![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/174\/2021\/04\/Caravaggio_-_The_Incredulity_of_Saint_Thomas.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most of us are aware of the massive cargo ship that blocked the Suez Canal for six days last month.\u00a0 One of the most fascinating images of that event were the satellite photos of the ship and the incredible number of other ships that were blocked from passing through the canal.<\/p>\n
Inevitably, of course, one wag picked up on the satellite image and created a meme out of the photo, adding the caption, \u201cDon\u2019t worry.\u00a0 Everyone makes mistakes.\u00a0 It\u2019s not like you can see it if from space.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wonder if Thomas ever feels that way about our Gospel account: \u201cDon\u2019t worry, Thomas.\u00a0 Everyone makes mistakes.\u00a0 It\u2019s not like billions of people are going to read about it over and over again \u2013 \u00a0for thousands of years.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019d certainly feel that way.<\/p>\n
And last Sunday, there it was again.<\/p>\n
Of course, there are those who try to help Thomas. \u00a0The sixties yielded a series of sermons that people draw on to this day that made Thomas the patron saint of doubters and asserted that it wasn\u2019t just alright to have questions, it was far better (and more mature) to live there.<\/p>\n
But the problem with that reading of John\u2019s Gospel is that there is nothing to suggest John or Jesus had that in mind.<\/p>\n
Thomas is not offered up as a model, contrary to what we might like to think.\u00a0 Jesus embraces him. \u00a0But according to Jesus, those who are blessed are those who believe without seeing.<\/p>\n
The other problem with that reading of the story is the reaction of Thomas himself. \u00a0When Jesus presents himself to him, from what we can gather from the account, Thomas doesn\u2019t end up availing himself of the offer to probe the wounds that Jesus sustained \u2013 contrary to what the powerful image created by Caravaggio suggests above. \u00a0Instead, Thomas offers up a confession of faith and adoration in what many scholars argue is the climatic confession in the Gospel: \u201cMy Lord and my God.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, while nothing in the Gospel of John suggests that either Jesus or the church should be closed off to answering questions, clearly the point of the story is not <\/em>that paralyzing doubt is a good place to live on a permanent basis.<\/p>\nSo, what is the point that John is trying to make and that Jesus is trying to drive home here?\u00a0 The answer, it seems to me, is wrapped up in the nature of John\u2019s Gospel and the place of this story at its end.<\/p>\n
Unlike any of the other Gospels, John\u2019s story is organized around a series of semeia<\/em> or signs.\u00a0 Each thing that Jesus does points to the nature of the new world that Jesus, as logos<\/em>, as one with the Father and the Spirit has been bringing into existence.\u00a0 And with each sign that Jesus offers, there are lengthy explanations of what Jesus is doing.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But, more importantly, throughout the Gospel Jesus also explains how those who follow him can become a part of that new reality.<\/p>\nMore powerfully and more explicitly than in the other Gospels, John paints a vivid picture of Christians as those who are grafted into the body of Christ and \u2013 like a branch that is grafted onto a vine \u2013 participate in the life of Christ himself.\u00a0 Few of us can quite grasp what that means, given the distance at which we live from farms and vineyards.<\/p>\n
But a fair and sound analogy would be to imagine that what Jesus is suggesting is on the order of being surgically transplanted into the body of Christ. \u00a0What John envisions are Christians who no longer live in isolation from one another, but are in life-giving relationship and dependence upon Christ and upon another.\u00a0 His life is our life, his nourishment is our nourishment, his blood is our blood.\u00a0 And the stronger and more vital that connection becomes, the more we become one with him and he becomes with us.<\/p>\n
That isn\u2019t just a spiritual or mystical reality.\u00a0 For John it is a very concrete reality as well, because the same Word, who was in the beginning is now in the process of changing the world that is enthralled to sin, suffering, cruelty, and death.<\/p>\n
John goes onto suggest that this reality is deepened and reinforced by our participation in the sacraments.\u00a0 We are baptized into the life of Christ and every time we partake of the sacrament of Christ\u2019s body and blood we are not just doing something symbolic, we are physically, spiritually, and emotionally transformed.<\/p>\n
So, what does this have to do with the story about Thomas?\u00a0 Well, the story of Thomas, along with other accounts that record the appearance of Jesus to both Marys and the disciples appear near the very end of the Gospel, after all the signs or semeia<\/em> have been completed.\u00a0 And they focus on the struggle they encounter in coming to grips with what has happened in the death and resurrection of Jesus.<\/p>\nThe Thomas story is told in order to help us understand how to be a part of the new reality that Christ has invited us to embrace. \u00a0And, if I was going to distill the message of this story in categories that are only slightly more modern but faithful to John\u2019s message, I would say that his advice is this:<\/p>\n
Seeing is not<\/em> believing.\u00a0 If the Christian faith is going to change our lives, we have to surrender our lives to Jesus.\u00a0 We need to let his life become our life, his way of being become our way of being, his passion and mission become our passion and mission.<\/p>\nYou see, there is no uninterpreted event in life.\u00a0 The death and resurrection of Jesus is either God\u2019s effort to retrieve us from the mayhem and ugliness that we have created by trying to be our own gods.\u00a0 Or it is nothing at all.\u00a0 And until we give ourselves to that life and live out of it, we can\u2019t begin to know what that life will look like or see the connections it might have with the life of Jesus.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a bit like marriage, which is why Scripture compares the relationship between Christ and his church to marriage.\u00a0 We can\u2019t know or say what a commitment of that kind will look like until we give ourselves to it.\u00a0 We will never know what all of it will mean until the day that our deaths separate us from one another.\u00a0 Conversely, if we enter into a relationship of that kind, but we never give ourselves fully to it, if we pride ourselves in holding it at arm\u2019s length, then we never will know what it\u2019s like.<\/p>\n
And, so it is with our relationship with God.\u00a0 Sunday after Sunday, we take in his life.\u00a0 We surrender to it.\u00a0 We let his life become our life, his way of being becomes our way of being, his passion and mission becomes our passion and mission.\u00a0 And, day after day, listening for inspiration, for his guidance and wisdom, we are changed.<\/p>\n
Seeing is not believing.\u00a0 Believing is the beginning of seeing.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 Most of us are aware of the massive cargo ship that blocked the Suez Canal for six days last month.\u00a0 One of the most fascinating images of that event were the satellite photos of the ship and the incredible number of other ships that were blocked from passing through the canal. Inevitably, of course, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3358,3356,3361],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-believing","category-doubting-thomas","category-the-gospel-of-john"],"yoast_head":"\n
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