Second Sunday of Easter – morning (8 am service)
Sunday 8th April 2018
Easter 2 – morning (8am)
Acts4.32-35
John 20. 19-31
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
When was the last time you felt you had missed out? Been in the wrong place at the right time? Those great “if only” moments that we all have and which often stick in our minds, getting far more attention than they really deserve?
Thomas must have been feeling this in the days following the first appearance of Jesus to the disciples. He should have been there – of course he should! I wonder why he wasn’t? Perhaps he had some family business to attend to? Maybe the others had sent him out on an errand for the rest of them? Maybe he was just too scared to have made his way back to the upper room and was hiding somewhere in the back streets of Jerusalem? We’ll never know, but there must have been a reason why he – alone of all the disciples – was not gathered together that first Easter evening.
And we can well understand the feelings of resentment, guilt, disbelief, maybe even anger that must have washed over him as the others told their wonderful story of Jesus appearing to them and breathing his very spirit into them!
Poor Thomas. No doubt desperately wanting to believe, but unable to admit it to cover up the extent of his hurt and disappointment that they had all shared in some sort of wonderful experience that he thought was lost to him for ever…. He would always be the outsider, the excluded one; the one who was in the wrong place at the right time…
But then imagine his wonder and delight as he finds that Jesus has not excluded him after all! Jesus returns, tells them all to be at peace again and even speaks directly to poor Thomas, so that he is restored to the inner circle once again.
And this time Thomas can respond fully and whole-heartedly – My Lord and my God!
Thomas finds – as we all do – that Jesus has a way of drawing him in and giving him his very own faith experience. But also that Jesus will have a job for him to do. Forever afterwards Thomas will be held up as an example of the questioning, doubting mind that finds it hard to accept God for what he is, but that also – once convinced – commits itself completely.
As you may know, the legend is that Thomas went on to take the Gospel to India but his true importance is in providing an example that ordinary people – like you and me, those who do not have the benefit of having seen Jesus when he was alive, can nevertheless use our natural doubts and uncertainties to find a deeper faith within. Thanks be to God.