The Character of Thomas - An Unyielding Passion

So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them,"Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe." John 20: 25

As Thomas was absent from the first meeting with the Risen Lord, the disciples told him "We have seen the Lord". It was an instance of witnessing by the rest of the Apostles to Thomas. "We have seen the Lord" conveys their faith, the conviction in their belief - that the one they had seen was indeed the Lord.
However the next sentence shows the deep rooted passion of Thomas.
Thomas is telling them - it is good that you have seen the Lord and I rejoice in your blessings - but I need that experience too, my faith cannot be because "you saw". It needs to be because of my own experience. Your eyes have seen the Lord, I need that experience too.

Thomas had not yet been given the experience of meeting the risen Lord, and this verse shows his deep yearning to be part of that solemn and heavenly experience - to "see, to touch, to experience" the Lord.

This is not stubbornness, but a unyielding passion for communion with the Lord.
And it is to seek this unyielding passion for communion with the Lord that Thomas challenges us to rise to. Do we go to Church because of our own experience of communion with the Lord or because or parents force us? Is it a mere habit or is it because "I saw the Lord"? Is it because of another person's witness or is it because of our own experience?

an unyielding passion for Christ

The powerful witness of Thomas is borne out in the Church of India and of the East. We need to understand intensity of the Apostle's desire to first be able to "experience" the Lord himself before he could believe (and before he could reach out to others). Isn't that the model of evangelism that our own Church of St. Thomas has modelled for itself? When we experience the Lord ourselves, we
cannot but live like Him, we cannot but witness Him, we are compelled to be an evangelising Church, the Church of St. Thomas.

It needs to be also noted, that if today we and others fail to see us as an evangelizing Church, the reason may well be that the original desire (and hence the experience) of St. Thomas "to see, to touch and experience" the Lord, may be lacking in us.

May the Lord of St. Thomas give us the same fire in our desire to experience the Lord ourselves as our Father Thomas had.


Character of Thomas:  Representative of all absent

Source: ICON