Thomas, My Twin
The Second Sunday of Easter
April 19, 2009
John 20:19-31
I’ve always felt a bit sorry for Thomas the disciple In the accounts of the ministry of Jesus, you don’t hear much about Thomas. We know he was a twin—in Greek they called him “Didymus”—the twin.
But we don’t learn much more. We don’t hear bad things about him or strange things or even good things. Which tells us that he was a good disciple, at the very least not doing less than expected. We would have heard about that. So not Peter, perhaps, but certainly not Judas.
So for someone who followed Jesus throughout his ministry, and who later, tradition tells us, went on to preach and witness to the saving word and works of our Savior Jesus Christ … well, we mostly remember him for one moment of doubt.
Doubting Thomas.
What if we were remembered for our one moment of doubt? Or for one moment of anger? Or, heaven forbid, in a well-preserved snapshot from one embarrassing moment? What a nightmare!
I can just imagine being remembered for … for perhaps that day in 7th grade English class when it was my turn to read aloud and everyone laughed because I thought the word debut should be pronounced as it’s spelled. I can just imagine how it would feel if today I were known as Michael De-But.
I’m not, thank goodness. But Thomas – he’ll always be Doubting Thomas. Because we see one moment frozen in time, that moment when he doubted.
The fact is, it would be unfair to freeze anyone’s life to one moment. Because that’s not how life works. One moment you’re headed in one direction, the next moment somewhere different.
I know that much of my life has been filled with incidents of the world turning around on me, handing me one thing when I expected another. Jobs, relationships, even homes.
A snapshot wouldn’t do justice to the richness or, to be honest, the confusion of that life.
I know that when old high school and college friends find me these days, they’re often surprised that I’m not a reporter or copy editor. That’s the snapshot they have of me in their minds.
And I’m often surprised to find out things about them – about how the lawyer now teaches fly-fishing, and how another has moved from the executive suite to the classroom.
I’m also saddened to hear about deaths, about accidents, about layoffs in so many fields.
And on they change – from happy to sad and back again, from career to career, from one thing to another. One change after another in my life and in the lives of those around me. We think we want one thing, but something else is handed us. We think we have one thing, but it turns out to be something else.
We aren’t handed a roadmap, especially one that guarantees no detours. Parts of life lead us down unimaginably wonderful roads. Other parts, for some, into places impossibly dark.
We don’t rest in one place forever, or even for very long. And that’s what makes it so hard to sort life out into good and bad, happy and sad, what’s desired and what’s not. Often, it’s all these things at once.
I look back on some of the most difficult times in my life and, to my great surprise, I consider them the good old days. In fact, how many times have you heard someone talk about the good old days and realize they were talking about the Great Depression? How many times in our lives do we find that rather than simply trying to make the best of a bad situation, we find that there are wonderful things to be had in these hard times?
When we are at our happiest, we don’t expect the difficulties that are sure to come. When evil comes round, we lose faith in ever again finding the good. We simply don’t believe it possible because it goes against all common sense. We don’t have faith in it because there’s no logical reason to have faith.
And there you find Thomas.
Like the other disciples, he fled as Jesus took his cross to Golgotha. Like the other disciples, he was hiding from the Romans and the Jewish officials. Like the others, he was in despair.
Jesus was gone. Why go on hoping? Why go on living?
And by a stroke of luck – good or bad – he was not in the room with the others on that Sunday night when Jesus came walking in. Thomas was not there to hear Jesus say, “Peace be with you.” Thomas was not there to see his hands and his side.
The other disciples did not have to go on blind faith now. They had seen, they had heard, they had proof for their faith. Thomas, poor Thomas, he had only the word of his fellow disciples.
Thomas had believed in the words of Christ, but why believe these men? These same men who had scattered, who had broken their promises, who had fainted when Jesus said stay awake. They probably were hysterical, conjuring up images in their fear, grasping at phantoms as the desperate so often do.
And that’s where we see Thomas, that’s where we remember him.
And that’s where we so often find ourselves – where we would always be remembered if life were a snapshot and not a journey. That’s where we so often are – being told the truth but refusing to believe. Knowing the truth but succumbing to doubt.
We experience great joy – birth, love, gentleness, the sweetest things life can offer. And then we are shocked when we experience the pains of life and so often convince ourselves that sorrow is the fullness of life and that joy … well, that joy is a phantom to be grasped at but never reached.
We experience the Resurrection moments of this life – healings and renewed friendships and gifts of a new day. And then … and then we forget these minor miracles. We forget their power and ask – nay, demand – that the Resurrection be proved all over again.
Here we are a week after Resurrection Sunday. A friend of mine said it’s too bad that we have to hear the Thomas story so quickly after Easter, that it’s a come-down.
I disagree. I think it’s a step up.
I think my friend was over-optimistic, assuming that we couldn’t have forgotten the joy of the Resurrection so quickly, that thinking about Doubting Thomas would be bringing us down from our Easter high.
But in this week, I know that I’ve forgotten. I know that after the moving liturgies of Holy Week and the joyous explosion of song and praise at the Vigil and Easter morning … that after all that, I descended rather quickly and predictably into the grumbling minutiae of everyday life.
The power outage and the limbs in my yard and trees fallen over in the yards of my friends. The bills and the overdue tax return and the conversations with friends and parishioners whose lives just aren’t hanging together in the way they wish.
Perhaps if I had a snapshot of Easter sitting on my desk. A snapshot hanging from my car visor. A snapshot slipped into my wallet. To remind me of the joy, to reassure me of that joyous time.
I was there with Thomas, already forgetting, already doubting. Hand me something to make me believe. Show me something to help my weakness.
And to Thomas, on that evening, surrounded by his friends, it was given. And Thomas said, “My Lord and my God!”
And to me, on this morning, surrounded by my friends, it is given – given to me by my Lord and my God.
A chance to remember in the body and the blood. A chance to see the proof in the hearts of the faithful. The promise of the peace that passes all understanding, a promise from the Risen Lord of peace, of joy, of resurrection. Today, like Thomas, I will not doubt, but believe.
Amen.
April 19, 2009
John 20:19-31
I’ve always felt a bit sorry for Thomas the disciple In the accounts of the ministry of Jesus, you don’t hear much about Thomas. We know he was a twin—in Greek they called him “Didymus”—the twin.
But we don’t learn much more. We don’t hear bad things about him or strange things or even good things. Which tells us that he was a good disciple, at the very least not doing less than expected. We would have heard about that. So not Peter, perhaps, but certainly not Judas.
So for someone who followed Jesus throughout his ministry, and who later, tradition tells us, went on to preach and witness to the saving word and works of our Savior Jesus Christ … well, we mostly remember him for one moment of doubt.
Doubting Thomas.
What if we were remembered for our one moment of doubt? Or for one moment of anger? Or, heaven forbid, in a well-preserved snapshot from one embarrassing moment? What a nightmare!
I can just imagine being remembered for … for perhaps that day in 7th grade English class when it was my turn to read aloud and everyone laughed because I thought the word debut should be pronounced as it’s spelled. I can just imagine how it would feel if today I were known as Michael De-But.
I’m not, thank goodness. But Thomas – he’ll always be Doubting Thomas. Because we see one moment frozen in time, that moment when he doubted.
The fact is, it would be unfair to freeze anyone’s life to one moment. Because that’s not how life works. One moment you’re headed in one direction, the next moment somewhere different.
I know that much of my life has been filled with incidents of the world turning around on me, handing me one thing when I expected another. Jobs, relationships, even homes.
A snapshot wouldn’t do justice to the richness or, to be honest, the confusion of that life.
I know that when old high school and college friends find me these days, they’re often surprised that I’m not a reporter or copy editor. That’s the snapshot they have of me in their minds.
And I’m often surprised to find out things about them – about how the lawyer now teaches fly-fishing, and how another has moved from the executive suite to the classroom.
I’m also saddened to hear about deaths, about accidents, about layoffs in so many fields.
And on they change – from happy to sad and back again, from career to career, from one thing to another. One change after another in my life and in the lives of those around me. We think we want one thing, but something else is handed us. We think we have one thing, but it turns out to be something else.
We aren’t handed a roadmap, especially one that guarantees no detours. Parts of life lead us down unimaginably wonderful roads. Other parts, for some, into places impossibly dark.
We don’t rest in one place forever, or even for very long. And that’s what makes it so hard to sort life out into good and bad, happy and sad, what’s desired and what’s not. Often, it’s all these things at once.
I look back on some of the most difficult times in my life and, to my great surprise, I consider them the good old days. In fact, how many times have you heard someone talk about the good old days and realize they were talking about the Great Depression? How many times in our lives do we find that rather than simply trying to make the best of a bad situation, we find that there are wonderful things to be had in these hard times?
When we are at our happiest, we don’t expect the difficulties that are sure to come. When evil comes round, we lose faith in ever again finding the good. We simply don’t believe it possible because it goes against all common sense. We don’t have faith in it because there’s no logical reason to have faith.
And there you find Thomas.
Like the other disciples, he fled as Jesus took his cross to Golgotha. Like the other disciples, he was hiding from the Romans and the Jewish officials. Like the others, he was in despair.
Jesus was gone. Why go on hoping? Why go on living?
And by a stroke of luck – good or bad – he was not in the room with the others on that Sunday night when Jesus came walking in. Thomas was not there to hear Jesus say, “Peace be with you.” Thomas was not there to see his hands and his side.
The other disciples did not have to go on blind faith now. They had seen, they had heard, they had proof for their faith. Thomas, poor Thomas, he had only the word of his fellow disciples.
Thomas had believed in the words of Christ, but why believe these men? These same men who had scattered, who had broken their promises, who had fainted when Jesus said stay awake. They probably were hysterical, conjuring up images in their fear, grasping at phantoms as the desperate so often do.
And that’s where we see Thomas, that’s where we remember him.
And that’s where we so often find ourselves – where we would always be remembered if life were a snapshot and not a journey. That’s where we so often are – being told the truth but refusing to believe. Knowing the truth but succumbing to doubt.
We experience great joy – birth, love, gentleness, the sweetest things life can offer. And then we are shocked when we experience the pains of life and so often convince ourselves that sorrow is the fullness of life and that joy … well, that joy is a phantom to be grasped at but never reached.
We experience the Resurrection moments of this life – healings and renewed friendships and gifts of a new day. And then … and then we forget these minor miracles. We forget their power and ask – nay, demand – that the Resurrection be proved all over again.
Here we are a week after Resurrection Sunday. A friend of mine said it’s too bad that we have to hear the Thomas story so quickly after Easter, that it’s a come-down.
I disagree. I think it’s a step up.
I think my friend was over-optimistic, assuming that we couldn’t have forgotten the joy of the Resurrection so quickly, that thinking about Doubting Thomas would be bringing us down from our Easter high.
But in this week, I know that I’ve forgotten. I know that after the moving liturgies of Holy Week and the joyous explosion of song and praise at the Vigil and Easter morning … that after all that, I descended rather quickly and predictably into the grumbling minutiae of everyday life.
The power outage and the limbs in my yard and trees fallen over in the yards of my friends. The bills and the overdue tax return and the conversations with friends and parishioners whose lives just aren’t hanging together in the way they wish.
Perhaps if I had a snapshot of Easter sitting on my desk. A snapshot hanging from my car visor. A snapshot slipped into my wallet. To remind me of the joy, to reassure me of that joyous time.
I was there with Thomas, already forgetting, already doubting. Hand me something to make me believe. Show me something to help my weakness.
And to Thomas, on that evening, surrounded by his friends, it was given. And Thomas said, “My Lord and my God!”
And to me, on this morning, surrounded by my friends, it is given – given to me by my Lord and my God.
A chance to remember in the body and the blood. A chance to see the proof in the hearts of the faithful. The promise of the peace that passes all understanding, a promise from the Risen Lord of peace, of joy, of resurrection. Today, like Thomas, I will not doubt, but believe.
Amen.
posted by Michael+ at 9:51 AM
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