Second Sunday of Easter, Year C (2025) - Fr Robert Krishna, OP

There is a cartoon which shows us St Thomas complaining “Peter denied Jesus and he is not called Denying Peter; Mark is not called Ran-away-naked-during-Jesus’-arrest Mark. So, why am I called Doubting Thomas?” Thomas seems saddled with a name that refers to the worst moment of his life. But St Thomas, now in heaven, knows that his doubting is part of his glory. This might seem paradoxical: after all his doubt was not a good thing, and he almost certainly regretted it later. Still, just as Christ’s wounds which Thomas asked to touch are no longer a source of hurt for Christ but part of his glory, so too, once healed, Thomas’ own doubt once healed, is part of his glory. That his cry of faith “My Lord and my God!” came from such a place of desolation and doubt makes it more, not less valuable. And if it is true that Thomas has seen and believes, what he sees is much less than what he cries out. When the Lord says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” he isn’t putting Thomas down or telling us that we are more blessed than Thomas, but assuring him and all those who are to believe what he preached of blessedness in believing even if they do not see.

Thomas and the other early witnesses to the resurrection are an example for us. I say “Thomas and the others,” because Thomas is far from unique in doubting the resurrection as narrated to him. In every resurrection account we have in the Gospels, the resurrection is first announced and then followed by a personal apparition of Jesus. The first reaction always involves an element of fear, and in all but one case disbelief. Thomas, then, is unique, not in being hesitant to believe, but in articulating his disbelief and asking for something specific before he believes. What he asks for might seem in astonishing bad taste – evidence that he can verify this Jesus is the same one who died on the Cross, and not an apparition. But we can understand Thomas better if we recognise that his is not a ghoulish desire to poke the wounds of Jesus, but a desire not to be fobbed off with anything less than the real Jesus, the one he knew who died on the Cross. Thomas had once expressed a willingness to die with Jesus in Jerusalem and then had run away with the other disciples. Now he asks to be sure that this is indeed Jesus. There is an authenticity and directness about Thomas which makes him an example for us.

And there is something more to Thomas than authenticity and directness: perseverance. Thomas might have doubted, but he remained part of the group and came back the following Sunday. He is not put off by the kind of fear that, even later, kept many admirers from joining the disciples. There was something here which drew him back, perhaps the desire to see Jesus. Or perhaps the common experience of Jesus had created a community that he could not bear to leave behind. And Jesus works with that to turn him into one of his witnesses. His failure and his doubt don’t make Thomas a bad witness, but one with whom we can sympathise because we too fail and doubt. Thomas is a better witness because Jesus overcame his failure and doubt.

All of this should encourage us, whose sins, fears, and doubts keep us from drawing near to or bearing witness to Christ. What Jesus does with Thomas shows us, that when Jesus chooses us as witnesses, he does so by showing us mercy: it is precisely Jesus’ rescuing us from our sins and doubts and fears that makes us able to bear witness. Our sins, fears and doubts are places where Christ’s glory is particularly visible, where people can reach out and touch Jesus. But only if we, like Thomas, reach out to touch Jesus by coming to him in confession, in prayer, in continuing to fight against our sins, fears, and doubts together with him, and thereby receive his healing. Let us then not let our own fears, our knowledge of our sins and doubts keep us from Christ. Let us not discount the value of our testimony because of how reluctant and difficult our belief is, how little we see, or indeed because we can foresee that we will not be believed. Let us rather, like Thomas, rejoice and bear witness to the glory our God and Lord has won for himself in defeating death, and giving us a share in his resurrection by overcoming our unbelief.

Fr Robert Krishna, OP is undertaking postgraduate studies in Sacred Scripture, assigned to St Stephen's Priory, Jerusalem.