John 20:24-29
I have written on multiple occasions about my namesake (though he is not central to all of these linked posts). I tend to be gentler with him than those who are so sure of themselves that they consider "doubting" to be among the worst of vices.
A deacon friend of mine has a take on this which is also more kind to Thomas. Suppose a group of your friends tells you that they've had an encounter with the risen Lord, but continues to act in the same fearful and perhaps even disobedient way that they had been acting before? They allege that Jesus, whom you'd just seen die (okay, there's no evidence that Thomas was close enough to actually witness his death, but stay with me) two days before, had risen from the dead and appeared among them. They tell you that he said "As the Father has sent me, so I send you," but you see them still huddling in a closed room, carefully locking the door as anyone enters or departs so that no one can burst in and arrest them, too. They aren't acting as if the one they've followed for the past three years has sent them forth; they're protecting their safety rather than putting their lives and reputations on the line to boldly proclaim what they had witnessed.
Wouldn't you doubt the veracity of their testimony, too?
(Thanks, Jon Danner, for this idea, which I've fleshed out just a little.)
So perhaps Thomas wasn't the only doubter among them. Maybe his doubt contributed to their own: if they couldn't convince this fellow disciple, then no one else would be likely to believe them either. Maybe their doubt aroused his: if they weren't any bolder than this, how could the news be true? Maybe their doubts were symbiotic. But Jesus addresses their doubts in a way that encourages us to this day: Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. (29b)
Maybe one of the people to whom Jesus is referring here is his mother! I was thinking last night before prayer group how, after his resurrection, Jesus seems to have appeared only to those who needed reassurance - and perhaps his mother never wavered in her belief - or formation. This would be the best reason to disagree with St. Ignatius' conclusions regarding the inevitability of the risen Jesus appearing to his mom.
But certainly Jesus is also referring even to those in our own day who believe in him without the confirmation of some wondrous sign. We need to be careful not to dismiss these, in a couple of different ways, out of some sense of pride: "God doesn't work that way anymore," and "My faith is strong enough that I don't need to see a miracle; let those who are weaker than me flock to apparitions (etc.)," can be prideful dismissals both of the work of God today and of those who may be sincerely seeking him with a pure heart. That said, there is something to be said for those who have such security in him that they don't long to be witness to or recipient of such an incredible event and who do not envy those receive that gift, but simply believe that whatever gifts and reassurances God has put in their own life are sufficient to glorify him in the ways he desires for them.
That was way longer than I expected it to be.
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