is possible—and to live like it’s true.”
I love that line: “The strength to believe that another way is possible—and to live like it’s true.” When I put myself in the shoes of ordinary Christians, those who bravely joined the civil rights movement and who risked their lives for a better world…I am just being honest here… I doubt I could join them. And I bet they felt the same. Which is all the more reason they literally worshiped first before they protested. They covered their trainings in prayer and Bible study to remind themselves that the way the current government treated them was not in line with how God saw them. They dared to believe that God wanted something better for them and for their white neighbors suffering from hateful racism. There’s no way they could have accomplished nonviolence on their own accord.
Such strength does not come from ourselves. They knew they had to rely on the Holy Spirit to empower them to do what is not humanly possible. Before even joining a protest, they first prayed and worshiped the only one who could strengthen their faith even in the midst of great doubt and fear.
That same help is available to us today, no matter what we are facing. It comes from our God above, who came down to be with us as Jesus Christ, who helps us as the Holy Spirit to have hope in the midst of our doubts, fears, and anxieties. Praise God that God helps us in our unbelief and never stops believing in us.