“Optical Beliefs?”

                                                            Acts 5: 27-32 and John 20: 19-31

             Let us pray.

              “Doubting Thomas” is right up there with “Typhoid Mary” as ones who have forever been memorialized in our language by an incident in their life. Mary Mallon – the young Irish cook – will be remembered for being the carrier of typhoid linked by the authorities   to the terrible typhoid outbreak in New York at the turn of the last century.  Thomas, one of the 12 disciples, was immortalized by his unwillingness, as reported in the gospel of John, to accept the accounts of his friends and fellow disciples that they had actually seen Jesus after Easter.

But Thomas… one of the twelve, was not with them
            when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him,
            “we have seen the Lord.” But he said to them,
            “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands,
            and put my fingers in the mark of the nails and
            my hand in his side, I will not believe.” 

Because of this account of Thomas’ skepticism, he has been the subject of severe criticism. The great Swiss father of the Reformation, John Calvin said,

The stupidity of Thomas was astonishing and monstrous …
            he was not only obstinate, but also proud and contemptuous
            in his treatment of Christ.[1] 

Perhaps, it is because I share the same name with him that I think Thomas has gotten a bum rap. First of all, let’s look at what actually happened. Thomas’ best friends – the men with whom he walked the dusty roads of Galilee serving their Teacher – give him the news that they have seen Jesus wounds and all while within the locked confines of their secret hideaway. From this it was evident to them, that Jesus was not dead but had been resurrected.

How does Thomas react? Does he believe them, no! He thinks to himself, “I know Jesus was killed on a cross just a few days ago. Maybe the disciples saw an imposter? How can he really have been in that upper room?” Is Thomas’ reaction so outrageous?  At best the events reported to him are extraordinary, indeed unprecedented. I don’t know about you but reports of far less unusual events  – a double rainbow, baseball sized hail, or our big maple tree snapped off at the roots lying in the Duck Pond  -- have all prompted from me the exclamation “That can’t be right -- let me see for myself.” And so Thomas in my view was not so unreasonable when he replied to his friends

[U]nless 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. (John 20: 24)

Like many of us he wanted proof – direct and personal. 

And then a week later the disciples are back in the “safe” house again. And this time Thomas is there with them. And we all know the story from this point on, Jesus appears again and offers to show Thomas his wounds. Thomas reaches out and touches them and believes. That is the way it is portrayed in the great medieval paintings of Caravaggio, Rubens and others and the way it is so often described.

But that is not what happens. To be sure Jesus appears again in the locked room.  And Jesus offers to let Thomas touch his wounds – saying to Thomas, “‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side’” (John 20:27) But there is no evidence that Thomas actually reaches out. It is not physical touching that allows Thomas to see.  In the moment of Jesus’ loving offer, Thomas understands that the details of the resurrection are not important.  They don’t need to be established.

Doubt has gotten a bad name, especially in certain religious circles. Our brothers and sisters on the more conservative end of the theological spectrum view doubt as proof that one is not a person of real faith.  Yet doubt is not the same as disbelief. Disbelief is a static state. The disbeliever’s mind is made up and closed. It’s ossified. So too is the mind of one who has no doubts. Everything is clear and certain. “Don’t bother me with new thoughts and views! I got it all figured out.”  On the other hand the mind of one who has doubts is open and engaged. When I was 19 years old home from college with the assurance of a new college student,   I asked my father if he, a minister, ever had any doubts about his faith. He said “I box with the Lord everyday about my faith.” And then he added, “Thankfully the Lord’s arms are longer than my mine. And my faith remains, despite my doubts. ”

Notwithstanding the words of the televangelists, doubt is not a sign of a weak faith but of an active one. It is part of the divine gift of intelligence to mull over, to analyze and to test. Doubt is the core of the scientific method. No scientist worth her salt would ever assume anything. She may hypothesize that colliding two subatomic particles together at unthinkable speeds will reveal anti–matter but until that has been demonstrated many, many times, there will be doubt present. And to some extent that type of doubt is always with us in matters of faith. Could the Red Sea have been parted as described in Exodus? Or those miracles of Jesus -- they couldn’t really have happened as reported, could they? There will always be a bit of doubt lingering in our understanding of such matters of faith. But it seldom caries the day because we know we don’t have all the facts and more importantly the point is often not in the details but in the larger picture. The Israelites did escape and got to the Promised Land and Jesus quite clearly touched people in extraordinary, enduring ways.

The more serious doubt we must confront rests, not on our inability to prove the sometimes strange events of the bible, but in the fundamental risk of belief itself. To be a person of faith is to accept risk. What do I mean? Faith requires that we place God at the center of our lives. If we do, God becomes the source of the meaning of our lives. But to do so is an act of faith, not one of proof. There is quite clearly always the possibility that we are wrong and our faith is misplaced. If that divine center does not exist then our understanding of life collapses. An active mind cannot eliminate such doubt. Paul Tillich, the famous theologian said that such doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; “it is an element in the structure of faith.”[2] Doubt is inevitable. One should not be embarrassed by it. William Sloane Coffin said it well,

Why am I so hard on fundamentalist preachers? Because it is right to be stabbed by doubt. Commitment is healthiest where it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt…” It is wrong to be clearer than clarity warrants, to write off intellectual and moral ambiguities because you haven’t the security  [or perhaps the faith] to live with ambiguity.[3] 

In that upper room Thomas accepted that Jesus’ presence in some way continued on after the cross, but he did not -- I suspect -- shed all of his doubts.  What was important for Thomas and for us is that Jesus is there and willing to do what it takes to help Thomas and us believe. Jesus did not respond to Thomas’s skepticism by saying, “I have already revealed my wounds and myself to your friends and fellow disciples. You have 11 eyewitnesses’ accounts of my re-appearance. I am not here to perform for you.” No, what he said in effect is “I will meet you on your terms.” If you need to see and touch the wounds go ahead. In that moment Thomas understood that acceptance of the resurrection comes not from seeing, understanding and confirming the details but in the reality of and belief in Jesus’ abiding and enduring love of us all.  Jesus did not give up on Thomas and does not give up on us. Doubt is not disqualifying – God loves a doubter as much or perhaps even more than   the one who has seen and believes without question.  So we never need pack up and put away Easter or our faith because we are at times doubtful or skeptical.  Faith is not about the absence of doubt but about the courage to see beyond doubt.