Day 54 - Doubt in the Room

John 20:19-31

I have a confession to make. I reserved this spot, this Sunday. But I can’t remember who for! I didn’t write their name down. I can’t even find the email connected with it. I just sat here waiting for the email to drop with a nice little reflection in it. And the deadline approached. And still nothing. I’m beginning to doubt myself.

Still, that’s quite topical. So I hope you don’t mind me writing two days in a row but I’m in a bit of a fix ... a bit like Thomas.

Easter was just days ago. The alleluias have barely faded. And yet, if I am honest with you — and with myself — the resurrection does not always feel like a continuous mountain top experience. Sometimes it feels more like a rumour. Something I hope is true. Something I want to believe. But something every single day I cannot always hold with both hands and call certain.

I suspect I am not alone in that.

Thomas gets a bad press. We have even named a condition after him — "doubting Thomas" — as if doubt were a character flaw, a failure of nerve, or a spiritual deficiency. But read the passage again slowly. Thomas was not absent from the upper room because he had given up on Jesus. He was there, with the others, in that locked room — a room sealed shut by fear and grief and confusion. He was in exactly the right place. He just hadn't seen what the others had seen.

And when he said "unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, I will not believe" — that was not arrogance. That was honesty. Raw, aching, human honesty.

I find that rather beautiful.

And Jesus did not rebuke Thomas for his doubt. He came back. A week later, into that same locked room, he came back — and he came back for Thomas. He offered him exactly what Thomas had said he needed. "Put your finger here," he said. "See my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

Not: how dare you. Not: I expected better. Just: here I am. I came back for you.

I often feel like Thomas. Unsure of God. Unsure of myself. Unsure whether the faith I have is enough, or real enough, or strong enough. I look around at others who seem so certain, so settled, and I wonder what it is they have found that I keep searching for.

But this passage tells me something important: Jesus is not frightened of my doubt. He walks through locked doors, through fear, through grief, through all the barricades I put up — and he comes to find me where I am.

Thomas's response, when he saw Jesus, was one of the most profound declarations of faith in all the Gospels: "My Lord and my God." Just those five words, wrung from the heart of a man who had been honest about his doubt and found himself met by grace.

And then comes the line that I think is written for people like you and me: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

That's us. We weren't there. We haven't touched the wounds. We are working with the testimony of others, the witness of Scripture, the still small voice in the quiet moments, the occasional shaft of light in the ordinary.

That's enough. Jesus says so.

Wherever you find yourself today — certain, doubting, or somewhere in between — you are in exactly the right place. The door is not locked to you.

Neil Chappell

Image: "Believe" - An illustration of John 20 when Jesus appears to doubting Thomas after his resurrection. Made by © MelaniPykeArt