St. Luke's Episcopal Church
Cleveland, Tennessee

Second Sunday of Easter
15 April 2007

When I went into the fourth grade, one of the teachers I had was Miss Amy Smith. Everybody called her Miss Amy. Miss Amy had been teaching a long time. She was a veteran schoolteacher in my hometown. She was such a veteran that the first few days of school in the fourth grade, I went home and told my mother, “You know Miss Amy is about 100 years old, I think.” My mother said, “No, she is not that old.” It is amazing how different perspectives are, when you are a child. Miss Amy had been teaching a long time. I remember a couple of things about Miss Amy distinctively. Whenever you did something right, perhaps something she did not expect you to do right, Miss Amy would say, “Raise the flag!” I can hear her to this day. “Raise the flag!” She had that finger pointing up to the sky. Another thing I remember about Miss Amy very strongly is that whenever a student didn’t believe what Miss Amy was telling them, or they didn’t think, “If you do that and that, it will end up being right.” She would point that finger, and say, “Don’t be a doubting Thomas.” That phrase is part of our vocabulary. “Don’t be a doubting Thomas,” she would say.

I want us to spend a few minutes today thinking about Thomas. Based on this one brief incident, for two thousand years afterward, this otherwise brave, faithful disciple has been known as ‘doubting Thomas’. Just based on this one brief incident. I want us to think about that for just a few minutes this morning. Think about how many churches you know that are named St. Thomas. There are some, but not many. Normally churches are named St. Paul’s, St. Luke’s, St. John, St. Peter. You hear St. Thomas, but not very often. Why? Because Thomas, to this day, has the stigma attached to him of being the doubter. So much so that the phrase is a part of our English language. “Don’t be a doubting Thomas.” “Oh, you are such a doubting Thomas.”

On this first Easter night Jesus appeared to his disciples. And Thomas simply wasn’t there. We don’t know why. We don’t know what he was doing. It doesn’t imply anything negative. Thomas, for whatever reason, was not present when Jesus first appeared to his disciples. So when they tell him of the Lord’s appearance, Thomas says, “I will believe it when I see it. This is just too good to be true. This is just too hard to believe.” If we step back and think about this for a minute, we have the benefit of two thousand years of history when we read this story. But put yourself in the place of Thomas. Jesus has been betrayed and crucified. You know that he has died a real, physical death. No one believed that this would happen to the Messiah. It just is not understood that the Lord would let this happen to his Anointed One. So the disciples were devastated. It is absolutely clear from scripture that they were devastated after Good Friday. So Thomas isn’t in the room the first time Jesus appears to the disciples after Easter. So when he is told of this experience, Thomas says, “I will have to see it to believe it.” And that is his doubt. I think if we stop to think about it, we would realize that it is a normal human reaction. Thomas just could not get his mind around the assertion, “He is not dead. He is risen.” Thomas just could not make sense of that in his mind, having not seen it for himself. And that is where we get the phrase, ‘doubting Thomas.’

But then what happens? Jesus reappears to the disciples, and Thomas is there. And Jesus says, “Touch me. Feel me. See that it is I, myself.” Thomas’ immediate reaction is, “My Lord and my God!” Thomas is the first disciple to call Jesus God. When Jesus was alive before Easter, Jesus said, “Who do people say that I am?” Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That is an extremely important confession. “You are the Christ. You are the Messiah. You are the Chosen One.” But it is Thomas who is the first one to say, “You are God. My Lord and my God!” So I think we need to take a step back from just relegating Thomas forever to this position of being the doubter. Thomas was a faithful disciple.

There is a very important incident that John tells earlier in the Gospel. In John, Chapter 11, Jesus has taught that he can forgive sins, that he has the power to forgive sins. Now to an orthodox Jew, that is blasphemy because only God can forgive sins, and that is what the temple is for. That is what the priesthood is for. That is what the entire temple sacrificial system is for in Jewish orthodoxy. So in this incident, some of the Jewish leadership are so enraged at Jesus that they actually pick up stones to throw at him. They want to kill him. They want to stone him for blasphemy. They are so outraged by his saying that he has the power to forgive sins. Now Jesus, of course, survives this moment, and his disciples go back out into the country. Then they get word that Lazarus has died. So Jesus says, “We need to go back to see Lazarus, and Mary, and Martha.” Several of the disciples say, “Now, Lord, they just tried to kill us back there. Are you sure we want to do this?” Now that, again, is a fairly normal human reaction. “Lord, do you remember that they are the ones who wanted to kill you? Do we really want to go back?” Here is my point. In John 11 vs. 16, it is Thomas who says, “Let us also go with him, that we may die with him.” Does that sound like a doubter to you? Does that sound like a weakling to you? That is a courageous man. That is a man who loves the Lord. It was Thomas, when the other disciples were fearful, who said, “Let us also go with him, that we may die with him.” Thomas is a faithful disciple. He had a moment of doubt. I think any of us, when we are honest, can recognize that we might have done the same thing. But when he did see the risen Lord, he was the first to say, “My Lord and my God!” What a wonderful example of faithfulness Thomas is in the end.

Briefly I want to conclude with the words from today’s Collect, the prayer with which we began the service. We prayed earlier today: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith. Thomas, in today’s Gospel lesson, gives our profession of faith. “My Lord and my God!” That is what we are here professing today. We are here today to praise Jesus as our Lord and our God. The Collect for today reminds us so powerfully: May we show forth in our lives what we profess by our faith. We believe that Jesus is risen. We believe that his will for us is love, and forgiveness, and reconciliation. We believe that Jesus’ Spirit is in us. It is the gift he gives us through the Holy Spirit. And so, while we profess Jesus as Lord and God, may we show forth in our lives what that really means. May our thoughts, may our attitudes, and may our actions be guided by the love and the grace of our risen Lord Jesus. Amen.