Text Study for John 20:19-31 (Part Seven)

Lay people have sometimes expressed to me the wish that they could have had the experiences of those first witnesses to the Resurrection. After all, the conversation goes, they had up to three years with Jesus. They saw the miracles, heard the sermons, wrestled with the parables, got the explanations, and asked the questions. They witnessed both Jesus’ death and his resurrection appearances.

They had it all right in front of them. It must have been so much easier to believe, based on the direct evidence of personal senses and experience! Doesn’t the Gospel of John say as much at the end of our reading – that those of us who believe without the benefit of seeing are especially blessed? Maybe we get some sort of theological extra credit because we have to do it the hard way. And, if only we could have been among that first generation who had it so much easier!

That doesn’t seem to be the assessment we get in the gospel accounts. This week, we get two of the four resurrection appearances at the end of the Johannine account. In neither of those cases does “faith in the resurrection” come easily or quickly. Nor is it any better for Mary in the garden, as she mistakes the risen Jesus for the gardener. Peter recognizes Jesus on the seashore in John 21, but that results in an exceedingly difficult conversation.

Next week we get the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They are not models of quick and easy belief either. We know that in the Markan composition, the gospel ends with the women terrified and somewhat tongue-tied. Even in the Matthean account, the most confident of the four options, as the disciples meet Jesus on the mountain for the last time, there are still some who doubted.

Then there’s Paul. He has to be knocked flat on his back and struck blind. When he gets his sight back, it seems in the Book of Acts that he gets right to work at witnessing. But in Paul’s own account in Galatians, it seems that he went off for seventeen years to study and try to work things out before hitting the road as a missionary. And I thought seminary took a long time!

The New Testament documents do not report an easy accommodation to faith on the part of hardly anyone in the early Jesus movement. Could it be that the stories from John we have in this week’s gospel lection are intended to offer support and encouragement to people who struggle not only to believe but also to continue believing? That is, could it be that the stories from John we have this week are directed to people just like us?

What is it, at least for those first disciples, that makes faith in the risen Lord Jesus such a challenge? David Norman discusses this question in his article. His thesis, which probably seems uncontroversial to many of us, is that for the first witnesses, the problem wasn’t the Resurrection by itself. Instead, the problem was this. “How was it possible that the one they hoped would redeem Israel (Luke 24:21) could die,” Norman wonders, “and then manifest himself as one with Israel’s God?” (page 787).

Perhaps the first disciples were able to believe in the Resurrection when they realized that it was not really a literal bodily resurrection but rather some intense but psychologically internal group experience. That is the argument that some scholars, such as John Dominic Crossan, continue to make. We don’t need to embrace the notion of a literal, physical, bodily resurrection, because that’s not what the first witnesses had to embrace either. Instead, just as the first witnesses were informed by intensely vivid and even communal (but subjective) visions, so we can content ourselves with that same sort of experience. Problem solved.

Norman and others note that such an interpretation renders accounts of the empty tomb at least superfluous and probably fictional. It seems, however, that the gospel accounts regard the reports of the empty tomb as neither inconvenient window dressing nor made up stories. “Without the empty tomb, the argument for a bodily resurrection is sapped of its force and conviction,” Norman writes, “without the empty tomb narratives there is no link between the glorification/exaltation of Jesus and his death on Calvary” (page 791).

“Dispense with the empty tomb,” Norman continues, “and one can argue that after Jesus gives up his spirit on the cross (John 19:30), he experiences exaltation, rendering the physical resurrection of his body redundant” (page 791). Without the empty tomb, the cross is a mere inconvenience or even an illusion. But the gospel accounts do everything they can to render the death of Jesus as a real death of a living person – one whom we believe was “crucified, died, and was buried.”

But, as Norman notes, what is at stake in the gospel accounts is not merely the story of a man who died and is alive again. That’s not where Thomas ends up in his confession of faith. “The question I want to address,” Norma proposes, “is: why did the followers of Jesus suddenly believe in him as Lord and God? What was it,” he continues, “that moved them from men and women covering in fear to courageous advocates of Jesus as Lord and God?” (page 796).

The gospel accounts show clearly that the first witnesses did not immediately recognize the risen Jesus – not as Jesus, and certainly not as their “Lord and God.” It’s hard to imagine why the gospel writers would compose this difficulty as a fictional element of their reports. This difficulty in recognizing the risen Jesus for who he is doesn’t do much to enhance the credibility of the reports. It is more likely that this is how the experience worked (and works).

“The resurrection narratives cry out that the coming to faith was not easy,” Norman observes, “both Mark and 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 indicate that the difficulty lies in the cross, the major stumbling block to belief” (page 798). Norman argues that any inner transformative experience coming out of the resurrection appearances has to be reconciled with the reality of Jesus’ death and burial. “There was no belief in Jesus as Lord and God, the one who has the words of eternal life (John 6:68),” Norman declares, “without the simultaneous recognition that this Lord and God is the Crucified One” (page 798).

Norman reminds us that Thomas comes to his resurrection faith in precisely the way the other ten do. His experience is not, therefore, a demonstration of how much better it would be to believe without seeing. Rather, Norman asserts, “It is that doubt itself is the necessary prerequisite to faith, at least for all those who were Jewish followers of Jesus and who ‘had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel’ (Lk 24:21)” (page 805). Every witness to the resurrection struggles to believe, Norman observes, including the Beloved Disciple in John 20:8.

What, Norman wonders, led in the Johannine account to Thomas’ sturdy refusal to believe the witness of the other ten on its own? “Just as a dead Messiah led to a dead end,” Norman writes, “in the same way, Thomas could not worship a dead Christ until he had experienced firsthand the Exalted One the other disciples called Lord” (page 808). It is the death of Jesus the Messiah and his resurrection as the Glorified One that make it clear that this One is indeed God in the flesh.

“What was mutually exclusive has become inclusive,” Norman writes, “Israel’s God includes both Jesus and the one Jesus called Abba” (page 808). What made this hard for the first witnesses was that the cross of the Messiah was a profound and scandalous stumbling block to such faith. “The faith of Thomas in Jesus as Lord owes as much to his appearing with his wounds,” Norman argues, “as it does to his appearing in the glory of his Father, in the glory of God” (page 809).

Therefore, Norman concludes, Jesus doesn’t reject Thomas’ demands for physical confirmation of Jesus’ identity. Instead, Thomas becomes the first of the rest – all of us who are challenged to put our trust in the crucified God (as Martin Luther describes Jesus). “Those who, through the power of Christ’s Spirit,” Norman continues, “surmount the hurdle that Jesus’ death poses tread in Thomas’s footsteps” (page 810).

I have never found faith in the Risen Christ to be an easy or intuitive matter. For some, it is just that, and I envy such facility of faith. The Johannine account shows four different personal encounters with the Risen Christ and four different experiences. I’m glad that range of experiences includes the witness of Thomas. For me, such faith started out hard and has never gotten much easier. I’m glad I can find myself in the Johannine account, in the one I can call a “twin” in faith.

“In summary,” Sandra Schneiders concludes, “John’s resurrection narrative is not about Jesus’ vindication after his shameful death. It is about where and how his disciples, the first generation symbolized by Mary Magdalene, and all those who were not with them when Jesus came, symbolized by Thomas the Twin, will encounter Jesus as their Lord and God” (page 34). It is not that seeing and hearing Jesus personally are no longer relevant. The question for us is where we see and hear the risen Jesus now. John’s answer is that we see and hear the risen Jesus now in the witness of the community of faith.
References and Resources

Feltman, Charles; Sue Annis Hammond. The Thin Book of Trust: An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work. Thin Book Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Koester, Craig. “Hearing, seeing, and believing in the Gospel of John. https://digitalcommons.luthersem.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=faculty_articles.

Lewis, Alan E. Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday.

McCaulley, Esau. Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope. Intervarsity Press, 2020.

Norman, David J. “Doubt and the Resurrection of Jesus.” Theological studies 69, no. 4 (2008): 786-811.

Schneiders, Sandra Marie “The Lamb of God and the Forgiveness of Sin(s) in the Fourth Gospel.” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 73/1 (January 2011): 1-29.

Schneiders, Sandra M. “Touching the Risen Jesus: Mary Magdalene and Thomas the Twin in John 20.” CTSA Proceedings 60 (2005), 13-25.

Wallace, Daniel. Greek Grammar: Beyond the Basics.

Wright, N. T. Resurrection of the Son of God.

Wright, N. T. Surprised by Hope. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

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Text Study for John 20:19-31 (Part Four)

How will you “play” this text as you read it in worship? Will you read and speak with a smile as Jesus appears and says, “Peace be with you”? I think that’s a fairly straightforward choice. This is one of those texts that will really benefit, I believe, from putting the book down on a reading desk and doing some “hand-acting” to illustrate the movement underneath the words.

I have often used the same posture and action in reading the text that I would use in sharing the Peace of the Lord with the congregation prior to the liturgy of Holy Communion. This is an opportunity for worshippers to connect that liturgical action to this moment in the Johannine account. In order for people to make that connection, the preacher may need to highlight it in the message and repeat the action at that point. Once the connection has been made in the minds of worshippers, however, in my experience it sticks with them (at least until you remind them of it again next year).

Photo by Helena Jankoviu010dovu00e1 Kovu00e1u010dovu00e1 on Pexels.com

In extending the blessing of peace to the disciples, I imagine that Jesus extended his hands to them. Thus, showing them his hands would have been a natural extension of the gesture. The Greek text doesn’t have a word for “after” in this phrase. It is a translation choice, since the grammar is a participle that encourages such explication. It is just as likely that the participle is contemporaneous rather than past. “Saying this, he showed the hands and side to them” (John 20:20a, my translation).

When they looked at his hands and side, then they saw the Lord. It is the wounds that help them identify him. That will be important as we think about the interaction with Thomas in just a few verses. Now, how will you play the second “Peace be with you”? If the first one was spoken to allay their fears, it seems that the second one is spoken to quiet them down a bit. I wonder if Jesus used the phrase the way our bishops sometimes say, “The Lord be with you,” in order to quiet down a loud and boisterous group of clergy at a meeting.

Would you consider enacting the Breath of Life that Jesus shares with the disciples in verse twenty-two? I could imagine ending verse twenty-two with a deep intake of breath and a long, slow exhalation before beginning verse twenty-three. I am trying to capture how a Johannine storyteller might deliver this part of the text.

The Greek verb for “breathed” has the clear sense of “into” rather than “on.” This is the breathing I might use in mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, not the blowing I might use to scatter dandelion seed. This is the breath that gives life to inanimate clay. Perhaps that can give us a clue as to how we might play the words of commission that make up verse 23. These words breathe the Divine life into us when we are dead in sin.

And these words continue to blow through us until we awake to new life. So, I imagine that Jesus shares them with an encouraging smile and a positive nod of the head. That’s quite different from the threatening and foreboding tones with which I have often read this text in the past. I think verse twenty-three reads much better as a promise than as a threat.

Now we come to Jesus and Thomas. I have often read these verses with tones of anger and frustration. I haven’t done that intentionally, but I think that’s the default setting, at least for me, when I read a great many lectionary selections. Is Thomas arrogant and demanding, haughty and dismissive? That’s the reading we get when we name this text the story of “Doubting Thomas.” “You gullible fools!” Thomas seems to say. “I’m not going to settle for your words. I want real proof!” Suddenly, Thomas has become a post-Enlightenment skeptic, operating with a finely-honed hermeneutic of suspicion.

Yet, what if Thomas surprised and confused? Perhaps we could play Thomas as stunned rather than stern. Perhaps we could read him as reeling in confusion rather than regal in doubt. Could it be that Thomas is pleading rather than demanding? “I have no idea what’s going on here,” he is perhaps saying. “Could someone please help me to understand? I heard what you experienced, friends. Have I missed out on that opportunity?”

Confusion, surprise, disappointment – all of these experiences can certainly come out as anger and frustration. It is perhaps a subtle task to play Thomas with accuracy and empathy in this scene. The preacher may need to help listeners explore the possible options for such a presentation.

As I write this reflection, I begin to wonder if the reading of the text should happen in the middle of or even after the message. That might be an appropriate strategy if the goal is to help listeners experience the story as something other than the same, ho-hum, doubt is bad – faith is good, just-so story we get every year. Could the preacher take some time to prime the listeners to hear the story in a different way? I think that’s worth considering.

The next scene is a week later, probably in the evening. Thomas has had seven days of being on the outside looking in, seven days of waiting for his own encounter with the Risen Lord, seven days of hearing the joyful trust of the other ten. Was he a party-pooper who rained on their post-Easter parade? I suspect not. But the pain of being left out would have been palpable. Perhaps it would be worth wondering in a sermon what those seven days were like.

Now here we are. Thomas is present this time. Jesus comes and offers the gift of his peace. With his hands already extended in that blessing, he invites Thomas to touch him. What is Jesus’ tone in this conversation? How will you play it this time? Too many times I have played Jesus as the scolding schoolmaster ready to rap poor Tom’s knuckles with a ruler for getting his lesson wrong. That seems to be a jarring follow-up to “Peace be with you.”

What if, instead, Jesus is the empathetic encourager? Perhaps we could play Jesus at this point with a warm and inviting smile on his face. “Go ahead, Thomas. It’s ok. You can touch me. I want you to reach out and put your finger here and examine my hands. It’s all right. I won’t smack you in the process. Come close and put your hand in my side. Really, I want you to do it. I want you to have what you need, what I gave to the others a week ago.”

Perhaps we ought to play Jesus as inviting Thomas to touch him, wooing him with his wounded hands and side. “Thomas, I long for you to come out of that fearful box of mistrust. I want you to know the joy of trusting in the life I offer you. This is the moment, Thomas, when you can become the child of God you were created to be. Come on, Tom, it’s all right!”

And how shall we play Thomas’ response? Perhaps we can do the shocked and somewhat chagrined recognition that I have so often put into the text as I read it. That makes perfect sense. But there are no exclamation points in the Greek text. Translators and editors insert such punctuation to assist with our reading. But punctuation is translation. And translation is interpretation. We may use the exclamation point or not, depending on how we read the story.

What if Thomas whispers his response in quiet conviction rather than shouts it in shocked amazement? What if Thomas relaxes into a gentle trust rather than rages into a militant conviction? “Ah, Lord, there you are. I see you now.” Perhaps Thomas is more satisfied than surprised, with less violence and more peace. What if we were to title this story “Growing Thomas” rather than “Doubting Thomas”? How might that impact the faith lives of the listeners?

Then there is Jesus’ follow up to Thomas’ witness. It’s so easy to read verse twenty-nine as critical of Thomas’ demand for visible proof. Of course, many translators do not render Jesus’ response as a question (including Martin Luther, for example), but rather as a statement: “You have come to believe because you have seen me.” Yes, Thomas, you are one of the fortunate witnesses who have seen and can testify. Those who come to believe because of that testimony will be blessed as well.

After all, that is the reason the Johannine author composed this account – so that we, who have not seen, may come to and continue to believe that the Messiah, the Son of God, is Jesus. In that trust, we can continue to have abundant life in his name.

It is a challenge to read this text aloud in such a way as to woo listeners into that ongoing life. I think we are so primed to hear the text as filled with conflict and judgment that we may be able to hear little else. If we play the text in that way, however (as I so often have), then our presentation will work at cross-purposes to the text, no matter what we might say in the message itself.

Sometimes how we play the text is not terribly crucial to how it is heard. But in the Johannine gospel generally, and in this text in particular, how we play it matters a great deal to our proclamation.

References and Resources

Koester, Craig. “Hearing, seeing, and believing in the Gospel of John. https://digitalcommons.luthersem.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=faculty_articles.

Lewis, Alan E. Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday.

Schneiders, Sandra Marie “The Lamb of God and the Forgiveness of Sin(s) in the Fourth Gospel.” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 73/1 (January 2011): 1-29.

Schneiders, Sandra M. “Touching the Risen Jesus: Mary Magdalene and Thomas the Twin in John 20.” CTSA Proceedings 60 (2005), 13-25.

Wallace, Daniel. Greek Grammar: Beyond the Basics.

Wright, N. T. Resurrection of the Son of God.

Wright, N. T. Surprised by Hope. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

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The Tantalizing Tale of Thomas the T — Throwback Thursdays

In many congregations (and certainly the ones I have served) the second Sunday of Easter is observed as “Holy Humor Sunday” or the Festival of Risus Paschalis, the Great Easter “Joke.” For Holy Humor Sunday of 2014, I wrote this bit of verse after the style of the good Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss. I haven’t come back to it for a while, so it’s fun to share it with you here. Please feel free to use in part or in whole (just attribute it properly).

“Tis the tantalizing tale of Thomas the T,

The disciple of Jesus, who demanded to see

The proof in his palms and the scars on his side —

To quiet his qualms and to pre-empt his pride.

They called him the “T” for he was a twin,

Though we do not know which child was his kin.

Loud and proud was Thomas the T,

And hard to convince as we shall soon see.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

This poem was part-written at home on my couch.

I hope you won’t think me too much of a slouch.

This poem was part-written in church at my desk.

I hope you won’t think me too much of a pest.

I could not have done it without Bishop Wright

Whose study and writing are such a delight!

For our Festival of Fun I hope it’s of use.

And I offer this effort — with honor to the Good Dr. Seuss.

‘Tis the tantalizing tale of Thomas the T,

The disciple of Jesus who demanded to see

The proof in his palms and the scar on his side —

To quiet his qualms and pre-empt his pride.

Thomas was stubborn and strong and severe.

He wanted his facts and he wanted them clear.

But when he was certain of what he had found

He marched with his Master on dangerous ground.

When Laz’rus of Beth’ny lay cold in the tomb

The enemies of Jesus were plotting his doom.

With stones in their hands and blood in their eye.

But Thomas declared, “Let’s go with him to die!”

Now on that first evening the doors were locked tight

Ten desperate disciples, all quaking with fright.

But Thomas the T was not there to be found.

Out checking the wind, perhaps poking around.

Who knows why he missed that initial surprise?

Avoiding the cops and eluding the spies?

And when he got back and heard all of the news,

Certain he was that the ten were, well, confused.

“I was not there!” cried out Thomas the T.

“I did not touch! It cannot be!

Unless I can prove it, you all must agree.

I will not trust what I cannot see!

Unless I can feel the holes in his hands,

I will not believe that he walks and he stands.

Unless I can wiggle my hand in his side,

I will not accept that our friend has not died.”

“All well and good,” the others then said.

“We know that he croaked. We know he was dead.

We know he expired with the last words he said.

We know he was shrouded and laid in a tomb.

And so we escaped to this small upper room.

We locked all the doors just to keep out the cops.

We thought we were safe, when among us HE pops!”

“Calm down. Please don’t panic!”

He says with a smile.

“It’s me,” he then says. “I’ll just stay for a while.

Don’t be so fearful. Don’t run off and hide.

Here, take a look at my hands and my side.”

“It’s boorish to gawk, impolitest to stare.

But we just had to look…there…and there…

And there!

And then we rejoiced, did a handspring or two!

We remembered the words of sweet Mary, so true.

As she stood weeping outside of the tomb,

A gardener appeared to cast off her gloom.

He spoke and she knew by the sound of his Word

That standing before her was Jesus, our Lord!

We thought her quite mad and overly teary,

Her past and her sex made us all a bit leery.

But as we were trembling behind the locked doors,

We knew then and there that we saw our Lord!

We knew right away that dear Mary was sane.

We knew right away there was much to explain.

Thomas the T was much less than impressed.

He knew he was smarter than all of the rest.

“There is another explanation. A ghost! A phantom!

Or just wishful thinking!

Or maybe an eyelash while you were all blinking!

Maybe the figs in that bowl have gone bad.

Or, to tell you the truth, I think you’re all just quite mad.

“I was not there!” cried Thomas the T.

“I did not touch! It cannot be!

Unless I can prove it, you all must agree.

I will not trust what I cannot see!

Unless I can feel the holes in his hands,

I will not believe that he walks and he stands.

Unless I can wiggle my hand in his side,

I will not accept that our friend has not died.”

Just a week later they gathered again.

But this time good Thomas was there with his friends.

The doors were all shut and the windows were bolted.

Then Jesus appeared and their dozing was jolted.

“Calm down. Please don’t panic!” he said once again.

Then he locked eyes with Thomas and flashed him a grin.

“So proof is the price of your trust in my way?

I seem to recall what you labored to say.

Reach out your fingers and poke in my palms,

Stick your hand in my side if you still have some qualms.

Your mind is not open, your heart filled with doubt.

But now I will tell you what this new world is about.”

“You wanted to hear and to touch and to see,

Do that and much more, and please do it for free!

But if you reach out, understand what’s at stake —

This isn’t a quiz or a game or debate.

If I am past the far side of the grave,

Then you must be something much more than just brave.

You must be willing to open your heart

And trust the new world that’s beginning to start.”

“If you must insist that the world is just so,

That you see what you see

And you know what you know,

That nothing new happens here under the sun,

Then you cannot see New Creation’s begun,

You cannot know that Lord Death is undone.

If all that you know is all that can now be,

Then you cannot grow. You can never be free

To explore past the limits of what you can see.

If all that you know is just what you can touch,

Then, honest to God, you’ll never know much.

You’ll never know loving or dreaming or hope.

You’ll live on an island, unable to cope.”

Thomas stood still as a stone for a tick.

At first he felt dizzy, and then he felt sick.

And then he felt more than a bit of a clod.

He shouted with joy, “My Lord and my God!”

Quite a confession for a good, faithful Jew,

A fellow who knows there’s just one God, not two.

But he was confronted with something Quite New.

If Christ is now risen (Christ is risen indeed!)

Then one thing is certain, a thing guaranteed:

The world has now changed and can never go back.

Death is defeated despite the attack.

Sin and the devil have run out of rope.

For the first time in ages, there truly is hope.

And now, for the big finish…

This is a story for you and for me.

We were not there.

We did not see.

We did not feel the holes in his hands.

We did not wiggle our hands in his side.

We may be convinced that poor Jesus just died.

If that is your view, you should go eat some pastry.

Before you take off, though, let’s not be so hasty.

Will we be like Thomas, closed up in our boxes,

Unwilling to think, entertain paradoxes?

Or will we be open to something Quite New,

Something we cannot re-test or review?

If you open up, understand what’s at stake —

This isn’t a quiz or a game or debate.

If Jesus is past the far side of the grave,

Then you also must be so much, much more than brave.

You must be willing to open your heart

And trust the new world that’s beginning to start.

‘Tis the tantalizing tale of Thomas the T,

The disciple of Jesus who demanded to see

The proof in his palms and the scar on his side —

He got what he wanted, his eyes opened wide.

With Thomas we share the great gift of new birth

To a hope that is living for all life on earth.

And out to the stars far beyond all the planets

Creation rejoices despite every trial. And it’s

Time to get on with the work of new living,

To love and to care and to sing with thanksgiving.

Christ is risen!

Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Text Study for John 20:19-31 (Pt. 3); 2 Easter B, 2021

Jesus and Thomas (and us) in John 20:24-29

We come, at last, to “Doubting Thomas.” That title is a misnomer. Jesus does not mention the “doubt” of Thomas. He commands Thomas to stop being “unbelieving.” To move from unbelieving to believing in John is not about intellectual assent. It is rather to accept and embrace a whole new way of seeing. It is being born from above, as we read in John 3.

Thomas is one of a number of witnesses who demonstrate that Jesus’ resurrection appearances are not merely wish-fulfillment. Thomas does not expect Jesus to be alive again. Instead, he had earlier committed himself to go with Jesus to “die with him.” The argument that the stories of resurrection appearances are reports of wishful delusions ignores the content of those reports. Wright notes, “and actually none of Jesus’s followers believed, after his death, that he really was the Messiah, let alone that he was in any sense divine” (Surprised by Hope, page 61).

“The call to resurrection faith occurs for people of later generations,” Craig Koester writes, “when the message about the risen Jesus is made effective by the risen Jesus. This,” he suggests, “is the dimension of Johannine theology that informs the story of Thomas” (page 70). The resurrection good news becomes credible and life-changing in the midst of genuine encounters with the risen Lord Jesus.

Thomas represents the readers of John’s Gospel in several ways, Koester suggests. We did not see the risen Christ on that first Easter. Instead, we have received the testimony of witnesses to those first appearances, and that testimony is found in John’s gospel. In that testimony we may discover that we too have encountered the risen Christ and may respond with Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”

Seeing by itself does not guarantee believing, Koester notes. We are readers of John’s gospel “can be assured that those who have not seen Jesus are not disadvantaged but are as blessed as the first group of disciples” (page 72). Seeing always happens in a context and within a framework of belief in what is possible. In a very real sense, it’s not that we believe something when we see it. Rather, we often see something when we believe it.

Thomas “is one of those who will know the resurrection not through an Easter experience,” Sandra Schneiders writes, “but through the testimony of the church, ‘We have seen the Lord’” (2005, page 27). But Thomas insists, according to Schneiders, on clinging to a pre-Easter perspective, where he must be able to handle Jesus with his mortal senses. It is not the case that Thomas “doubts” anything. That word is not used in the text, regardless of traditional labelling. Thomas refuses to believe. That’s what he says. “I will not believe unless…”

John’s gospel spends some time and rhetorical effort on the demands Thomas makes. The other disciples share their testimony with him, but Thomas is recalcitrant. He uses, according to Daniel Wallace, an emphatic, negative subjunctive construction (can also accompany a future tense, as is the case in John 20:25). Wallace notes that this “is the strongest way to negate something in Greek.” The construction is especially used to negate something that could happen in the future (Wallace, pp. 468f.).

Thomas is quite certain – not doubting at all. He is quite certain that unless his standards of evidence are met fully and without exception, he will definitely not believe. Thomas insists on experience rather than witness as the reason for his believing. He wants to impose pre-Easter categories on the post-Easter reality.

But there’s no going back after Easter. In the post-Easter cosmos, it is witness that makes the experience of Jesus possible. “What he misunderstands,” Schneiders writes, “is that it is not their experience [that of the other disciples] which he must accept in place of his own, but their witness upon which his own experience must be grounded” (page 32). This is the situation of every believer since.

There is a tone of brutality in Thomas’ demands here. “Unless I can thrust my finger into the place of the nail and thrust my hand into his side,” he declares, “I will certainly not believe” (my translation). Thomas represents the invasive, penetrative, conquering approach to knowledge as objective facts which must meet my specifications and must be under my control. Of course, any God worth having would not submit to any such external and objective standards of validity. God is God, and I am not. And that’s the good news.

When Jesus stands again in their midst (please see the description above), Thomas faces the glorified and resurrected post-Easter Jesus. He is challenged to evaluate the wounds of Jesus in a new way. “The wounds of Jesus are not a proof of physical reality,” Schneiders writes, “but the source of a true understanding of the meaning of Jesus’ revelatory death” (page 27). Jesus invites Thomas to “bring” his fingers into Jesus’ hands and thrust his hand into Jesus’ side.

Jesus imitates Thomas’ demand for rough handling. He magnifies that demand with a clear command. “Do not become unbelieving but rather continue believing!” (my translation). Thomas doesn’t touch Jesus. Rather, he is touched by Jesus. This isn’t about being convinced. It’s about being converted. Easter isn’t about new information. Easter is about New Creation. Thomas receives the gift of new eyes. He sees the wounds of the Risen Jesus in a new way.

Alan Lewis helps us to understand that Thomas is not a skeptical foil to our heroic faithfulness. “He is not so much the slowest, and most doubtful of the contemporary disciples,” Lewis writes in Between Cross and Resurrection, “as the final and definitive eyewitness of the church’s good news for every generation: that Jesus, born in flesh, crucified with finality, and buried in godforsakenness and godlessness, has been raised by God the Father” (page 104). The conversion of Thomas represents the culmination of the journey from a pre-Easter world to a post-Easter world.

Wright describes this as the “epistemology of love.” This is the only way of knowing which can grasp the resurrection of Jesus. “What we are called to, and what in the resurrection we are equipped for, is a knowing in which we are involved as subjects but as self-giving, not as self-seeking, subjects,” Wright suggests, “in other words, a knowing that is a form of love. The story of Thomas,” he observes, “encapsulates this transformation of knowing.” (Surprised by Hope, page 239).

Now, does this mean that there can be no connection between knowing on the basis of evidence and knowing on the basis of faith? Wright pursues this question in the latter pages of The Resurrection of the Son of God. On the one hand is the skepticism of “objective” history which remains unconvinced in the absence of compelling evidence. On the other hand there is a certain Christian piety which regards any desire for evidence as suspect and as a demonstration that faith is lacking. Will the twain never meet?

Wright points to the Thomas story. In fact, Jesus encourages Thomas to access the physical evidence he desires. And Jesus mildly critiques Thomas for having such a rigid need for physical proof. Evidence can lead to exploration. Openness to new possibilities can lead to new insights. Both ways of knowing can be true and in fact supplement one another. That seems to be part of the encouragement we receive in the Thomas story.

In the end, however, this is not about investigation but rather about Reality itself. And it is about how I will engage with the Reality, if at all. “Saying that ‘Jesus of Nazareth was bodily raised from the dead’ is not only a self-involving statement; it is a self-committing statement,” Wright suggests, “going beyond a reordering of one’s private world into various levels of commitment to work out the implications. We cannot leave a flag stuck on a hill somewhere,” he writes, “and sail back home to safety” (The Resurrection of the Son of God, page 717).

Instead, we too meet the risen Lord Jesus, wounds and all. Those wounds are not embarrassing remnants from a former existence. “The living one is Lord and God,” Alan Lewis writes, “just because he is manifestly none other than the frail and fleshly creature whose final agonies and injuries had emptied him of life and reduced him to a corpse” (page 105). John tells us a story about the Word made Flesh – flesh that can be wounded, flesh that can die, and the Word which lives among us full of grace and truth.

Lewis deserves a lengthy quote to finish here. “From first to last, then, the identity of Jesus is that of one in whom God’s presence and splendor are coexistent with their very opposite – with the finitude of creaturehood, the shame of suffering, the finality of termination, the nothingness of sepulture, the relationless nonpresence of extinction. In him,” Lewis concludes, “the eternal, creating, and resurrecting God of heaven and the perishable and finally perished man of Nazareth are one” (page 105).

References and Resources

Koester, Craig. “Hearing, seeing, and believing in the Gospel of John. https://digitalcommons.luthersem.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=faculty_articles.

Lewis, Alan E. Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday.

Schneiders, Sandra Marie “The Lamb of God and the Forgiveness of Sin(s) in the Fourth Gospel.” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 73/1 (January 2011): 1-29.

Schneiders, Sandra M. “Touching the Risen Jesus: Mary Magdalene and Thomas the Twin in John 20.” CTSA Proceedings 60 (2005), 13-25.

Wallace, Daniel. Greek Grammar: Beyond the Basics.

Wright, N. T. Resurrection of the Son of God.

Wright, N. T. Surprised by Hope. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.