April 12, 2015, Second Sunday of Easter (John 20:19-31)
Thomas knows Jesus as incarnate. He cannot easily make the leap to Jesus’ new condition. It’s easier for us, because we consider the story in a different order.
I used to have a Bernese mountain dog named Sam. He was a sweet dog but not very smart. This was never more apparent than the time he had an infected paw, and the veterinarian told me to soak it in an iodine solution. Sam was tall and weighed 125 pounds. His paws were the size of bread plates. He was obedient enough for normal purposes, good on the leash, but it’s hard to make a dog understand why he needs to keep his paw in a dish of funny-looking water. Human-canine communication does not work at such a complex level. I did the best I could to soothe him, and he did the best he could to explain to me that standing in a dish of water was ridiculous.
I’m sure he doubted me, if dogs can doubt. And I understand why he did. I also understand why Thomas doubts the story his friends tell him, because it makes about as much sense as an iodine solution in a Tupperware bowl.
“We have seen the Lord,” they say, a statement Thomas has every reason to question. He knows Jesus was crucified and buried. He must have heard the story that Mary Magdalene reported to Peter and the disciple we know as “the other” disciple or “the beloved” disciple—how they followed her to the tomb and found it empty, how she stayed and wept and saw a man she understood to be Jesus, not dead at all, but more than simply alive.
