Sunday 16th April
Reflection/Teaching “Resurrection Witness”
“Seeing and believing” is an ongoing theme in the book of John, and it is a key part of the Thomas and Jesus encounter.
At the opening of this gospel, Jesus asks Nathaniel, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?” When two of John’s disciples begin to follow Jesus he says, “Come and see.” And the story of the man born blind in John 9 is also filled with nuances about sight and belief.
In this passage, the only blessing spoken by Jesus and recorded in John falls on those who have not seen but believe. That blessing reflects the life situation of the original community addressed by this gospel. Most, if not all, of John’s first readers would not have seen Jesus. And yet they believed. And Jesus’ blessing of them is Jesus’ blessing of us as well.
This story about Thomas is often used to berate doubt, based on verse 27, where Thomas wants to touch and see. But the word translated as “doubt” is not one of the common Greek words for doubt. It is ‘apistos’, whose literal meaning would be closer to “without faith” or “unbelief.” So what Jesus is actually doing is graciously providing Thomas with what he needs to move from unbelief to belief.
As we know now people learn in many different ways. Thomas, like many of us, needed to see, to touch in order to move from his previous thinking to knowing that Jesus was alive.
Touch,” writes well-known author Margaret Atwood, “comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last and it always tells the truth.”
Again, recent research has proven the importance of touch. During the many Covid lockdowns physical isolation was one of concerns of mental health professions. We could use on-line or distant interactions to feed our need for sight and sound interactions but we couldn’t touch. People found it physically painful when couldn’t hug the grieving friend or hold the hand of the dying relative.
Thomas needing to touch Jesus was part of his letting go of grieving and truly believing in the living. And it worked. Thomas become one of the most well-travelled apostle. His story didn’t get into our bible and so like many I thought his journey to India and the subsequent Christian community there a myth. But I now have a neighbour who comes from that tradition. And it the evidence is compelling that there has been a Christian presence in India for over 2000 years.