Thomas

“What was that?” whispered James. Everyone froze. Thomas slid the bolt quietly, opened the door just a crack, and peeped out into the street.

“It’s all right,” he told the other ten disciples. “Only a few workers going home. No soldiers.”

The friends let out their breath and resumed eating some broiled fish with onions and bread.

Then one of them said, “They think we did it. They think we stole his body from Joseph’s tomb.”

“It must have been one of us,” mused one of them.

“It wasn’t me!” retorted Peter.

“You can be impetuous sometimes,” suggested another.

“I swear I had nothing to do with it!” protested Peter. Then, his head sank onto his chest and he took a hunk of bread and went to sit by himself.

“Leave him alone,” said Thomas, “of course Peter didn’t do it, but someone must have.”

“Mary said she saw Jesus,” said John. She’s convinced He’s risen from death.”

“Yeah, but she can get emotional, being a woman,” said Thomas, “I expect her imagination got away on her.”

Outside they heard neighbours leading their animals into stables and securing their poultry for the night. Suddenly, they all turned as they heard a crash. It was Peter. He had kicked at a stool and it lay where it had landed against the far wall.

“That wretched rooster!” he growled. “I could wring its neck!”

“Don’t tell anyone I said so,” said James, “but Marcus, you know, the centurion? He told me, in confidence, that the Chief Priests believed the guards’ report. They got a huge sum of money to keep quiet about it. They had to say that it was some of us who came in the night and stole the body while they were sleeping.”

“They had to say they were sleeping?” asked Andrew incredulously, “as if that’s likely! You know what the penalty is for sleeping on guard duty!”

Thomas shook his head, got up and walked around distractedly.

Finally he said, “I’ve had enough!” unlocked the door, slammed it behind him and walked out into the night.

The next time Thomas met with his friends, they were excited. There was a light in their eyes and they whispered to him,

“We saw the Lord! He was here in this very room with us! After you left, He came and said, ‘Peace be with you,’ and he showed us where the nails had been in his hands and feet.”

“Oh no!” exclaimed Thomas, “Not you as well! I don’t believe it. You imagined you saw a ghost or something.”

“That’s what I thought,” said James, “but then He asked for some fish and He ate it. Ghosts don’t eat anything, Thomas. We were all watching. He had bones and flesh, and we could touch Him!”

“I won’t believe it unless I have definite proof,” said Thomas flatly. “I would have to see this for myself and put my hand in the gash in his side before I could believe such a thing!”

A week later, the disciples gathered together again in the same house. They locked the doors securely, still nervous that they would be accused of stealing and hiding the body of Jesus.

“Peace be with you!” they heard.

Each one turned. Jesus stood among them once again. They smiled in recognition and held their hands out to him in greeting.

“And with you, Lord!” they responded.

Thomas gaped. His face went crimson. Jesus stretched out his two hands to Thomas, palms up. Thomas shuddered seeing the disfigurement of torn flesh and exposed bones, but Jesus encouraged him, saying,

“Put your finger here.”

Then Jesus lifted his robe. All eyes in the room were drawn to the gaping hole in Jesus’ side.

“Reach out your hand, Thomas,” said Jesus. “Put it here, into my side.”

Slowly, falteringly, Thomas obeyed. Hope surged through his being. Jesus was alive. Jesus was present. Jesus was beyond the present, beyond death and beyond life. Solid matter and ethereal Spirit were brought together in the one person of Jesus Christ. The disciples and Thomas had no doubts about the reality of the Spirit of God as revealed to them in Jesus’ body.

Death no longer held fear for Thomas or any of the disciples. They knew that both life on earth and death are gateways to eternity, a place and time beyond pain and suffering, in the presence of Love itself, the person of God the Father, the Creator of all matter.

Thomas dropped down onto his knees at Jesus’ feet.

“My Lord and my God!” he exclaimed.

The other ten breathed their agreement. Relief swept through their hearts and minds because of the oneness between them and Thomas and with their Lord.

They remembered Jesus’ words at their last supper together. They realized they were one with all who believed and all who would believe in the years, decades and centuries to come.

They knew they could not be silent. They had to tell what they had experienced and known first hand.

See Luke 24:36 - 43 and John 20:19 - 28