“Though the Doors Were Locked…”

Several years ago, I was engaged in a conversation with a person of Jewish faith who has studied the New Testament in depth. As we were talking he said to me, “Your faith is a gift I wish I had. I can’t make myself believe.” John Ortberg, in his book Faith and Doubt writes, “Sometimes a person is tempted to think, “I can’t become a Christian because I still have doubts. I’m still not sure.” But as long as doubts exist, as long as the person is still uncertain, that is the only time faith is needed. When the doubts are gone, the person doesn’t need faith anymore. Knowledge has come.” Two things that the Jewish person I was talking with are true: faith is a gift, and we can’t make ourselves believe. What he didn’t say is what he hadn’t done, though, that is required in order to have faith, let go. He hadn’t let go of the need for the certainty of knowledge. He wasn’t willing to let go and take a leap of faith.

Henri Nouwen, a Dutch priest who taught at Harvard and Yale, found himself mesmerized by a trapeze act, “The Flying Rodleighs.”

“There were five members in the act – three “flyers” and two “catchers.” The flyer climbs the steps, mounts the platform, and grasps the trapeze. He leaps off the platform, swinging through the air. He uses his body for momentum, swinging with increasing speed and height. The catcher hangs from his knees on another trapeze, with his hands free to reach out.

The moment of truth comes when the flyer lets go. He sails into the air…does a somersault or two….There is absolutely nothing, at the moment, to keep the flyer from plunging to his death. What do you think he feels like? Do you think he feels fully alive – every cell in his body screaming out? Think he’s feeling any fear right then?

In the next moment the catcher swings into our view. He has been timing his arcs perfectly. He arrives just as the flyer loses momentum and is beginning to descend. His hands clasp the arms of the flyer. The flyer cannot see him; to the flyer everything is a bur. But the flyer feels himself snatched out of the air.” “The secret is that the flyer does nothing. The catcher does everything…..The flyer must trust with outstretched arms that his catcher will be there waiting for him.”(Ortberg, Faith and Doubt)

What would make a person unwilling to let go and take a leap of faith? What would make a person wish he had the gift of faith but not be able to let himself believe? It’s the same thing that would keep me swinging back and forth on the trapeze bar and never letting go. It’s the same thing that motivated Thomas to close the door that night. Fear.

Fear paralyzes us. Keeps us from moving forward.

Like the Jewish New Testament scholar with whom I was talking, Thomas couldn’t let go and open up, either. The other disciples told him they had seen Jesus, but he couldn’t make himself believe it was true. The door of his heart was shut. He had always been no-nonsense, practical, pragmatic, some might call him a pessimist.

Let’s back up, what do we know about Thomas? When the other disciples tried to talk Jesus out of going to Mary and Martha’s when word came that Lazarus was ill because the Temple authorities were looking for Jesus to stone him, Thomas’s response was “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” When Jesus explained to the disciples that he was leaving his peace with them and going to his Father’s house to prepare a place for them, Thomas’s response was “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” On the third day, when Jesus appeared to the other disciples, Thomas was not with them. When they told him they had seen the Lord he responded, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.” A week later, they are all together again in the house, with the door shut.

Twice John tells us that Thomas is a twin. Twins were considered a bad omen in the first Century both because of the increase in mortality rate in childbirth and because they messed up inheritance laws. So, John isn’t pointing out that Thomas is a twin because it is a “fun fact.” There is some deeper meaning. The Greek, like the English, words double and doubt are related. Literally, the word we translate as doubt, distazo, means double standing. And John shows us that Thomas wanted to be a faithful disciple, but ultimately was afraid, standing with the door shut both literally and figuratively, and he couldn’t let go.

Until he is caught out of midair – Jesus is standing there in the midst of them. “Peace be with you.” Church historian Diana Butler Bass points out that “The disciples [have] returned to their “happy place” where they had felt safe, loved, comfortable. The last place where they had seen Jesus alive. The upper room around the same table where they had shared that last meal.” They would have been together to share the evening meal.

The others have seen Jesus, the conversation must have been divided between trying to convince Thomas and contemplating what was next. I wonder if it was Thomas who insisted they shut the door.

Despite the door being shut, Jesus came and stood among them and does something very Jewish – he says a blessing. Knowing the context, even though John doesn’t recount it for his Jewish Christian community, we can imagine the scene. Jesus took bread and gave thanks. He looked in the eyes of the disciples and said, “Peace be with you.”

“In recent years, neuroscientists have discovered that fear and gratitude don’t exist in the same parts of our brains. Fear resides in the amygdala, the ‘reptilian’ part of our brain. Feelings of gratitude activate our neo-cortex, the front of the brain with our ‘higher thinking’ and more recently evolved capabilities. Indeed, researchers now believe that gratitude and fear cannot exist at the same time – that gratitude actually processes fear, effectively driving fear out,…” (Bass)

“My Lord and my God!” exclaimed Thomas, the first to look at Jesus and realize he was seeing the face of God. In that moment, the door of his heart swung open. In that moment, he let go of that swinging trapeze bar, and he believed. He soared through the air, his chest bursting with gratitude, trusting the catcher who is there, ready to firmly grip and pull him home.

Jesus gently chides him, “Have you believed because you have seen me?” and then he offers us our blessing, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

May we, like Thomas, hear the blessing and be filled with gratitude, leaving no room for fear. And exclaim as we let go, “My Lord, and my God!” confident that he with catch us with his firm grip and pull us home.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.