Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

(John 20:27)

Do you all know what I mean when I talk about someone being a ‘Peeping Tom’? Do you know where the term comes from. It’s from the story of Lady Godiva riding naked through the streets of Coventry to reduce the people’s tax burden. It’s said that all the townspeople closed their shutters so that she could ride unobserved, save for one man called Tom whose shutter accidently fell open just as she was passing his house. Honest Gov. Imagine that though. We know nothing about this guy other than this event and his name persists for centuries with that word ‘Peeping’ in front of it, seemingly defining him.

Our text this morning focuses on someone else like that. Thomas Didymus. Thomas the Twin. Or, as we’ve known him for centuries, Doubting Thomas. And we’ve not meant that as a compliment. Bad Thomas. Faithless Thomas. Doubting Thomas. The thing is though, like Peeping Tom, we have pretty much only this story about him. Unlike Peter who’s all over the place in all four gospels, renamed by Jesus as The Rock, Thomas only appears in John’s gospel: here in this story and a couple of other mentions. But John’s gospel is a sophisticated piece of writing. If he’s chosen to mention Thomas in those places we’d better pay attention to them.

But first let’s ask why Thomas doesn’t believe his friends when they tell them they have seen the risen Christ. Thomas was a faithful follower of Christ. Earlier in John’s gospel he says that he’s willing to die following Jesus. There’s no reason to doubt that. He was following the man he believed to be the Messiah. He was following the man he believed to be the redeemer of Israel. He was following the man he believed to be the Son of God. And that man died, nailed to a cross -the most dreadful, most humiliating death that could be inflicted. Is it any wonder his belief is shattered?

And worse. Thomas said he was willing to die following Jesus. But he didn’t. He ran away just like the other disciples. Why doesn’t Thomas want to believe that Jesus has risen? How would he look at him? What would Jesus say? How would he judge him? There’s a thing called survivor guilt that people who’ve survived disasters suffer because they lived while others died. And I think Thomas has it on stilts. 

Who else might have felt that way? Maybe someone who denied knowing Jesus. Three times. After explicitly promising Jesus he wouldn’t? We had two readings this morning from two chapters of John’s gospel - the story of Thomas and the story of Jesus asking Peter three times if he loved him. Thing is, though, that the Bible texts weren’t divided into chapters until at least five centuries after John’s gospel was written. Originally this was one continuous text.

So I had this kind of Columbo moment. What if these aren’t two separate stories? What if it’s not the story of ‘Doubting Thomas’ then the story of Peter’s redemption? What if it’s the story of Thomas AND Peter? When is the third time that John mentions Thomas in his gospel? Straight after mentioning Peter in the story of the fishing trip. Both are broken. Both are probably plagued with doubt and a sense of failure. Both know that they let Jesus down.

What is Jesus’s response to that? In the first case he invites Thomas to touch his wounds - exactly what Thomas has said he needed in order to believe. In the second case he invites Peter to say that her loves him - exactly what Peter needs to let go of those three times he denied even knowing him. These are not two separate stories. They are the same story.

They are the Gospel of Jesus Christ in summary. We all have our doubts sometimes. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t. We all have times, I suspect, when we deny Christ by not following his teachings or staying schtum when people pour scorn on the Christian faith. And even if we don’t, should we condemn those that do. Many years ago I visited a neighbour who was dying of cancer. She told me that this had led her to doubt her faith. Did I condemn her for that? Criticise her? Preach her a long sermon?

Did Christ condemn Thomas? Did he criticise Peter? No. He met them in their need. he met Thomas in his doubt and embraced him in it, giving him what he needed. He met Peter in his guilt and embraced him in it, giving him what he needed. This story - the story of Thomas and Peter - is Christ’s word to us. he knows our weaknesses. He knows our fallibility. He knows our doubts and fears - that’s the whole point of his coming into the world as a human being. He knows that we will let him down sometimes. That we will have our doubts sometimes.

But that is never the end for our relationship with God in Jesus Christ. We are not called to deny our doubts but to bring them to Christ in faith. We are not called to be free of failure, but to bring our failures to Christ in faith. We are not called to pretend to be superheroes but to bring the weaknesses, the flaws, the fallibilities we share with all humanity to Christ in faith and to let him restore us.

Restore us by reminding us that none of our doubts, none of our failures, none of our weaknesses flaws or fallibilities can separate us from the love of God: a love that did not condemn Peter but washed away his threefold denial. A love that dealt with Thomas’s doubt by saying, “If that’s what you need, come. Touch.”

Lord we have our doubts sometimes. We let you down sometimes. We are sometimes Thomas. We are sometimes Peter. But we have faith that you love us and that is all that really matters. Help us to cleave to that faith always

Preached at Eastriggs and an Annan Old Parish Church

Complete service