John 20:11-18 (Matins)
1 Corinthians 4:9-16
John 20:19-31

The Twin

It is not St. Thomas Sunday. That day falls on the Sunday following Great Pascha. But it is Thomas the Apostle's calendar day. He is a saint that has special significance for us, we who have traveled so far and especially Sr. Maryann who has served with Indian Sisters in Haiti, in Taiwan, and in India itself. Blessed St. Thomas Day to you!

Bold words! Never before said! And never surpassed afterwards. "My Lord and my God!" Yes, Jesus had been called "Son of God." But, remember, angels were styled Sons of God. No one on earth had ever addressed Jesus by His rightful title: God. If the Father's standard had been that men and women should "believe in Him" (Jn 3:16), this marks a high point in the unfolding Incarnation.

Why, then, is there is no authentic Gospel According to St. Thomas, he the most credible one? The answer is straightforward. None of Twelve wrote Gospels wholecloth with the sole exception of St. John the Theologian, and his was a literary masterpiece of a different order and, then, written at the end of his long life. But the stories that began to circulate following the Ascension .... no, Thomas was not a participant. Instead, he struck out for parts unknown which was his vocation and duty. After all, Jesus wrote no Gospel ..... Jesus did not write anything. And He did not instruct His Disciples to write Gospels. Thomas would follow the Master's instructions to the tee. That later Gospels should appear under his name — for example, the Gospel of Thomas and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas — is a measure of the respect and prestige accorded him. This was no faint-hearted disciple. This what not a man lacking the three things Jesus asked above all: absolute faith, resolute courage, and abundance of love.

May I take a little detour? The early Gospel stories existed as an oft-told, body of living literature kept alive through retelling in an oral tradition. People would gather together, and the stories were retold ..... perhaps calling details to mind that had been forgotten. There were no notes. There were no books. There were no manuscripts. Manuscripts were written down only much later and by second-tier followers: John Mark, St. Peter's assistant, who was skilled in languages, and St. Paul's associate, the physician St. Luke, who had never met Jesus. Concerning St. Matthew's Gospel, 89% of St. Mark's Gospel is contained in it, with adjustments made to be the "Gospel to the Jews." This overall picture supports the view that collections of narratives and parables were carried about during the 30s, 40, 50s, and 60s A.D. as feats of memory. Some were guided by the Holy Spirit. Some were not. As you know, Famously, St. Athanasius the Canon discerned the difference in the fourth century.

For many centuries in the English tradition, the spoken word alone was accounted to have power. A written document (which we now hold to be the reliable version) was esteemed a poor second to spoken sentences. As late as the Middle Ages, contracts and oaths were accounted to be valid only if they were said with living breath, — the breath alone was holy, the spiritus.

We have never found a "Q" Gospel, posited by scholars. because it never existed. This whole "wrong direction" has been driven by the scholarly presumption that there must have been manuscripts. But there were no manuscripts in those early decades. In my opinion, this question was settled when Albert Bates Lord wandered throughout the isolated mountains of the Balkans during the 1950s with a tape recorder (The Singer of Tales, 1960). There he found living instances of men who could still recite thousands of lines of epic poetry as feats of memory. And our puny memories? It seems our technology, from the printing press to digital reproduction, have badly eroded our once-prodigious capacities.

But the Apostle Thomas never participated in this culture of criss-crossing evangelists, telling and retelling stories of Jesus. For Thomas had already left under His Master's explicit orders: boldly to proclaim the Good News to the ends of the earth (Mk 16:15, Mt 24:14, and remembered in Acts 13:47), that

No Apostle traveled nearly so far as Thomas — along the west coast of India facing the Indian Ocean and then up the east coast facing the Bay of Bengal. No Apostle faced so many challenges venturing into a subcontinent speaking over a hundred different languages written in indecipherable orthographies. And, it is said, Thomas journeyed to China, which would have presented another order of difficulties with each pitch in syllable having a different meaning and expressed on paper using impenetrable glyphs. What can we call such a man if not intrepid?

In the fourteenth century (that's closer to our own time than to Jesus' time), a pious legend was concocted in the West featuring the Blessed Virgin Mary. In this story Thomas arrives too late to witness her Assumption into Heaven, obviously reprising the story in St. John's Gospel of Thomas arriving too late to see the Risen Christ. We do not accept this late medieval legend. But we do note that Thomas' lateness emphasizes and enshrines the incredible distances he would have had to travel to be present for the Dormition. That is, his heroic feats were the stuff of legend more than 1,300 years later.

The Synoptic Gospels do not mention a "Doubting Thomas" story. And it crops up in the East only much later. The Fathers do not mention it with St. John Chrysostom and St. Cyril of Alexandra preferring to interpret the scene related by St. John through a Eucharistic lens. What we do know about Thomas is that he was formidable.

You know, Jesus was fond of nicknames: "Cephas," the rock; "Boanerges," sons of thunder; "Zelotes" (Kananaios), the zealot. But the nickname that stood out for its special affection was reserved for the Apostle Thomas. Jesus called him, "Didymus," the Twin, the man after My Own Heart. And this is remembered three centuries later recorded in the fourth-century Nag Hammadi Codices:

For Thomas did not vacillate. His was a bold faith. He had no moments of doubt. The nickname "Doubting Thomas" would not appear until about a twelve-hundred years later, no earlier than the thirteenth century. And we call him Redoubtable Thomas — strong, bold, formidable. You know, every fortress had a redoubt, which was its stronghold, its unassailable part. In times of crisis, this was where you retreated. It is this core of faith, this "lion-heart," that Jesus saw as His boldest Disciple's defining trait and for which He named him the Twin — beyond brother, more like my other self.

Perhaps we prefer to ignore it, but Jesus was, if nothing else, a bold man. He saw in Thomas His mirror.

He rioted in the very center of Judah-ite authority, the Temple, making a whip of cords with which to beat men (Jn 2:13-17).

He told the authorities of the Temple, that He would destroy place .... to them the most sacred place on earth (Jn 2:19).

He said, "Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword!" (Mt 10:34).

He said, "I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!" (Lu 12:49).

He said, "The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had never been born" (Mk 14:21).

He would wish that he had never been born! These are indeed bold words, indeed, and from an incommensurably bold Man.

As I have said, this was a sentence pronounced upon all of them, for they all "dipped with [Him] in the dish" (Mk 14:20), and, indeed, they all would betray Him (save the Beloved Disciple). In time of war, what do you say of a soldier who has abandoned his post? We use the word desertion, which is betrayal.

I have taken pains to attest Jesus' outsized boldness in all four Gospels. They all witness to this predominating quality of the Lord Jesus. In a sense, there's no point to this little exercise, for all Gospels constantly attest this fact. His Forerunner, St. John says,

Oh, my goodness! This picture of Jesus is terrifying especially when you consider that the chaff is most of us.

The problem of unfocus, the problem of lack of proportion lies with us. We modern readers have inherited a very different profile of Jesus, and we read past all the details that contradict our version of Jesus (and there are many, many more). We read past them as if they were anomalies, outliers, passages that distort the real Jesus. You see, the Jesus we want is the meek and mild Jesus. We, for example, want a pacifist Jesus. But what are we do with a Peter who wears a sword on his belt? Did it just get there one Thursday night? And did the others, including the Master, not notice it?

We in the modern period do not want the Warrior-Jesus. But perhaps they forget that YHWH is the Warrior-God: YHWH, Who wrests an intricate, orderly creation out of unrulable chaos, and the Son, Who commands "even the wind and sea, and they obey Him" (Mk 4:14).

As we open our Gospel lesson, what is depicted in the upper room? First let us examine the setting. What is its primary feature? It is that the doors are locked even though everyone is present. Clearly, this have not been done to foil the plans of a thief. The Gospel is plain they have been locked out of fear, "fear of the Jews" (Jn 20:19). And then there is the counterview: the apostle who is walking about in the public square. The one side perceives a clear and present threat. Their view is controlled by paranoia that the police are about to break down the door. And yet here is a counterview, depicting an aposotle walking about in the public square in plain view where all might see him and arrest him. Which view is the accurate reflection of reality? Those in the Upper Room are sure they are in danger. And Thomas dismisses it ..... as fantasy.

One thing they can all agree on is that the Master is dead. He has been crucified and that they all abandoned Him. Actually this second part is also controverted: the Synoptic Gospel depict no disciples at the foot of the Cross. It is St. John's Gospel, alone, which features its author as being present. And his language reflects controversy — it is defensive:

Do you see? If his view was accepted as being credible, he would not be saying this. This defensive language suggests a man who has been contradicted before and by more than one person.

The fact remains that all of them (or most of them) ran. More to the point, they abandoned the One for Whom they pledged to die:

And most prominently, Thomas had made this pledge::

You recall the scene, this moment of division among the Disciples. Jesus announces He will go to Judea. They all recoil at His word:

Yet they all, in their moment, had declared that they would never abandon Him. They had spoken words of valor. But now these men of courage, tempered in fire like true steel, must now live with the fact that they turned out to be lukewarm. And now they are shown to cower with the curtain drawn and the doors locked.

But one is down in the street boldly walking where all might see him, daring the Temple police (if there be any) to arrest him. Truly, if he were arrested, that would make no difference to him. For the deep shame he felt would then be expunged by following his Master precisely down the Way of Sorrows.

We can well imagine the bitter atmosphere in that Upper Room. Suppose you had committed the most deplorable act of your life and and in plain view. You would be mocked and jeered at for the rest of your life. "There goes that so-and-so!" What would you do? Where would you go? Many would leave town and assume a new identity. But, remarkably, they all chose to go back to the Upper Room, where the Lord had prophesied they all would betray Him.

We can well imagine this rancorous place, this place of bitter recriminations, of imputed blame and accusation. But Thomas, disgusted with himself and all the others, chose to walk out on this scene. And upon return, perhaps hours later, he exhibited the same disgust with which he left. Only hours earlier he had not wanted to breathe the same air as them. And now was there anything they could say that would he would believe? And now this: "We have seen the Lord!"

Thomas surveys the room. It is unchanged. The locks on the doors attest to their over-heated imaginations. Any minute, they feared, the Temple police would break down the door. And this latest news, in Thomas' opinion, was in the same category: outlandish .... more fabrications. And he would reject their far-fetched claims out of hand. His vivid and detailed language reveals his contempt for their fantasies and his animus:

.... that is, "I will not believe you, my brothers."

Do you see how empirical he is? He is not interested in fantasies! Show me reality, you day-dreamers!" He insists on details! The precision of his words gives away his state of mind: "the print of the nails" he says twice. He insists on sober-minded accuracy. For, in his estimate, these men are not credible.

At no time, does he doubt the Master. When the Master had announced He would go to Jerusalem, they all resisted. Thomas alone was with Him.

When the Lord does appear, this time to all eleven of them, He sees the teachable moment. He is, after all, Rabbonai, the Teacher. He echoes Thomas' vivid language, and in so doing, He enunciates a principle that forever after goes to the heart of the Christian experience:

You see, the Teacher looks ahead. In the fullness of time almost none of us will meet Jesus. Most of us will not see, yet we must believe! And using this moment, He articulate a cornerstone for His Church: "'Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'"

And Thomas? He instantly falls to his knees (we believe) and declares those words which we must ever etch upon our hearts when we approach Him at the Eucharist:

Sisters, Jesus will be here within the hour. Will we not fall to our knees and declare, "My Lord! My God!"

Nowhere is it recorded that Thomas touched Jesus, much less His wounds. Nowhere is it averred that Thomas required proofs in order to believe.

Can we who follow this "Doubting Thomas" tradition, which mocks this great Apostle, live up to his factual example? The actual Thomas? He denied himself every comfort. He endured every kind of danger and weather. He walked to the ends of the earth .... all in obedience to the Master. Or can we give the Lord that Thomas loved one affordable gift — without risking our lives, without walking thousands of miles, without facing all kinds of hazards. Will we give Him our undivided attention and our faith, even our simple belief? When the Lord becomes Present each Sunday under appearance of bread and wine, will we kneel before Him and, with our hearts bursting and tears flowing from our eyes, say, "My Lord and my God!"?

Let us raise our voices in praise of St. Thomas. He was foremost among the Apostles fulfilling the Master's every command. He is a saint for our time of un-belief — a culture where God is regularly mocked, where affronts to Heaven are common (even at the Olympics!), and heroic men like Redoubtable Thomas are rare. How many professing Christians will take a stand for God — in the workplace, in the public square, even in their own homes?

Pray for us Redoubtable Thomas, Twin of the Lord, for we have need of your strength, your fortitude, and your faith. A long struggle lies before us, and the weather is turning ugly. Pray for us, Redoubtable Thomas, for you were a mighty fortress stretching over much of God's earth.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.