But Thomas (who was called the Twin), 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 finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’[John 20.24ff]
After leaving school, I got the job of President of our college Christian Union. Affiliated to UCCF (the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship), it was a model of evangelical certainty, with its membership open only to those who could literally sign on the dotted line, giving assent to the agreed ‘Statement of Faith’. Like my own beliefs at 18, it reflected a world where black was black and white was white, with few (if any) acceptable shades of grey. If there was a question of faith, then somewhere there was certainly an answer - and I have to admit that I thought I had probably more of those answers than most! One of my good friends from those days, although we see each other infrequently now, still manages to remind me of some of the things I said and did, to his amusement and to my acute embarrassment!
The newly elected CU Executive Committee, having been proved worthy by the casting of lots, were sent on a weekend training conference in preparation for our new roles. It was a great opportunity to be with other like-minded Christians supporting each other in prayer, and I still remember the powerful sense of unity and common calling we shared that weekend. I also remember the sense of notoriety our party had already gained. When our Prayer Secretary-elect introduced herself at the beginning of the weekend and explained that she was from Avery Hill College in London, one person said with a mild gasp “Isn’t that the place where the CU President has an ear-ring?” Indeed it was, and I’m afraid the awareness of being noticed and known did little to moderate my ‘blessed assurance’.
But as well as inspiration and encouragement, the teaching that weekend warned us of the dangers and pitfalls of student leadership. Statistics showed, we were informed, that 75% of CU Presidents loose their faith within five years of stepping down from office. This cold revelation stunned the whole conference into silence, and in the same moment stirred feelings of fear and insignificance, along with romantic heroism. I quite liked the image of the battle-weary soldier bravely picking his way through the bodies of his fallen comrades. It would not happen to me, of that I was sure. But it did, and worse still, it never came back. I could no more sign that UCCF ‘Statement of Faith’ now, as grow a full head of hair! Back then my hair was past my shoulders in length, and from time to time orange, yellow or purple in shade (It was the mid 1980’s after all!), and now it’s cropped short to minimise the effects of greying baldness. My faith has changed in similar ways I guess: less of it, noticeably thin in places, with more subtlety than the garish colour of the past, and consequently all the more precious and meaningful. I suspect that I would be numbered among the 75%. But I didn’t loose my faith. I lost that faith, and in time discovered something deeper and ultimately more alive and exciting than before.
The resurrection cannot, and will not be proved. It remains wholly unbelievable and absurd, so much so that even St Paul could not avoid using the word ‘foolish’. The classic book Who moved the Stone? by Frank Morrison sets out a compelling call to resurrection faith, but only by showing that any other explanation is virtually impossible. Ridiculous though it may be, it ends up as the only plausible explanation. Yet to doubt is still reckoned as weakness, and too often those with a beautifully styled ‘bouffont’ faith demean and assume superiority over those whose beliefs are less ‘glam’ and flecked with greying doubt.
Enter Thomas, the twin. Thomas the doubter. Outside the fourth gospel, he plays no active role in the gospel narrative, and is mentioned only in passing as being one of the Twelve. For those early Christian communities whose Gospel information relied on the correspondence of St Paul and the work of Matthew, Mark or Luke, the name of Thomas may well have been passed over as an ‘also ran’, and even unknown to some. Yet this short episode is most likely the original finale of the fourth gospel, and intended to be the final Easter experience recorded in this particular narrative.
Plucking him from near obscurity, the author of the gospel uses the character of Thomas quite deliberately as a way of raising issues of doubt and incredulity in the light of the resurrection. In the same way that Peter becomes the mouth-piece for the misunderstanding of his fellow disciples, so Thomas personifies the confusion and doubt of them all. From the moment he appears in the narrative, he assumes a questioning role: he encourages the disciples to follow Jesus to death (11.16) but asks how they can follow him if they do not know where he is going (14.5). Then, when the disciples gather together on the evening of Easter Day, and the risen Jesus appears to them, Thomas - the one with all the questions - was not with them. We’re not told why; it’s just accepted as how it was. You can perhaps imagine the disciples saying to each other “Of all the people not to be here, it would be Thomas!”; and of course, that’s exactly what we’re supposed to imagine them saying. It had to be Thomas.
However much we might love Thomas and bless him for his honesty, the whole episode seems still to have a rather negative tone. If my Mum said it to me once, she said it a thousand times – “Its not what you say, its the way you say it!” Two thousand years later, we have read so much into the gospel texts that it is hard to gauge the tone of the author. We can usually grasp what they are saying, but it’s not always clear how they are saying it. On the positive side, that gives the Holy Spirit a bit more room to inspire us and make the words of scripture God’s word to us, but the flip side is that we can get bogged down with our own misconceptions, fears and fantasies which, quite unconsciously, we hide in the gospel texts. For example, Thomas says ‘Unless 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.’ (20.25) Those words can be read as a belligerent demand for proof (accompanied by an emphatic pointing finger), or as an apologetic explanation of disbelief (demonstrated by a shameful shaking of the head). I suspect that most people would naturally and without thinking follow the first reading, placing Thomas’ reluctance to believe at the thin end of the wedge from Peter’s denial.
Once again, we need to see first the meaning and purpose in the author’s mind before we can experience the intended impact of his story-telling. Instead of being an historical account of the resurrection events, the whole of chapter 20 is an exploration of Easter faith. Skillfully, the reader is drawn away from the physical ‘evidences’ of the resurrection, towards the living and present experience of the Church . Chapter 20 offers us four models of believing, four different ways to faith. John ‘the Beloved’, while unlikely to be the author of the gospel which bears his name, was undoubtedly the star of the community in which it has its origin. He has only to see the linen wrappings in the tomb, and immediately believes. Mary Magdalene however, fails to recognise Jesus and believes only when he calls her name and is revealed to her. The Disciples believe after Jesus appears to them behind closed doors, but Thomas will only believe after challenging the miraculous and being satisfied by his own experience.
Things become a little clearer if we consider when the fourth gospel came into being, and for whom it was intended. The final version probably emerged between 90 - 100 AD following a lengthy process of editing and revision, although it could be as late as 110AD . In that time, a number of the original disciples had died, some as martyrs - and the growing church had successfully incorporated both Jews and gentiles (In John 10.16 Jesus says that he has other sheep ‘not of this fold’ who must be brought in and made part of one herd under the one shepherd. Whether this saying is grounded in actual words spoken by Jesus or not, the retelling has clearly been influenced by the experience and determination of the early Christians.)
Those with a first-hand apostolic experience of the risen Lord were now rare, and the vast majority of Christian disciples had not seen Jesus either before or after the resurrection. They had been absent on the first Easter day, just like Thomas.
‘Thomas stood as a representative of those removed by decades from Christianity’s foundational events, as indeed he stands for you and me.’
Added to that, the Church was having to deal with the problems arising from a wholesale misunderstanding about Christ’s second coming. Not only had most Christians not seen Jesus on earth, but now despite early indications, it looked as if they weren’t likely to see him at all. If the Church was to survive and grow, there had to be a new way of believing, and so the chapter ends with the supreme beatitude: ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’ (20.29). A major motivation behind the fourth gospel is the transformation of ‘Thomases’ into ‘Beloved Disciples’.
I have already expressed my reluctance to join Augustine of Hippo in a rousing chorus of ‘Alleluia’s, but I am more inclined to at least hum along with another Thomas - this time Thomas Merton, a Roman Catholic Benedictine monk. ‘Alleluia’’ he says ‘is the song of the desert.’ Speaking primarily about monastic or contemplative prayer, Merton explores the process by which that prayer and relationship with God develops and deepens:
At such a time as this, one who is not seriously grounded in genuine theological faith may lose everything he ever had. His prayer may become an obscure and hateful struggle to preserve the images and trappings which covered his own interior emptiness. Either he will have to face the truth of his emptiness or else he will beat a retreat into the realm of images and analogies which no longer serve for a mature spiritual life. He may not be able to face the terrible experience of being apparently without faith in order to really grow in faith.’
His experience corresponds with that of countless men and women through the ages, from St John of the Cross to Adrian Mole! St John’s mystical poetry describes the ‘dark night of the soul’, the ‘....spiritual darkness in which he is engulfed and which afflicts him with doubts and fears’ : yet rather than placing his soul in peril, it becomes his salvation . At the other extreme, the spotty pubescent insecurities of Sue Townsend’s fictional teenager give a classic example of growing pains, and remind us that faith and doubt are not religious phenomena, but basic characteristics held in tension at the heart of human experience.
Enter Thomas, the twin. Thomas the doubter. Thomas the model disciple. His experience of Easter was to be two steps behind all the others, struggling with the dark tension of faith and doubt, refusing to settle for glib answers and second-hand experience - and the reward for his dogged integrity was to be two steps ahead by the time to story reached its climax. Thomas’ confession of faith is one of the most advanced christological statements of the gospels. Commentators note that it reflects both the demand of the Emperor Diocletian on his subjects to hail him as ‘lord and god’, and the psalmists confidence that he will be vindicated by his ‘God and [his] Lord’ (Psalm 35.28). However the exact form of words came to be, one thing is clear: it was Thomas’ doubt that got him there.
People often say to me, as I dazzle them with the certainty of my dog-collar, “Oh , I don’t think my faith is strong enough.” I immediately think of the display furniture in IKEA, which all day and every day is pummelled by pistons to demonstrate how durable and robust their designs are. When we tell others or ourselves that our faith isn’t strong enough, we imply that somehow we haven’t passed the test. Yet surely faith, by nature, is a weak and fragile thing; and especially Easter faith, resurrection faith, because its always on the knife edge of death and life. Wonderfully, but ironically, our doubts bring us to faith, and our spiritual droughts bring streams of living water. Richard Holloway, formerly Bishop of Edinburgh makes the mischievous suggestion that those who promote debate and change in both Church and society are the real people of faith. By contrast, those who claim to be passionate believers in the ‘full faith’ and old values are motivated more by a doubt in the new than a trust in the old.
“We are an Easter people” said Augustine if Hippo, “and Alleluia is our song” - and one day, one day the sound of unbridled ‘Alleluias’ will overflow from our hearts. We may not be called doubters, but nonetheless we live with the almost identical twins of faith and doubt, often as inseparable and indistinguishable. If our faith is truly an Easter faith, then as it deepens and grows it will be for us a source of pain and darkness, perhaps as often as it is joy and light. But then again, ‘Alleluia’ really is the song of the desert.