Sermon for 2004 April 18 (Sunday after Easter), St Mary Magdalen, Sheet

Bible reading: John 20:19-31

I have a lot of time for Thomas (called Didymus). If you think he deserves a character assassination, as the only one of the Twelve who wouldn’t believe in the risen Lord, as the one Jesus had to make an example of to show us how much better it is to have blind belief, then you’ve come to the wrong place. Thomas is a wonderful role model for us – that’s why John wrote about this incident at this point of climax in his Gospel. Let me try to explain. By the way, the really important bits of what I’m going to say are all in the passage we read, so go back and read the last 13 verses of John chapter 20 again if you want to remember any of this.

To begin with Thomas deserves our sympathy. If you have ever felt left out in the cold when something exciting is going on you should be able to feel for Thomas. I recently showed some children the Moon through a telescope and I got to thinking that when I was their age the first Moon landing was taking place. Many from my generation will remember even now the names of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, but how many can remember poor Michael Collins, the man who had to sit in the command module and orbit the Moon while his colleagues actually went to land there. So near and so far. For some reason, Thomas was not with the other disciples when Jesus first appeared to them. So he probably felt quite a bit miffed about this. So maybe part of his attitude was down to that feeling of pique at being left out. At least this might explain how strongly he put it when he laid down his conditions for belief.

But Thomas the doubter should have more than our sympathy. He deserves our respect. One of the greatest enemies of true life-changing belief is credulity, over-readiness to believe in something. There’s plenty of that around in our age – quack remedies, bogus spirituality, vague, fluffy New Age thinking – the kind of thing that gives the likes of Richard Dawkins a field day. Our capacity for doubt is given to us by God. We have the ability and the duty to set a threshold for our belief, to insist on evidence, to be able to test the claims made by people especially if they wish to change our lives. We owe that to ourselves and to God.

But wasn’t Thomas an out-and-out sceptic who needed every last bit of proof before he would acknowledge that it was Jesus? Was his threshold not too high? I think this is where we must go back to the passage and read what it says. Jesus appeared and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you". Then he invited Thomas to do what he was insisting on doing – three things – to see the nail marks in his hand, to put his finger where the nails were and to put his hand into Jesus’ side. And here is where we have to guess a little but the consensus among scholars is that Thomas only got as far as doing one of those – seeing his hands. Thomas stopped short of claiming the pound of flesh that he had so vociferously demanded. He was listening to what Jesus asked next: "Stop doubting and believe".

And what he said surpassed anything that had been said by anyone before – "My Lord and my God". The most important thing to take from this is that Thomas believed. What he did was an act of faith. His scepticism was not absolute. All the time the possibility for belief was there within him. At no point was he credulous – his exacting demands remained valid, but there was room in his heart for him to take a step of faith, to believe in what he saw. It’s possible that he was even reluctant – like C.S. Lewis, who wrote that he was "possibly the most dejected and reluctant convert in all Christendom". But, like C.S. Lewis, he did believe, and he believed for himself, it was not that his critical faculties were overridden and he was forced to sign on the dotted line, as it were. Because – and this is important – he still had something to believe. It wasn’t enough just to accept that Jesus was there. Not just "OK, so it is you" but "My Lord and my God".

And now we come to the link with us. Thomas saw and believed, and Jesus as it were turns to us and says "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed". Now I had always taken this verse as a bit of a dig at Thomas. "It was easy for you. The people who have not seen and yet believe get more points." But Jesus did not say we are more blessed – just that we are blessed. We are not more blessed because we have been asked to believe more – we haven’t. Thomas’s leap of faith was actually no easier than ours. We may have a tendency to envy those who saw Jesus, who walked and talked with him. But in the end was it really any easier for them? John tells us that Jesus appeared three times to his disciples after he was raised from the dead. That means only twice for Thomas. But two or three times is not many, is it? Imagine being allowed to see someone you love dearly only two or three more times. It really is as if Jesus appeared as little as possible to his disciples – just enough to establish them as witnesses, just enough to give us the written evidence we need that he really did rise from the dead. As soon as he was out of their sight it became possible for everyone to take that vital step of believing in him. John writes that his gospel, including (especially) this story, was written "so that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and…" – and this is very important – "…that believing we may have life in his name.

This would be a useless story if it was just about belief. Twelve disciples, a few friends, even the 500 that Paul tells us saw the risen Lord, would have achieved nothing if all they did was believed. But to believe in the risen Lord means that we have to accept that Jesus said these words to his disciples and to us: "As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. Receive the Holy Spirit". The Holy Spirit, acting on their belief, allowed the disciples to perform one of the greatest miracles of all, starting the worldwide Church through the baptism of thousands. Once we refuse to be credulous but overcome our scepticism with faith enough to say "My Lord and my God" the door is open for us to take part in that miracle, that miracle of being able to live in the name of the risen Lord Jesus.