My Master and My God

I was in Washington, D.C. waiting on the Metro. There was a sign. I didn’t believe it. Sure, the post looked freshly painted. I could see where fresh paint had covered over what had been chipped and worn. It was clean in a place covered over in filth. It was shiny. The evidence was there to suggest that what the sign was telling me could be true, but I didn’t believe it.

I wouldn’t be satisfied until I reached out, not just with one finger, but three, to touch it for myself. Was it “Wet Paint?” Really? I didn’t see anyone painting still, so surely this paint wasn’t wet.

The disciples were for Thomas what the “Wet Paint” sign was for me. “We have seen the Lord,” they said. But Jesus wasn’t there anymore, and no matter how transformed they were, Thomas just couldn’t believe it. “Unless I take my hand and touch to feel the wet of his blood myself, I will not believe.”

Can you imagine how hard that week must have been for Thomas? It’s not like he is doubting the word of strangers or acquaintances, all of the rest of the disciples that were Jesus’ closest friends, who traveled together and ate and taught and healed together for three years they’ve been together are the ones who saw Jesus. Sunday night, the day of the resurrection, Jesus had appeared to the rest of the disciples. They were locked up in hiding together…all of them except Thomas. I wonder where Thomas was.

I wonder if he was wandering the streets, just hoping someone would recognize him. Maybe he was ready to follow Jesus even to death. When Lazarus died in Bethany, it was risky for Jesus to go because the plotting to kill him had already started. And Bethany is only couple of miles away from Jerusalem. It was Thomas who said to the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Maybe now he is just hoping someone will recognize him and turn him in as he wanders the streets.

I wonder if that morning when Mary Magdalene banged on the door, out of breath, beyond hysterical saying “I have seen the Lord!” if Thomas had stormed out. Maybe he just needed to get away and think. Maybe he was trying to make all the pieces fit together – Jesus had said he was going to prepare a place for them. He had told him that they didn’t know the way, but Jesus assured them that they did. What did it all mean?

Maybe he was looking for Jesus’ body – who took it, where did they take it? Why was the body of his Lord gone? Maybe he had gone to the tomb and looked for himself.

Wherever he had been, whatever he had been doing, when Thomas got back, all of the other disciples said that they had seen the Lord. Thomas just could not believe it. A week went by. The others were out and about, telling everyone that Jesus had breathed on them. By his breath, the breath that swept over the face of the waters and said “Let there be light”; the breath that pierced the night air in a stable in Bethlehem with a newborn cry; by his breath, he had filled them with the Holy Spirit.

But Thomas wasn’t there. And he couldn’t believe. It wasn’t that he doubted. It wasn’t that he had misgivings but went along with the others. Thomas did not believe, and he wasn’t willing to pretend or lie or
gloss over it. The rest of them could be taken. They could succumb to wishful thinking. They could ignore the fact that Jesus died on the cross and was buried in Joseph’s tomb. Maybe his body was gone, but Thomas was not going to pretend that he wasn’t murdered by the authorities. Thomas wasn’t going to be part of some story that tried to keep Jesus’ mission going. He was loyal, and he was honest.

John Ortberg in his book “Faith and Doubt” tells about a bright young student who eventually found himself unable to believe in Christianity. He was disillusioned by fellow Christians who in his words, “seemed happy to hide serious problems in the Bible and in their arguments. They preferred comfort to intellectual honesty.” Ortberg suggests that even more than we need to be committed to Jesus, we need to be committed to truth because “it is impossible to trust Jesus if way down deep inside, you don’t think he was right.” “Jesus himself had quite a lot to say about truth. He said: ‘You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.’ (John 8:32) ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ (John 14:6) ‘When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you in all truth.’ (John 16:13)…..according to Jesus, if you search for truth, you will find him. There is no other way to trust Jesus than to think and question and wrestle and struggle until you come to see that he really is true. One purpose of doubt is to motivate us to do that.”

Thomas will not prefer comfort over honesty. The only way that he will believe is if he knows the truth firsthand, literally. He cannot make himself believe. None of us can make ourselves believe. Oxford professor Richard Swinburne writes, “In general, a person cannot choose what to believe there and then. Belief is something that happens to a person, not something he or she does.”

Thomas can’t make himself believe; he can’t believe through trying. But, he can seek the truth. He continues to gather with those who do believe. A week passes and they are all together again. The doors are shut. And Jesus comes and stands among them. “Peace be with you,” he says. And then he turns to Thomas and honors his honest inability to believe without touching for himself. “Here, put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not disbelieve” – the word John uses in Greek isn’t doubt, it is full unbelief – “Do not disbelieve, but believe.”

Thomas is overcome, overwhelmed, belief happens to him. Jesus. It is Jesus. There Thomas stood, and he knew he was fully known. The test that Thomas had demanded he offered to him. And in that moment, Thomas fully knew. “My Master,” the one I have followed, the one I am loyal to, the one I have even offered to die for, it is you!… “and My God!” He looks at Jesus and calls him “God.” Thomas sees God fully revealed in Jesus.

Thomas couldn’t will himself to believe, and neither can we. Thomas couldn’t believe because the others did, and neither can we. For Thomas and for us, belief comes as we seek to know. Belief comes through learning, through prayer, through study, through questioning. The testimony of the Thomas’s experience is helpful for us when we cannot believe because Thomas couldn’t believe either, but Jesus comes and offers him what he needs to believe. And Thomas goes in that instant from not believing that Jesus is resurrected to complete knowledge that Jesus is “my master and my God!”

The good news for you and for me, who when we see the sign “Wet paint” cannot resist reaching out to touch for ourselves, the good news for us is that when we reach out for faith, God knows what we need to believe and says, “Here, put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not disbelieve but believe.” Study me. Experience me. Come to know me.