The Gospel for Doubters, Good News Through the Eyes of ThomasSýnishorn

Only the gospel of John gives us any words from Thomas and though they are few, they are profound and give us insight into his character. 

The anger of Jesus’ enemies among the religious leaders was rising and word was going around about plots to take Jesus and possibly kill Him. Jesus’ growing movement and His claims to be the Son of God and the Savior of the world so incensed them that they had tried to seize Him (John 10:38–39). They had just slipped away across the Jordan to this hideaway where they’d be safe. So the disciples were understandably nervous. They weighed the risks, discussing a trip back into the hot zone. Of course they loved their friend Lazarus, but if he was already dead, was it worth going back and risking Jesus’ death and their own? You can hear them carefully weighing the pros and cons, oblivious, it would seem, that they were traveling with the author of life, who breathed life into Adam and would breathe life back into Lazarus and one day walk out of a tomb, defeating the death that stole the breath from His friend. Jesus would submit to death on the cross, but it would happen on the Father’s timeline, not at the whims of His enemies.

Jesus, of course, was determined to go, to show the world a glimpse of His resurrection power, a porthole into the new creation. And so Thomas, after hearing and perhaps participating in this heated deliberation, was the first one to volunteer to go with Jesus.

It’s kind of a macabre response, perhaps giving us insight into Thomas’s more pessimistic personality. It seems Thomas was the one always counting the cost, weighing the facts, looking for certainty when others, like Peter, were guided by the more emotional and subjective compass of the heart. And Thomas didn’t understand all that he even said. Thomas or any of the other disciples couldn’t really go with Jesus to die. To pay for the sins of the world, Jesus had to go alone to the garden, alone to the cross, alone to the grave.

And yet in a sense, Thomas understood the call Jesus gives every disciple to come and die with Him. 

This is a bold statement. Thomas seems like the silent one, who carefully weighs and thinks before coming to a conclusion, and yet when he speaks, it is a profound statement of courage and loyalty. “Let’s go die with Jesus” could be a life verse, the call of everyone who sees and believes Jesus.

Which is why if we only think of Thomas as “doubting,” we miss out on who Thomas is altogether. Before he was “Doubting Thomas,” he was “Brave Thomas,” willing to put it all on the line for the one he loved.

Discussion question: Meditate on Thomas’s bravery. Are you willing, like Thomas, to say, “Let’s . . . die with him”?