Red Letters/Black Letters: Day 129: Thomas: a 5 minute biography

"Reach your finger here, and look at My hands: reach your hand here, 

and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing." John 20:27

Thomas gets a bad rap. The poor guy has had Doubting attached to his name for 2000 years, and I don't think that he deserved that. Have you ever noticed that Thomas asks for what the rest of the disciples have already been given? Just a few verses earlier Jesus appears to the other disciples and he shows them his hands and his side. 

Not only does Thomas not ask for anything that hasn't already been shown to the disciples, but Jesus is willing to do what Thomas requires. Interestingly enough John doesn't actually say that Thomas does put his fingers in the holes, Thomas exults Jesus as soon as Jesus is willing to show him. Maybe it is not so much as the physical touch and sight of the wounds as much as realizing that this is the same man that Thomas had a relationship with. There are two other times Thomas shows up in the gospel of John and I think both of them will give a larger vision of who Thomas is, and what his relationship with Jesus was like.

The first can be found in chapter 11 and has to deal with the death and subsequent resurrection of Lazarus. As you may remember Lazarus was a friend to Jesus and so when Jesus learned that his friend had died he wanted to travel to Judea to raise him from the dead. Unfortunately the last time Jesus was in Judea people had tried to kill him, so the disciples weren't too keen to go back.  To this end the disciples tried to talk Jesus out of going. Jesus tells them that Lazarus is sleeping and that he is going to wake him, the disciples say that if he’s sleeping he will get better. Jesus then tells them that Lazarus is dead and that now he is going to show them something that will make them believe, and sets off on his way. Then Thomas speaks up, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
So we get our first glimpse of Thomas and we find someone who is willing to die for the cause. He is the first disciple to get on board with Jesus’ plan to go back to Judea. While all the other disciples are questioning Jesus, Thomas is getting ready to follow him.

We next find Thomas three chapters later.  This time it is during the last supper, Jesus has talked about Judas’ betrayal, and then Peter’s denial. He is telling his disciples that he is going away, but that he will be coming back to take them with him. Thomas says, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus then replies with probably the second most widely known verse from the Gospel of John, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

So this time Thomas asks a question that leads to the enlightenment of all the disciples, and to us as well. We see Jesus clarifying his connection to the Father, that if we know Jesus we now know God.  Do you realize that this one sentence changes everything? No longer do we think of God as vengeful, because Jesus wasn't vengeful; no longer would we think of God as far away, because Jesus got in so close to those around him; no longer would we think of God as impersonal, or petty, or any of the multitude of things that people thought about God, we now have a vision in flesh of what God is like, and God is found to be compassionate, caring, sacrificial, in short everything that Paul would later say about Love. It would lead people to write and to believe that God is love, because Jesus was love in the flesh. Thomas asked a question and we are all the better for it.

Going back to the second half of what Jesus says, “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.  From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” Not only does Thomas ask a question and we are all the better for it, but so is Thomas. Remember, after Jesus showed Thomas his hands and side Thomas cried, “My Lord and my God.” Thomas was the first person to truly understand that when you saw Jesus you saw God.

So Thomas is on board with what Jesus wants to do. And Thomas asks questions that lead to people gaining a better understanding of what Jesus said. In addition Thomas asks for proof of things unseen and receives it, and afterwards declares Jesus to be God. Thomas, Didymus in Aramaic, means twin, often Thomas is said to also be called the twin, did you know that in the early years of the church there were people who thought that meant that Thomas was actually Jesus’s twin? And we think of him as only a doubter, kind of sad if you think about it. The people who knew him thought he was close enough to Jesus to not just be a follower or even a brother, but a twin, and all we remember is that he once doubted, which haven’t we all?

+ How have you traditionally viewed Thomas?

+ Do you view him any differently now?