EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2021 I began a new venture writing a newspaper column titled "Finding Faith" for the Forum Communications Co. network of newspapers and websites. I was asked to contribute to the company's ongoing conversation about faith, lending a Lutheran and fairly ecumenical approach to the discussion. The column was published in several of the company's papers and websites, including The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. This column originally appeared as a "Finding Faith" column on April 5, 2024.
By The Rev. Devlyn Brooks
Thomas … now there’s a Jesus disciple I can get behind.
Unfairly pegged throughout history as “Doubting Thomas,” I think this poor chap has gotten a bad rap.
This Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter, is also sometimes known as “Doubting Thomas Sunday” on account of the hit piece that John writes in the Gospel of John: “24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:24-25)
Note that this account only appears in this one gospel. Matthew, Mark and Luke? … All mum about Thomas’ supposed lack of faith. Suspect? I don’t know, but this (former?) journalist likes to have at least two corroborating sources.
As far as I’m concerned, Thomas seems the more practical of all the disciples, doesn’t he? After all, Jesus unfairly appeared to the other disciples locked behind those doors eight days after his resurrection.
Was it Thomas’ fault he stepped out to get some groceries for all his buddies hiding out in fear of persecution? Someone’s got to stock the pantry! That’s 12 dudes, hiding in secret, who have to eat three squares a day, right?
Don’t worry, Thomas! … I got your back.
Truth is, that as a faith leader, it’s worrisome to admit your own doubts. What will the flock think, right?
But on days when you sit with parishioners making really difficult choices about the health and safety of their loved ones with cognitive degeneration, or on the days when you struggle to find the words for a eulogy for a once-vibrant wife and mother felled in the prime of her life by cancer or when you cry the tears with your siblings over the first Easter without your mother.
Well … on those days, I feel more kinship with Thomas than I do the other disciples. Because it’s on those days, I too would like to poke my finger into Jesus’ wounds just for a little reassurance. … Because it’s on those days I too was absent from the room when Jesus made his brief appearance to reassure his disciples with, “Peace be with you.”
I desperately would have liked to be one of the other disciples who got a good look at Jesus. What a boost to faith that must have been!
But, alas, I am more like Thomas, the disciple who yearns for that indisputable proof the others received.
Don’t worry, Thomas! … This Sunday, this pastor has your back. … Because this Sunday, I will come clean to my flock that there are days I battle with my doubt too. Amen.
Devlyn Brooks is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and serves Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He blogs about faith at findingfaithin.com, and can be reached at devlynbrooks@gmail.com.