The disciples told Thomas that they had seen Jesus, but he was emphatic that unless he saw Jesus, placed his hand in his side, saw the nail holes in his hands, he would not believe. But, what we often forget when we are dogging on Thomas is that the other disciples doubted too.
It is far easier to doubt than to believe in a miracle.
I’ve had people tell me that one of the reasons they have faith is because they would rather have faith and find out they were wrong than not have faith and find out they were wrong. They feel that IF they have faith and are wrong, they will never know it. But, if they don’t have faith and are wrong, they will know it for eternity.
On the surface, that thinking makes sense, but on deeper inspection, I’m not sure that hedging your bets is really faith.
I do believe, however, that we all, at one time or another, experience doubts, and there are times that we have to choose to believe.
Thomas had seen Jesus crucified, and that kept him from believing that Jesus rose from the dead.
How many of us allow what we’ve seen to feed a natural tendency to doubt? In some ways, it would be easy to look at the world and say that if God were real, He wouldn’t allow children to starve or be sick. He wouldn’t allow slavery, drug addiction, or war. He wouldn’t allow us to watch our spouse or children suffer and die.
So often, we are precisely like Thomas. We look out on this world, and we don’t see our risen Lord. The evil of the crucifixion that Thomas witnessed overrode everything else. For us, the evils and disappointments of this world can override everything else.
John 20:19-30