I BELIEVE

Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’ (John 20:27)

“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.' I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

(Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland)

Is that how Thomas was feeling. “You can’t believe impossible things.”

You have to feel sorry for Thomas. He has been somewhat typecast. Thomas the doubter. Whatever else he did with his life – and he is known as the Apostle who took the Gospel message as far as India - he will always be remembered as the disciple who doubted Jesus. Even before the Resurrection story, Thomas’s makes two other contributions to the Gospel, which only serve to reinforce that he is Thomas the doubter:

“Let us also go up to Jerusalem, that we may die with him.” (John 11:16)

‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ (John 14:5)

Thomas the doubter.

But Thomas does raise the question for us – is it OK to have doubts? Think of another Bible story: the father of the boy who was deaf and mute:

“Lord, I do belief. Help me overcome my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)

I can identify with this man. If I have doubts or questions, am I really a follower of Jesus? Sometimes even the most faithful Christian has doubts. “Oh, you of little faith,” says Jesus. “Why do you doubt?”

It’s easy to engage in a bit of Thomas-bashing: to think of him as weak-willed, with little faith, but notice that he’s not treated like that in the passage. No one criticizes or rebukes Thomas for his lack of faith or his scepticism. Not even Jesus criticises him. Thomas says he won’t believe until he can see for himself that Jesus is alive. The passage doesn’t tell us that the disciples put Thomas in his place. He stuck with them, and was there in the upper room on the following Sunday.

And when Jesus comes? Do they hear Jesus’ voice booming through the room, rebuking Thomas for his lack of faith and banishing him from the group?

No! When Jesus appears on the following Sunday, he meets his demands! Far from criticizing Thomas for wanting physical evidence, Jesus gives it to him.

So, if Jesus didn’t penalize Thomas for doubting the resurrection, He certainly won’t penalize us if we ask for evidence. And we do have plenty of evidence for the Resurrection. We’re not believing impossible things. We’re not behaving like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland.

The simple fact is that the tomb was empty. No one, not the Romans, the Jewish authorities, or the disciples, was ever able to produce a body. And more, all of those disciples spent the rest of their lives proclaiming the resurrection. Not one of them ever broke ranks to suggest that it wasn’t true. And they faced martyr’s deaths for preaching it. If there was even a shadow of a doubt, surely, one of them would have broken rank at some point.

Chuck Colson, one of President Nixon’s advisers, was caught up in the centre of the Watergate affair, and ended up in prison. This convinced him of the truth of the Resurrection. How? This is what he said:

“I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified that they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one of them was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world - and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.”

Then there’s a different kind of evidence – evidence of changed hearts and lives. Chuck Colson is just one example of someone whose heart was transformed by Jesus. Over the centuries, millions of people have had their lives totally changed by coming to faith in Jesus and his resurrection.

We are saved by our reliance on Jesus Christ. The challenge facing us is to look at the evidence and decide for ourselves. Is the good news of Jesus Christ true?

Of course, none of us were actually there, yet we can believe these things occurred, because we have read the stories, examined the evidence and reasoned it out. These events point me to believe that Jesus is the one whom I should trust and obey.

‘My Lord and my God’ – declared Thomas’s as he fell to his knees.

There’s a prayer that we can identify with!