ST THOMAS: the twins – doubt and faith, Sunday 4th July 2021

ST THOMAS: the twins – doubt and faith

Today we celebrate the festival of St Thomas the Apostle – yet this was not always held in the middle of summer. From the 9th century until 1969, it was marked on 21 December, the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year which, to me, seems rather appropriate. This day of least daylight reflects the idea of doubt when dark thoughts can occlude the light of faith.

It also happens to be my birthday so I have always felt akin to St Thomas and was rather miffed when he was shuttled off to 3 July. But we are where we are – so let us try to shed some light on this interesting apostle and adventurous saint, who is believed to have taken Christianity to India. He arrived there in AD 52 and was martyred there, in Chennai, on 3 July 20 years later. Hence the change of date.

Sin e then he has become known as ‘Doubting Thomas’ – but there is there is much more to him than this. Thomas (also called Didymus – both names mean ‘twin’) appears four times in St John’s Gospel and from what we see there, he is a dedicated, if rather impulsive, follower of Christ.

The first mention of Thomas (John 11 1-16) occurs when Jesus tells the apostles he wishes to return to Bethany to visit his sick friend Lazarus. But Bethany is a dangerous place where they are all likely to be stoned to death! Jesus goes on to tell them that Lazarus has actually died. Another reason, you might think, it was a good idea not to travel there. Nevertheless, impetuous Thomas says: ‘Let us also go that we may die with him’. He is fiercely loyal and seemingly fearless. They do go and in Bethany, after Lazarus is raised from the dead, before Thomas and other disciples, Christ says ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life’. So he has been told this directly.

The next time Thomas appears is at the Last Supper (John 14 1-7). Jesus tells the disciples that he is going away but that he has prepared a place for them and they can follow him. Immediately Thomas says: ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ This time he is beginning to doubt what he is being told and directly challenge it. Then, he receives Christ’s assurance: ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life’. A second time it has been spelt out to him.

The third time, as we have heard today (John 20 24-29), Thomas, who is not present the first time the apostles encounter the risen Christ, says he cannot believe in the resurrection unless he not only sees for himself but touches the actual bodily wounds. Then, when Christ appears before him, Thomas can no longer deny the living truth and cries out: ‘My Lord and my God’. And there is the slight sting in the tail when Christ tells him ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

So, henceforth, Thomas has become the Doubter. We admonish one another for a lack of faith saying ‘Don’t be such a Doubting Thomas’. The definition of a ‘Doubting Thomas’ is ‘a sceptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience’. Well, in a world where there is so such rumour, gossip and fake news, perhaps we should not believe everything we hear. But let us return to Thomas the Twin and examine whether doubt might, in fact, be the twin of faith. For we also speak disparagingly of blind faith, so perhaps one balances the other.

The Hebrew word for doubt is taraph which literally means to be ‘rent, or to be torn in pieces’. There is a lack of unity without focus here which would certainly affect or weaken our faith. Doubt is also more commonly defined as ‘a wavering or fluctuation of opinion, hesitation, uncertainty, questioning, fear or distrusts’. In the letter of James (1 6-8) a doubting person is described as unstable or divided ‘like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind; for the doubter being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord’.

Doubt appears throughout the Bible right at the beginning in Genesis, where the serpent casts doubt on God’s word. Would something bad really happen if Eve took just one bite of that apple?

Every thinking person, Christian or atheist, has struggled with the problem of doubt. The British writer and lay theologian CS Lewis, who was an atheist before he was converted to Christianity, wrote: ‘Believe in God, and you will have to face hours when it seems obvious that this material world is the only reality; disbelieve in Him, and you must face hours when this material world seems to shout at you that it is not all. No conviction religious or irreligious will, of itself, end once and for all this fifth-columnist in the soul. Only the practice of faith resulting in the habit of faith will gradually do that. (Cited in Focal Point, July-September, 1989.) Doubt, it seems, comes in varying degrees to Christians and non-Christians alike – but faith is not just absence of doubt and doubt is not the antithesis of faith

But to return to Thomas the Twin who carried within him both doubt and faith. In the Book of Thomas the Contender, part of Nag Hamadi group of manuscripts, Thomas is said to be the twin of Jesus. If taken literally, this is an extremely controversial claim; but, if examined on a metaphorical and metaphysical basis, might not Thomas represent the darker side of the human soul which the light of Christ has not yet illumined. This takes us back to where we began at the Winter Solstice when the earth has the least hours of daylight, whereas today the sun does not set until 19 minutes past 9pm so perhaps it was good to move the festival of St Thomas after all.

Lindsay Fulcher