I’ve always found it difficult not to empathize with Thomas when I hear this Gospel. I also tend to go looking for proof before drawing any conclusions. That’s always been my way, and it certainly applies to my job which involves collecting facts and troubleshooting based on that information. Yet although this is an innate tendency, I have also learned over the years that it cannot quantify everything, and that in particular matters of faith are completely beyond this kind of thinking, hence the name “faith”. This does not mean that we accept things blindly, it simply means that the tools and practices we normally use to discern our physical world are simply inadequate to ponder our belief in matters of our spirit.
When Jesus revealed himself to His Apostles without Thomas present, they are overjoyed to see him after the initial shock, and in particular once he had shown himself to them more closely and demonstrated that they were not seeing a ghost (Luke 24:36-49). We sometimes tend to gloss over this, but it’s really the same response as Thomas’, simply on a smaller scale and without discussion. The reality is that as human beings we are saddled with a tendency to doubt until we see some semblance of relatable facts to satisfy the physically oriented side of our nature. This was still part of the thinking of Jesus’ disciples despite the fact that their hearts longed for what they were seeing to be true. This is the conflict within each one of us. Our hearts long for closeness with Jesus, but our physical nature often proves to be stumbling block.
When we are younger, I think most of us found it easier to accept things we did not, or could not completely quantify. As we grow older, we develop a mindset that does not allow that. The world tells us that this is wisdom, the reality is that it is simply baggage we acquire and that weighs us down. This is the conflict between worldly wisdom and the true wisdom that resides within us from the moment we are born as children of God.
True wisdom seems to be re-revealed as we acquire life experiences that are outside our ability to quantify on a human level, and that forces us to acknowledge and embrace our innate spiritual awareness. As we ponder our Lords resurrection and His promise kept, that He would rise and come back to us, let’s use both of our natures to ponder this. Jesus words are true and trustworthy always, we simply need to be open to them.
The Deacons Bench 