People of Hope Part 6 - Thomas
Monday Devotions@Work 27 April 2020
Eight days after the resurrection of Jesus, there was an incredibly special encounter between Him and Thomas. Sometimes people are cruel and judgmental and will look for mistakes and faults our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ make, forgetting that Christ taught us to first remove the beam in our own eye before we attempt to remove the splinter in our brother’s eye. I think it is the case with Thomas – Jesus’s disciple. To this day he is known as “doubting Thomas”, although he was not the only one who did not believe initially. Interesting how we do not speak about Peter as ‘denying Peter’ or about David as ‘adulterous David’. When the women came to the disciples to tell them that they had seen the resurrected Jesus and that the grave was empty, nobody believed them at first. Not until there were more and more reports of people who had seen Him, but it was not until He appeared to them Himself eating fish and honeycomb, that they believed.
Thomas had just put words to what was in his heart. He spoke up about it. He was honest with God, himself, and others. Unfortunately, Thomas was not there when Jesus appeared to the rest of the disciples. We do not know why he was not there. When they told him, Jesus had appeared to them, he said his now famous words: “I will not believe this unless I get to touch His wounds”. His absence cost him dearly. He would have to wait 8 days before Christ appeared to him. By then I can just imagine all the thoughts that must have gone through his mind while listening to the several different accounts of people who saw Jesus. Mary Magdalene, the other women, the travelers to Emmaus, Simon and the other disciples. He missed all of this. I can imagine him going from hopeless unbelief to doubting the sanity of his friends to thinking something like, “Why did He not appear to me too?”. Maybe thinking that Jesus was angrier with him than with the rest or that he had committed such a grievous sin that he is not ‘worthy’ of being appeared to? I do not really know what went through Thomas’ mind for those 8 long days – but I do know what would have gone through my mind. I think I would have felt that I had missed it, and I would have wondered if I had missed it forever. But Jesus is a God of second chances and so He had grace with Thomas. Granted, He made him wait for those 8 days. He let him contemplate, think about all he had heard from Jesus Himself to what he heard from his friends now. Thomas must have played everything Jesus taught them over and over like a movie, trying to remember and sass out the small details of what He told them. He must by now have heard the disciples and the travelers to Emmaus’s version of how Jesus explained the scriptures - the law, the prophets, the psalms - to them and how He broke bread with them. He had time to contemplate and process a lot of information in that week. He had 8 days to decide if he was going to stick around with them – or leave. His doubt did not make him leave. He stayed. He made sure he was with them. By Sunday morning, Thomas was not going to miss the meeting again. This time he was present with his fellow disciples when Jesus appeared to them.
In John 20:24-29 we read how Jesus met with the disciples. They were together in the house and once again the doors were shut, but Jesus just simply appeared in their midst and greets them with a blessing of peace. He comforts them with His peace before He does anything else. Then He address Thomas with an invitation. Come Thomas, come put your finger into My wounds, come see for yourself. I bet Thomas went – “Who told Him that? He was not there when I said that? Oh! right He is God – really, He knows everything – He knows what I said! He knows that I doubted Him.” I can imagine it being one of those moments where all the blood in your head goes to your feet and you know you can’t get out of this and there are more thoughts going through your mind in milliseconds than what you can put into words in a lifetime. And then Thomas spoke and what he said is profound. He said, “My Lord and my God”. What is there more to say? Unconditional recognition of who Jesus is. Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Never to be doubted again.
Jesus’s answer is remarkable because He refers to you and me in that moment. He says to him – You, Thomas, (and for that matter everybody else present that day) believe because you have seen. Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe. That is, you and me. We believe because of the Holy Spirit’s revelation, and God blessed us in that moment!
What became of Thomas? Certainly, he did not stay ‘doubting Thomas’. He became a missionary to India, China and some say possibly visited Indonesia. Like all the other apostles he died a martyr’s death - not for his belief that Jesus died. Everybody believed that Jesus died. There was no dispute about that. He died for his belief that Jesus was resurrected. If there was one disciple that would not have died for that belief had it been a fabrication of someone’s imagination or a conspiracy of some sort, it would have been Thomas. The life and death of ‘doubting Thomas’ became one of the shining testimonies of the truth of the resurrection, and he must have seen many come into the Kingdom – by believing without seeing.
©2020 Copyright All rights reserved. HG Venter gerda.venter@telkomsa.net
Monday Devotions@Work 27 April 2020
Eight days after the resurrection of Jesus, there was an incredibly special encounter between Him and Thomas. Sometimes people are cruel and judgmental and will look for mistakes and faults our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ make, forgetting that Christ taught us to first remove the beam in our own eye before we attempt to remove the splinter in our brother’s eye. I think it is the case with Thomas – Jesus’s disciple. To this day he is known as “doubting Thomas”, although he was not the only one who did not believe initially. Interesting how we do not speak about Peter as ‘denying Peter’ or about David as ‘adulterous David’. When the women came to the disciples to tell them that they had seen the resurrected Jesus and that the grave was empty, nobody believed them at first. Not until there were more and more reports of people who had seen Him, but it was not until He appeared to them Himself eating fish and honeycomb, that they believed.
Thomas had just put words to what was in his heart. He spoke up about it. He was honest with God, himself, and others. Unfortunately, Thomas was not there when Jesus appeared to the rest of the disciples. We do not know why he was not there. When they told him, Jesus had appeared to them, he said his now famous words: “I will not believe this unless I get to touch His wounds”. His absence cost him dearly. He would have to wait 8 days before Christ appeared to him. By then I can just imagine all the thoughts that must have gone through his mind while listening to the several different accounts of people who saw Jesus. Mary Magdalene, the other women, the travelers to Emmaus, Simon and the other disciples. He missed all of this. I can imagine him going from hopeless unbelief to doubting the sanity of his friends to thinking something like, “Why did He not appear to me too?”. Maybe thinking that Jesus was angrier with him than with the rest or that he had committed such a grievous sin that he is not ‘worthy’ of being appeared to? I do not really know what went through Thomas’ mind for those 8 long days – but I do know what would have gone through my mind. I think I would have felt that I had missed it, and I would have wondered if I had missed it forever. But Jesus is a God of second chances and so He had grace with Thomas. Granted, He made him wait for those 8 days. He let him contemplate, think about all he had heard from Jesus Himself to what he heard from his friends now. Thomas must have played everything Jesus taught them over and over like a movie, trying to remember and sass out the small details of what He told them. He must by now have heard the disciples and the travelers to Emmaus’s version of how Jesus explained the scriptures - the law, the prophets, the psalms - to them and how He broke bread with them. He had time to contemplate and process a lot of information in that week. He had 8 days to decide if he was going to stick around with them – or leave. His doubt did not make him leave. He stayed. He made sure he was with them. By Sunday morning, Thomas was not going to miss the meeting again. This time he was present with his fellow disciples when Jesus appeared to them.
In John 20:24-29 we read how Jesus met with the disciples. They were together in the house and once again the doors were shut, but Jesus just simply appeared in their midst and greets them with a blessing of peace. He comforts them with His peace before He does anything else. Then He address Thomas with an invitation. Come Thomas, come put your finger into My wounds, come see for yourself. I bet Thomas went – “Who told Him that? He was not there when I said that? Oh! right He is God – really, He knows everything – He knows what I said! He knows that I doubted Him.” I can imagine it being one of those moments where all the blood in your head goes to your feet and you know you can’t get out of this and there are more thoughts going through your mind in milliseconds than what you can put into words in a lifetime. And then Thomas spoke and what he said is profound. He said, “My Lord and my God”. What is there more to say? Unconditional recognition of who Jesus is. Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Never to be doubted again.
Jesus’s answer is remarkable because He refers to you and me in that moment. He says to him – You, Thomas, (and for that matter everybody else present that day) believe because you have seen. Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe. That is, you and me. We believe because of the Holy Spirit’s revelation, and God blessed us in that moment!
What became of Thomas? Certainly, he did not stay ‘doubting Thomas’. He became a missionary to India, China and some say possibly visited Indonesia. Like all the other apostles he died a martyr’s death - not for his belief that Jesus died. Everybody believed that Jesus died. There was no dispute about that. He died for his belief that Jesus was resurrected. If there was one disciple that would not have died for that belief had it been a fabrication of someone’s imagination or a conspiracy of some sort, it would have been Thomas. The life and death of ‘doubting Thomas’ became one of the shining testimonies of the truth of the resurrection, and he must have seen many come into the Kingdom – by believing without seeing.
©2020 Copyright All rights reserved. HG Venter gerda.venter@telkomsa.net
Our song for the week is "Even If" from Mercy Me:
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