The Second Sunday of Easter
(Divine Mercy Sunday)
April 12, 2015

     Have you ever wondered why Thomas wasn't in the upper room with the others on that Easter evening?  It's risky, I know, to speculate on what the scriptures don't tell us, but it's even a bit risky to speculate on what the scriptures do tell us.  So bear with me for a moment.  John's Gospel account tells us plainly that the apostle Thomas was not in the upper room on Easter evening; that he missed out on that electrifying moment when Jesus, crucified but now gloriously risen from the dead, appeared to his frightened followers and anointed them with those amazing words, "Peace be with you!"

     But John leaves to our imagination just why Thomas wasn't there and where he was.

     I have my own theory. I think that Thomas wasn't there in that upper room because he didn't want to be there. There are different ways of reacting when one's world comes apart.  One way is to do what most of the apostles did – to seek the group: to find safety in numbers even if it means huddling together behind locked doors.  But another way is to cut and run -- to try to go back to life as it was before the great disillusionment, to return to the way things used to be, hoping that that would somehow dull the pain and erase the memories.

     Is that what Thomas did?  That’s’ my theory. It’s possible, at least, but we honestly don't know.  All we do know is that he was not there on Easter evening when Jesus came, and a week later, he was.  In those intervening days, did the other apostles scour the city in search of their friend, bursting to share their incredible news with him, "We have seen the Lord!"?  It seems likely to me, anyway.  In any case, when Thomas did hear the news he reacted to it like any normal person would have.   "Preposterous!"  "Impossible!"  "I'll believe it when I see it...."  And he did, of course.  When he saw Jesus he did believe, and his act of faith became the great act of faith for all time, the prayer of people like you and me who want to believe, who do believe, but who sometimes question mightily and even doubt.  His act of faith is what we want ours to be: “My Lord and My God!”

     Do you find something comforting in this?  I do.  There’s something very comforting here, comforting for anyone who has ever struggled to believe.  And who of us hasn’t?  The story of Thomas is the story of someone whose faith was sorely tested, someone whose faith came out of the crucible of the deepest disillusionment and doubt.  And faith like that rings true for all of us, I think -- so much so that I sometimes find myself thinking that if Thomas hadn't existed, the evangelists would surely have had to invent him!  I think we need Thomas' skepticism in the same way that we need Peter's denials.  How else could we lesser mortals ever believe ourselves called to discipleship?!

     My friends, doubting Thomas gives hope to everyone who has ever doubted; he gives hope to the likes of you and me.  Maybe it’s no accident that the name Thomas means “twin.” Every one of us who ever has to struggle to believe is a twin of Thomas!

      And, to my way of thinking, our faith is in some ways more remarkable than the faith of Thomas because we’ve never gotten to encounter the risen Lord as he did.  We haven’t probed the nail prints with our fingers or put our hand into his side.  No, we are clearly among “those who have not seen yet have believed.”  And that, my friends, puts us squarely among the very ones Jesus called “blessed!”

     Father Michael G. Ryan