I get Thomas. I get why he needed to see the wounds. Like you, I struggle. I doubt. I wonder. I’ve put all my eggs in this basket, after all, and there are moments I look up and think, “This better be true.”
I think we all do. All honest people anyway.
We pray for the sick and they die anyway.
We pray for patience and the virtue still eludes us.
We pray for strength and courage and wisdom and still find ourselves weak and scared and dumb.
We pray for clarity of thought and still get lost in the minutia.
I get Thomas. And I take comfort in the fact that our church canonized the doubter and let the guy who denied be its first leader. Talk about human frailty.
But one of the things that has always fascinated me is that Thomas, for all his whining that he wouldn’t believe, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side…’ the Gospel writer never actually says Thomas touches Jesus.
It is the mere presence of the Risen Lord in front of Thomas that makes this honest disciple cry out.
And so it is with us. We don’t have to touch. We just have to be in the presence of Jesus.
And so, because of faith, we look at the sick and the lonely and the dying and we see the resurrection and good health that awaits us all.
Because of faith, we recognize the opportunities to be patient that are put before us by a Savior who invites us to be better than we are.
Because of faith, we find our strength and courage and wisdom in those sent to carry us, support us, and teach us (and maybe even challenge us).
Because of faith, we see the big picture. We know the end of the story. We cry on Friday and rejoice on Sunday and know that the winners write the history books.
Because of faith, we know that “the relationship is changed, not ended” and that those we love and lose remain with us and in us and all around us.
I get Thomas. And with him, I cry out: longingly, adamantly, fervently.
“My Lord and My God.”
And He cries right back, “Here I am.”
Thank God for Easter. Alleluia. Alleluia.