In our gospel reading for today, the risen Jesus appears in dramatic fashion to ten of the apostles. And for whatever reason, Thomas the Twin is not with them, and does not get to experience the risen Lord, AND does not accept the story of the ten as proof. As a result, he is forever known to us as Doubting Thomas. But that's a bad rap, because how Thomas responded, and how the ten responded to Thomas, worked for good. And in the end, Jesus came back for Thomas, and brought him around – a great story for all of us doubters to hear...
How often has something like this happened to you? “Too bad you didn't make it to the Oiler game last week. I know it was a routine game against Chicago, but then, they actually put their emergency backup goalie, Matt Berlin from the U of A Golden Bears into the net with 2 minutes left. You don't see that every day, and the crowd went absolutely nuts. You should've been there!” Now, if only you would have known in advance that it WASN'T going to be routine, and what it was that you would MISS, you WOULD'VE been there....
If only Thomas would have known in advance that his risen Lord and Saviour was showing up behind locked doors that Sunday night, he might have made more effort to be there! Instead, he missed what was in John's gospel, the second appearance of the risen Jesus, and the first appearance to more than one person – the first evidence acceptable in a court of law, of the most important event in human history. Talk about the wrong meeting to miss! It's worse than missing the church council meeting where we make committee assignments!
And we can sit back in our armchairs and criticize Thomas' response all we like. We can point to the fact that Thomas WAS there when Jesus prophesied his resurrection, he DID hear the voice of God clearly affirming Jesus as his son, he DID experience the bodily resurrection of Lazarus. So why couldn't he accept the report from the ten, that they had seen the Lord?
Because the resurrection of Jesus was something entirely new and different, something the world had never seen before. Unlike Lazarus, who was RESTORED to his previous life, and died again later, Jesus was CHANGED. He was unrecognizable at first glance to his good friend Mary Magdelene in the garden. And the physical world, like walls and locked doors did not seem to limit Jesus any longer. Thomas knew that the resurrection of Jesus was an extraordinary claim. And like scientist Carl Sagan once said about extraterrestrial life, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Thomas NEEDED to put his finger in the mark of the nails. Much to the annoyance and frustration of his ten friends.
Now if this event had happened these days, that would have been the end of Thomas' association with the church. A disagreement that strong today would dissolve friendships, family ties....maybe even marriages. The only question would be whether Thomas would storm off himself, or Thomas would be thrown out by the group. Thomas would be accused of being a resurrection denier, and the ten would be accused of committing a religious conspiracy. And each side would retreat to their own bubble on social media, and wonder aloud how the other side could be so stupid, ...or so evil.