Now Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
I remember the first time I heard don’t be a “doubting Thomas”. I felt bad for him. His legacy would be that in the crucial moment he was doubting the resurrection. There was a time I felt like I was better than him since I had never seen Jesus but believed. In my early years a Christian I always asked myself when I lacked faith if I would turn into a doubting Thomas. Recently I was reading through the bible and I saw another scripture about Thomas that made me think there was much more to his story. Just a few chapters earlier in John Chapter 11, Thomas is the one who leads the twelve in following Jesus. John 11 is a very popular chapter where Jesus raises his friend Lazarus from the dead. In John 11:8 the disciples question why Jesus would want to go back to the town where the Jews wanted to stone him. Jesus tells them he is going to raise his friend, Lazarus from the dead. Surprisingly it is Thomas in John 11:16 who says, “Let us go that we may die with him” That does not sound like doubting Thomas to me. That sounds like a man who believed in Jesus’s power to raise the dead and if not to die with him trying. I often wonder why he doubted in that moment with the disciples after Jesus died. I wonder if his grief at the death of Jesus clouded his ability to have faith in that moment. I know in my own life the grief I felt at the loss of my babies made me feel like I could not forgive myself. I wonder if it was too hard for Thomas to hope that Jesus was alive, that he would see his friend and teacher again. I wonder if a better name would be hurting Thomas and not doubting Thomas. Sometime when we are hurting it is hard to have faith that our Savior would come to us. But like Thomas we learn repeatedly that he not only comes but he allows us to put our hands in his wounds and be healed.