Lectionary Readings: Year A, Second Sunday in Easter

Years ago, I was working with a youth group up in Washington, and there was one evening where I couldn’t attend the gathering. On that particular evening, one of the high school girls, who played volleyball, had hurt her knee quite badly. It was swollen, and she was limping around. At one point during the evening, I’m told, the pastor and the kids surrounded her and prayed for her. The youth pastor told me, “It was amazing. As we were praying, you could see the swelling go down, and afterward, she was able to walk without a limp. I’m still just shocked. It’s a miracle!”

And in response, I said, “That is amazing. That’s awesome.” And then I paused, and added, “I really wish I could have been there to see it for myself.” Translation: “Hmmm. Is this really true?” I’ll admit, I questioned that story a bit. Because, after all, “Seeing is believing,” as the saying goes. And in this case, I would really have liked to see it, rather than just taking people’s word for it.

This Gospel story we read today, is where we get the unfortunate nickname “Doubting Thomas” for one of Jesus’ disciples. He also missed a really important event. And when the other disciples tell him about it, he just bluntly says, “I won’t believe that Jesus is alive, unless I see it with my own two eyes.”

You’ve got to admire Thomas’ honesty here. He’s flat out rejecting what the other disciples have told him, because he needs to see it for himself. He’s telling everyone what he needs in order to believe what others have already come to believe. 

Now, only a week later, Jesus shows up again, and what does he do? Jesus gives Thomas exactly what he needs – exactly what Thomas has stated he needed – in order to believe. Jesus shows him his hands, and the piercing in his side. Jesus offers Thomas exactly what he has asked for, and then, Thomas believes. And, what’s even more interesting, is that Thomas then makes the declaration, “My Lord and my God!” Once Jesus has given Thomas exactly what he said he needed in order to believe, Thomas is the very first disciple – and also, the only disciple – in John’s Gospel to declare that Jesus is God.

Think about that for a moment. Thomas, the one with the unfortunate nickname that brands him as a “doubter” is the first disciple to actually declare that Jesus is God. He sees what the others have seen – the exact same thing that the others have seen – and he is the very first one to see that Jesus is, in fact, God. Now, granted, the reason we give Thomas this nickname is because Jesus then says to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” 

Most of us like to assume that Jesus is referring to the other disciples. Kind of like Jesus is comparing Thomas to everyone else in that upper room. But is that really the case? Let’s take a look back at what has happened in John’s Gospel up to now.

Just before this passage, Mary Magdalene has seen that the stone was removed from the tomb, and ran back and told Simon Peter, and the disciple whom Jesus loved, that people had stolen Jesus’ body. And these two men ran out to see for themselves. Peter and the other disciple saw the empty tomb, just like Mary Magdalene had, and yet we are not told that these two believed anything other than that the body was, in fact, missing. They “did not yet understand that Jesus had to rise from the dead.” And so, Simon Peter and the other disciple went home. But Mary Magdalene stayed. Then two angels appear and tell her that Jesus has risen from the dead. She has the empty tomb, she has the burial clothes that are laying there, and two angels that have told her that Jesus is alive. But Mary still believes that other people have stolen Jesus’ body. In fact, she turns around, sees Jesus standing there, doesn’t recognize him, and accuses him of taking away Jesus’ body: “Tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” And then Jesus says, “Mary!” and she suddenly recognizes him as Jesus. That’s when Mary believes; not when the angels had told her about it, only when she recognized Jesus as the person standing before her.

Now, Mary, having seen the Risen Jesus, runs and tells the other disciples what she has seen. And not only that, she also tells them that Jesus has told her that he is ascending into heaven, to be with God. What a great witness! What a wonderful message to share with the other disciples! 

And what do they do?

They locked themselves up in an upper room, because they were afraid of the people who had crucified Jesus. Mary Magdalene had told them that Jesus is alive, and that he is going to ascend to heaven, but they didn’t seem to believe what she said. They don’t believe until Jesus shows up in the middle of the room – despite the locked doors – and shows them his side and his hands. That’s when the disciples believe. They’ve already been told that Jesus was alive, but it isn’t until Jesus shows up in that upper room that they also believe.

So, we come back to this unfortunate nickname. The disciples tell Thomas that they have seen the resurrected Jesus, and he flat out rejects the idea that anyone can come back from the dead, and states that in order for him to believe that this is true, he needs to see Jesus for himself, and needs to see the wounds in Jesus’ hands and in Jesus’ side. He knows what he needs in order to believe.

And this is where it gets interesting. Because Jesus does show up, and he offers to Thomas exactly what he needs in order to believe. He tells Thomas to put his finger in the hole in his side, and to see his hands. He gives Thomas the evidence he needs – the exact thing that was keeping him from believing in the Risen Lord.

We like to think that Jesus was comparing Thomas to all the other disciples when he told Thomas not to doubt, but we have seen that from Mary Magdalene, to Simon Peter, the disciple whom Jesus loved, all the way to every one of the other disciples, each of them had heard the good news of Jesus’ resurrection, but none of them believed until they saw Jesus in the flesh. 

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

It’s not just Thomas that had doubts. That statement about not seeing and still believing doesn’t apply to any of the other disciples either. They, too, didn’t believe until they saw Jesus. That statement applies to those who missed Easter altogether. It applies to all the people who only heard about Jesus’ resurrection, those who only heard about Jesus’ resurrection from others = who told them about it – and were able to declare, like Thomas did, “My Lord and my God!” It applies to those listening to John’s gospel, both then, and now. It applies to you, and it applies to me. 

“Blessed are you, who have not seen, and yet still believed!”

Does Thomas really deserve the nickname “Doubting” Thomas? I don’t think so. It’s true that he did not believe just because of what he heard, but we’ve seen the other disciples didn’t either. So there must be more that we can gather from this story.

The first thing we probably want to do is to define what doubt is. We like to describe doubt as the opposite of belief, or the opposite of faith. But the opposite of belief is unbelief. Unbelief is a direct rejection of the truth. It’s what Thomas first did when he heard about Jesus rising from the dead. He rejected the idea that Jesus could be alive. He wasn’t doubting. He was refusing to believe.

In the Gospel of Mark, we see a story of a man whose son is gravely ill. He comes to Jesus so that his son can be healed, but he is struggling with skepticism, because he knows his son’s affliction. And he says to Jesus, “If you can heal my son, do so.” And Jesus responds, “If?!? If I am able? All things can be done for those who believe.” And then the man says, “I believe; help my unbelief!” 

Doubt is a desire to believe, but it is burdened with skepticism. It is burdened by what we think we know in this world with our limited understanding. It is burdened by facts, figures, and what we can prove. The important distinction between doubt and unbelief is that when we doubt, we still desire to believe, even if our minds are still looking for a logical explanation to any events that have unfolded around us. Doubt is the struggle of trying to incorporate the facts as we know them with our belief as we hold it, and trying to reconcile our thinking where belief and skepticism stand at odds with each other. 

But even in the case of Thomas’s unbelief, Jesus still showed up, and gave Thomas what he needed, when he needed it, so that Thomas could go from unbelief to belief, and declare, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus showed up in a way that allowed Thomas to reconcile the facts as he knew them: people cannot rise from the dead; with the fact that Jesus did rise from the dead. It gave Thomas the evidence, the reconciliation of facts and faith, so that he could believe, and declare Jesus as God.

If it is true that Jesus gives us what we need when we need it, then we should not kick ourselves and worry about the idea that we are having doubts about our faith. Instead, if we are truly searching, and seeking to understand, then we should be confident in the idea that we want to believe. We should take comfort in the fact that our desire to believe sustains us. There are times when each of us struggles with skepticism about our faith, and about trying to reconcile portions of what we believe with what we see and believe as the facts. And it is because we are a community that all of us are allowed to struggle. When we are struggling, others carry our faith for us, and when they are struggling, we carry their faith for them. Because we all know that God will provide what we all need, when we need it. We know that we believe, as a community, and that God will help our unbelief, when we as individuals within that community need the extra help.

That evening at the Youth Group, where others prayed for a girl and she was miraculously healed? Do I still struggle to believe that? I do, because I did not see it with my own two eyes. But I have seen identical things since then, and I am able to, now, take other people’s word for it. God provided what I needed, when I needed it. Even in the midst of my skepticism, I knew that I believed, and God helped my unbelief.

Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.

And blessed also are those who have not seen, and face skepticism and suspicion with a desire to believe.

Because God is faithful, and will give everyone what they need, when they need it.

[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on April 12, 2026.]