Doubting Thomas

My training as an historian has always made me appreciate the account of Thomas and his unwillingness to accept the risen Christ until he had personally inspected the wounds of the crucifixion. We have been endowed by our creator with intelligence and the capacity to learn. We learn by doubting, asking questions, evaluating evidence, analyzing problems, and trying to make sense out of the dilemmas that we face as human beings. Thus the title “Doubting Thomas” is very appropriate for our discussion.

Matthew helps to securely ground the foundations of Christianity in the Jewish tradition and to give it historical legitimacy. He specifically refers to the prophecy of Isaiah, and the territory of Zabulon and Nephthalim where those who sat in the shadow of death will find light. Isaiah said that a child will be born who will become the prince of peace and transform the world. According to Matthew, Christ, the foretold Messiah, began his public ministry in the exact location mentioned by Isaiah. His cry was to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” As the reading makes clear, it was not just a metaphorical kingdom, where darkness would become light, but one where there was the “healing of every disease and every sickness among the people.”

I wonder at the power and magnificence of this first stage of the public ministry of Christ. I think about the good fortune of those who were touched by him, but more often I think about those were not. What circumstances brought some within his reach, and not others. To be directly healed by Christ, then as now, makes it easy to believe. To stand on the sidelines and only hear about the healing of others makes it harder to believe, but the strength of the unseeing belief has its own merits. Remember the slight rebuke that Christ directed toward Thomas: “Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believed.”

The reading by Paul makes this both harder and easier to understand. Paul criticizes the bickering taking place among the faithful, begging them to stop arguing about who baptized whom, and whether one is more important than another. The war of words among the faithful (think of the careers of so many theologians throughout the ages) was foolish and criticized by Paul and by Christ. It was the cross of Christ, not wisdom, prudence, evidence, or skill at argument that fulfilled the word of God. Does this mean that we should not doubt and argue about what is true and not true, what is right and wrong? After all, I began by saying that we only learn through doubting and asking questions. I believe that the meaning here is deeper and goes to who we are as spiritual beings. We can argue about politics, love, religion, art and all sorts of things, but we still know that beneath (or better said above) it all we share the commonality of soul, and as Christians it is the sanctification of our souls that is truly important.

What we have in these readings (and in many others in the Bible) is a type of megahistory, an unfolding of a great story that has many connections through the centuries. These connections offer further evidence of the legitimacy of the story, and might help to ease some of the doubts of a doubting Thomas.

Joe Super is a member of St. John’s

Question of the Week:
Am I a doubting Thomas; do I need to see to believe? In what ways have I seen God at work?