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We have four Gospels: Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John.
You may be surprised to learn
that there are other Gospels that did not make it into the Bible, either
because they conflicted, or could not be verified…..The Gospel of Mary
Magdalene, the Gospel of Peter. And the Gospel of Thomas. Rather than a
narrative, the Gospel of Thomas is a list of the sayings. Many are the same
as those we are familiar with, some are contradictory. Why would anyone want
to read a gospel by the Doubting Thomas?
People may have been impressed with Thomas’ stubborn refusal to believe in
the absence of hard evidence. Surely a person as skeptical as Thomas, once he
had become convinced by the evidence, can be trusted! Whatever the precise reason
for Thomas’ relative celebrity in the early centuries of Christianity (he was
also associated with taking the Gospel to India), modern Christians can
appreciate his example and learn from it.
It is evident that Thomas enjoyed a close relationship with Jesus prior to
his crucifixion, he may have actually been at the crucifixion, and we can
understand his skepticism regarding the extravagant claims of the other
disciples.
Thomas gave explicit voice to the predominant underlying theme of the Gospel
of John; namely, in Jesus the glory of God was manifest in a real and unique
way.
That Thomas doubted was not the end of the story, for in the end Thomas
expressed a profound faith in the risen Lord. Confident, visionary, believer:
may we all be more like Thomas!
There is a website called Rumors. I am going to read a large excerpt from it
in my sermon. Those of you who don’t believe that Pastors borrow material for
their Sermon the week after Easter, well, we do.
“The way I get at the Biblical stories is to put myself into the skin of the
folks in the story. And in this case, I imagine myself to be Thomas. It’s the
only way these stories speak to me.
When I imagine myself as Thomas, I remember the poster that says, ‘Now that
I’ve got it all together, I’ve forgotten where I put it.’ I’ve never been
bothered by the idea that there is something wrong with my doubts. What
bothers me is that the things I firmly believe one moment, I don’t believe at
all the next, and vice versa.
My problem is that I seem to be living on several levels at once. At one
level, I am at least an agnostic and possibly an atheist. The whole ‘god
thing’ has no basis in fact or logic. But at another level, I find myself
deeply, profoundly committed to the basic Christian idea, which is (I think),
that there is a God of love and justice who is involved with the world as a
whole and with me in particular.
At the third level, I am a profoundly lazy couch potato who would like the
whole problem to go away so I can get on with my life in front of the TV
developing my Molson muscle. (Non-Canadians note: Molson’s is a brand of
beer). If my tripartite personality was in conversation with its various
components, I might eventually figure out who I am and what I believe. But at
any given moment, one sits on top and effectively squelches any protests from
the other two.
And sometimes, out of nowhere, comes a whack in the solar plexus that sends
me reeling, and mixes all three of those together into a mass of jumbled
confusion. Such as right now. As I sat down to write this, I received word
that a person very close to me, someone I love and admire, has been hit by a
serious stroke. So now the same God, to whom I am praying for his recovery,
is the God I don’t believe in anymore. Meanwhile in the background, lurks
that escapist self that would like nothing more than to grab a large glass of
wine and spend the rest of the day watching something totally mindless on TV.
The whole thing threatens to go whirling into emotional and intellectual and
spiritual chaos.
But the breath of the Spirit, with each breath of my body, keeps insisting
that God does not run out of Easters. That the living Christ keeps walking
through locked doors and locked minds until everything else recedes into the
background an I blurt out the confession, ‘My Lord and My God!’
Whenever we’re afraid and hiding out, all locked up, God comes to us in the
midst of our fear and says, ‘Peace be with you.’
Whatever doubts churn in our minds,
Whatever sins trouble our consciences,
Whatever pain and worry bind us up,
Whatever walls we have put up or doors we have locked securely,
God comes to us and says, ‘Peace be with you.’”
AMEN
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