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. 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 was not a man lacking the three things Jesus required above all: unswerving belief, the courage of a lion, and abundant love.

May I take a little detour? I believe the focus on "Gospel manuscripts" is wrong-headed. The keystone Q-source has never come to light because it never existed. The early Gospel stories were circulated in an oral tradition. There were no notes, no books, no manuscripts. Only decades later were manuscripts written down. 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.

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 accepted only if they were spoken with the living breath, the holy spiritus.

This oral tradition received important support from Harvard professor Albert Bates Lord, who wandered through isolated mountains in the Balkans during the 1950s with a tape recorder (The Singer of Tales, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960). There he met men who could still recite thousands of lines of epic poetry as feats of memory. And our puny memories? It seems our technologies, from the printing press to digital reproduction, have badly eroded our once-prodigious capacities.

But the Apostle Thomas never saw this culture of criss-crossing evangelists retelling and contradicting the "matter of Jesus." No, the good soldier Thomas simply followed orders: to proclaim the Good News to the ends of the earth (Mk 16:15, Mt 24:14, and remembered in Acts 13:47). And no Apostle traveled nearly so far — along the west coast of India and then up the east coast. No Apostle boldly 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 linguistic 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, a pious legend was concocted in the West featuring the Blessed Virgin Mary. In this story Thomas arrives too late to witness the Assumption obviously reprising the story in St. John's Gospel of Thomas arriving too late to see the Risen Christ. We do not accept this pious legend. But we do note that Thomas' lateness attests the incredible distances he would have had to travel to be present for the Dormition.

The Synoptic Gospels do not mention a "Doubting Thomas" story. The Church Fathers do not repeat it. What we do know about Thomas is that he was formidable.

We 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 faith was bold. 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. So we offer a slight revision of the letters: Redoubtable Thomas — strong, bold, formidable. After all, Jesus had named him "the twin" — beyond brother, more like my other self.

We have invented a meek and mild Jesus in recent centuries. But Jesus was, if nothing else, a bold man. 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!

And His Forerunner, St. John says,

This Jesus was well attested in the Gospels.

And, as I have said, the Twelve would all betray the Master. This was a sentence pronounced upon all of them, for they all "dipped with [Him] in the dish" (Mk 14:20). And, of course, they all ran at His arrest and execution save John (by his own report).

But we in the modern period do not want the Warrior Jesus. Perhaps we 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 the locked door, secured even though everyone is present. Clearly, this was not done to foil a thief. The Gospel is plain: the door is locked out of "fear of the Jews" (Jn 20:19). But, then, there is the Apostle who disdains such fear, the Apostle who walks about in the public square, who defiantly dares anyone to arrest him. He is filled with pain — disgusted at his own treachery and at the betrayal of the others.

They had 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 this:

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 steel, must now live with the fact that they turned out to be lukewarm in the moment of truth. Now, there is no way to set things right, for the Master is gone. And now they are shown to cower with the curtain drawn and the door locked.

Yet, one Apostle is down in the street. Truly, if he were arrested, that would make no difference to him. For nothing could assuage the deep shame he felt.

We can well imagine the bitter atmosphere in that Upper Room, this place of recriminations, of imputed blame and accusation. No wonder Thomas chose to get a breath of fresh air. And upon his return, perhaps hours later, he exhibited the same disgust with which he left. Was there any credible thing they could say to him? And now this: "We have seen the Lord!"

Thomas surveys the room. It is unchanged. The locked door attests to their over-heated imaginations. Any minute, they feared, the Temple police would break in. And now this latest report, in Thomas' opinion outlandish. And he rejects their far-fetched claims out of hand. His vivid and detailed language reveals his contempt for their fantasies:

It is not the Master he questions, but the other Apostles.

Do you see how empirical he is? He seems to say, "Show me reality, you day-dreamers!" He insists on details. His insistance on precision gives his mind away: "the print of the nails" he says twice.

At no time, does he doubt the Master. After all, when Jesus had announced His departure for Jerusalem, they all resisted. Only Thomas declared solidarity with Jesus.

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

The Teacher looks ahead. In the fullness of time almost none of us will meet Jesus. (I do not discount the holy men and women who have seen Him, but most of us will not.) And using this moment, He articulates a cornerstone for His Church: "'Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'"

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

It is a fact, that in all Scripture, this stands as the highest and most exalted address accorded Jesus.

Sisters, our Lord 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.

Thomas denied himself every comfort. He endured every kind of danger and weather. He walked to the ends of the earth .... all in faithful obedience to the Master.

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 and already people are arrested in Canada, in England, for their witness to the Lord Jesus.

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.