A WILD, SKEPTICAL HOPE

GOSPEL — JOHN 20:19-31
The Second Sunday of Easter

“Doubting Thomas” is nearly always meant as a pejorative, but Jesus shows up for him. It’s easy to forget that Thomas is asking for nothing more than what Jesus has already provided to his friends—showing up for them, in the flesh. When he does the same for Thomas and Thomas exclaims, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28), Jesus responds, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (John 20:29). It’s easy to hear this as if Jesus were chastising Thomas while he blesses the rest of us, but he does no such thing. He can show up for Thomas and bless the rest of us all at the same time.

Can you even imagine what those days must have been like—those days between the crucifixion and resurrection, and then the days that followed, full to the brim with confusion and grief and rumors and wild, skeptical hope? Two thousand years can make us forgetful, as if those who were present in those moments had the luxury of knowing the entire story all at once, the way we do.

But they didn’t. Regardless, Thomas believed in a God big enough to carry his doubts and uncertainty. He trusted that God was big enough to hold all his questions and his hope.

What are the big doubts you carry? What are your questions? What kind of wild, skeptical hopes do you have, that you hardly dare to utter out loud, even to your closest friends? Do they feel any different when you stop to wonder about letting God carry them with you?

Here, at the beginning of the Easter season, God has shown us that very little is truly impossible. Thomas believed as much, and he had the courage to ask for it. Jesus shows up in response to Thomas’s bold ask, and through this witness, he blesses the rest of us.


From sundaysandseasons.com.
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