Thomas' Story
recorded by Jeremy Rivers-Fletcher
(scroll down for some questions for reflection at the end of the story)
There have been times in my life when everything seemed hopeless, when I have been full of guilt and shame, when I just wanted to hide away, when I couldn’t find a reason to go on.
In contrast, there’ve been times when I’ve been full of hope for the future, when I have been certain of my calling, and full of energy for pursuing that purpose.
There’ve been times in life when I’ve felt deeply connected to others, when I’ve felt a part of a united community that loved each other and had a common purpose.
And there have been times when I felt disconnected and distant, at odds with those around me and angry at the seeming stupidity of others. Times when I knew I was right and they were wrong, and times when I had to eat humble pie when I realised that I was wrong, and they were right.
There’ve been times like these in the past, and I’m sure there will be again in the future. We all have experiences like that. But for me there will never be such a sharp contrast as there was in the week that followed the Passover when Jesus was crucified…
We knew the threats that had been made against him, but that didn’t dissuade him. When Jesus said he was going, I was quick to add my support. Even if it meant we’d die, I didn’t want to leave him, I couldn’t leave him. I’d seen too much… done too much… Where he went, I would go. I remember bravely saying, ‘Let’s go and die with him’ …
And then, on the night he was arrested, I ran away... Just like the others, I ran away…
So much for my commitment.
I ran a short distance and hid in a bush. We scattered in so many directions they couldn’t catch us.
But as they took Jesus away, I heard a few of the guards calling out and looking around for his followers. One of them came within a few feet of me. I held my breath and only let it out when he walked on past me.
After what seemed like an eternity, they left, but I didn’t move. I spent a night hiding there among the trees in the Mount of olives, terrified of being caught.
I didn’t sleep, I was alert to every sound, worried that they may come back. As the sun began to rise, I slowly got up, carefully looking around. The place seemed deserted. I hesitantly called out Peter’s name, but not too loudly as I was still afraid of attracting the wrong people. I was expecting some of the others may also have hidden there, but I was on my own.
Had they been caught too? Had they been taken with Jesus? Were they all now dead? Was I the only one to be spared? ‘Cowardly Thomas’, I thought, full of self-loathing, ‘the disciple that ran away and hid, whilst the rest went with Jesus.’ The thought of heading into Jerusalem scared me, but I had to know what had happened to them all.
It took me over an hour to slowly make my way round to the far side of the city; I didn’t want to go in through the Sheep Gate, the one nearest the Mount of Olives, in case the Temple guards were looking out for any of his followers coming from that direction.
It was after 8 in the morning when I finally made my way through the Gennath Gate and encountered the mob outside the governor’s palace.
I heard them before I saw them, the ominous rumble of many voices calling out in anger. There were periods of silence when someone, probably Pilate, was addressing them, and then more shouting. As I got nearer, the shouting became clear, ‘Crucify him!’, ‘Take him away!’
Despite my fear, I had to see what was happening. I hoped that I would be anonymous in a crowd that size, and I was.
And then I saw him… Jesus… the man I’d said that I would follow. His face was badly bruised from a beating and blood was flowing down from a crown of thorns that was rammed on his head. He was wearing a purple robe, but the bits of his body that I could see were covered in blood due to open wounds from a flogging.
I was frozen on the spot, unable to move, unable to speak. I wanted to look away, I wanted to run away, but I couldn’t move.
Tears filled my eyes as the crowd called for him to be killed. I watched in horror as Pilate ordered his crucifixion, as the soldiers dragged out a cross for him to carry, as he was forced to shoulder that cross and make his way out through the Gennath Gate to Golgotha.
The mob moved, and I had no choice but to move with them. I remember the noise all around, the smell of so many bodies all pressed together, the dust kicked up from the road as we moved towards Golgotha. I walked on with the crowd in a daze, unable to take in what was happening. In my head, I was screaming for them to stop, but I couldn’t make a sound; my mouth moved, but nothing came out.
I watched in horror when they hoisted him up on the cross… then I just couldn’t take any more. I turned, pushed my way through the crowd and fled again. I don’t remember where I went, but by nightfall, I found myself once more on the Mount of Olives.
Just 24 hours earlier, Jesus had been eating with us and teaching us. Just 24 hours earlier, this incredible man had stooped and washed my feet, calling us all to love and serve others.
I’d always thought of myself as a great learner and one of his most committed followers, but I failed him… When he needed me to serve him, I’d run away. I howled my self-loathing into the night, no longer caring who heard me.
I spent another sleepless night on the Mount of Olives and skulked around there through all of the Sabbath. My mind went over all that had gone on in that last week… all that had gone on in these last few years. I replayed all the times he’d patiently taught and helped us, all the times he’d served and helped others… each memory highlighting just how far I’d failed him.
I’d not slept on the Thursday or Friday nights, but finally, on the evening of the Sabbath, I fell into a fitful sleep. I woke frequently, my mind still racing… not believing that it was all over, not believing he was dead, not believing that I was still alive, not believing that I even deserved to be alive.
The last time we were all together, Jesus said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life…’ But I could see no way forward, the truth was a lie, and the life was gone. The purpose, the hope, the joy, the challenge… all gone.
The words… the words were gone… the words that stirred my soul… ‘Where can we go?’ Peter had said, ‘You have the words of life.’
But that life was gone, those words were no more. ‘Where can we go, you have the words of life.’ But if there were no words and no life, where could I go?
I stayed there curled up underneath a tree on the Mount of Olives throughout that Sunday, pondering that question, ‘Where could I go?’ I couldn’t go back to Bethany and face Mary, Martha and Lazarus, I couldn’t go back home to Galilee, I’d left all that behind. Where could I go?
Late Sunday afternoon, I decided that I couldn’t go anywhere, that it wasn’t worth going on, and I decided to hand myself in to the Temple guards. I wanted to be found, to be caught, to face the same fate as all the others. I walked down to the Sheep Gate and approached the Temple guards that were on duty.
I tried to say that I was a follower of Jesus… that they should arrest me, but they just laughed. They pushed me violently away, and I fell over. ‘Get out of here, beggar!’ they said, ‘There’s nothing here for you.’
I must have been a sight. I hadn’t washed, and I’d hardly slept in 4 days. I was covered in dirt, my hair and beard were matted with sweat, and I could only guess what I smelt like.
I slowly picked my myself up from the ground, and in a fog of grief and self-loathing I went round Jerusalem and in through the Gennath Gate once more. I tried to give myself up to the soldiers at the Roman fort… But they, too, drove me away.
At a loss as to what to do, I wandered away. As darkness fell, and the streets grew quieter, I recognised that I was in one of the streets near the house where we’d had the last supper. The idea came into my head that if some of the others had avoided arrest, then they may have gone there.
The door was locked, but I banged and shouted until they opened it… I didn’t care who I disturbed. Mary opened it and let out a small shout of joy as she saw me. ‘Come in!’ she said, ‘The others are upstairs.’
I stumbled up the stairs to the room and then froze in shock. I could not believe what I’d walked into! There were smiles and laughter in the room! I could not make sense of it. ‘Have you lost your minds!’ I shouted above the noise.
They looked up noticing me for the first time, ‘Thomas!’, several of them exclaimed at once. I stood there in shock again; I couldn’t make sense of it. I remember that John came over to me and gave me a hug, ‘Jesus is alive!’ he said, ‘We’ve all seen him.’
They all spoke at once, saying that he’d first appeared to Mary Magdalene, then Peter, then Cleopas and Mary on the road, and finally, just moments earlier, he’d been there in the upper room.
They’d all gone insane! I knew it couldn’t be true, I’d seen Jesus hoisted on the cross. The flogging he’d had meant that he was almost dead before they put him on the cross, there was no way he’d survive. I voiced all this to those in the room, and it was John that spoke first.
‘He didn’t survive,’ he said, suddenly serious, ‘I saw him die there. I, along with several of the women, were there to the end. They shoved a spear in his side to confirm he was dead, before allowing him to be taken down from the cross.’ He paused, held my unbelieving gaze, and then continued, ‘He was buried in a nearby tomb, but this morning we found that the tomb was empty and through the day, he has appeared to all of us at different times. He was dead but is now alive!’
Despite my tiredness and grief, I remember his words with such clarity… and I remember my angry response, ‘I don’t believe it! If he were alive, then why isn’t he here now? Why all this appearing and then disappearing again?’
I just couldn’t bear the joy and hope in that room, and I ran back down the stairs and out into the night. I heard Mary and Peter calling after me, but I didn’t go back.
I spent yet another night out on the Mount of Olives, sleeping rough and waking often. Now, instead of being weighed down with grief and shame, I was full of anger and confusion.
The next morning I’d calmed down enough to go back and face them. It was a difficult week, I struggled so much with their joy and optimism. They were adamant that Jesus was alive, and I was equally clear that he couldn’t be.
I just could not believe what they believed, and towards the end of the week, after another attempt by Cleopas to persuade me, I blurted out, ‘Unless I can put my finger in the nail holes in his hands and I can put my hand in his side where the spear went, I will not believe it!’
I’d travelled and learned and worked alongside these people over 3 years. I had every reason to trust them, but I just could not accept what they were saying, I would not believe it… it hurt too much to hope.
However, they were so consistent and persistent with their story, I began to wonder… to think about what it meant if they were right. I reasoned that if Jesus really had come back from the dead, then he wouldn’t just be God’s Messiah, he wouldn’t just be the anointed one of God… he would be God himself!
I decided that I had to head back to Galilee, there was nothing to keep me in Jerusalem, and I couldn’t stand any more of their stories. A week after I’d found them, I met with them for one last meal together in the upper room.
They asked me to say the blessing, and as I reached for the bread, I was suddenly aware of someone else in the room…
He was there… Jesus… Jesus was there!
I couldn’t move. I sat there with my mouth open and my hand still outstretched toward the bread, just staring at him. My mind was racing… it was true… but it couldn’t be. For an instant, I thought I was going insane, but I could tell from the reactions of the others around me that they could see him too.
I had done nothing but doubt them and argue with them all week, but it was all true. Looking back on that moment, in the corner of my eye, I remember seeing Mary looking at me and gently smiling as tears ran down her cheeks. I’d never seen Mary cry or smile like that before. But at that time, all my attention was on Jesus. I looked at him, and he returned my gaze in a silence that seemed to go on forever but was probably only fractions of a second.
It's hard to put into words what it was like when Jesus looked at you. You knew that he saw far more than just outward appearances; you knew that he was looking past all the masks we wear and looking into your heart.
I knew he saw all my bravado, all my fears, all my doubts and anger, all my guilt and shame… He saw all this, but there was no judgement in his eyes… when Jesus looked at you, there was never any sense of being judged.
As he looked at me, he smiled and said, ‘Look.’ He held out his hands to show me the holes from the nails and parted his robe to one side to show the wound from the spear. ‘Reach out and touch me. Stop doubting and know that all you have heard is true.’
My face dissolved. I was overwhelmed with awe and joy as tears streamed down my face and I fell on my knees before him proclaiming, ‘My Lord… and… and my God!’
…
Thoughts/questions for reflection:
1. How did this story make you feel?
2. Were there things in the story that jarred, or resonated with you? Why is that?
Another Thomas, Thomas Kuhn, coined the phrase ‘paradigm shift’[1] to explain the evolution of scientific ideas. Kuhn argued that when individuals begin to see holes in an accepted scientific theory they start searching for a new and better model/paradigm. The pioneers in that area will come up with a new model/paradigm, a new worldview that better fits the data, and they switch to that new paradigm. For a while there is a tension between the adherents to the old and those of the new, until the new paradigm is tested enough, and enough people ‘convert’ to that new worldview, that it becomes the accepted norm.
In the same way people have ‘religious’ frameworks/paradigms through which they make sense of the world; Buddhism, atheism, Islam, Christianity, etc. When people encounter challenges to their ‘religious’ paradigm they will either:
1. ignore it as ‘spurious data’ and carry on with their existing paradigm, or
2. if it is persistent/significant enough they will re-evaluate their understanding and perhaps begin to explore a new paradigm. When adopting any new paradigm most people will go through a process of exploration before ‘converting’ to it (like dating before a marriage).
None of the disciples could believe in the resurrection until they met Jesus themselves. Like them, Thomas can’t conceive of the idea of Jesus coming back from the dead. However, he has more time to think about the implications of this than the others did. And over the week, whilst he wrestles with the impossibility of this new paradigm, also realises the implications of it; if true, then Jesus is God.
We all have times of paradigm shift in our faith, and not just when we first come to believe. Faith is based on knowledge, and as our knowledge and understanding grows, then we find new ways of seeing things, new insights that enrich our faith.
The word that Jesus used to call people to see things differently was metanoeō[2]. Jesus was speaking to a people that had misunderstood the role of the Messiah. They thought the Messiah would be a military leader that would re-establish the kingdom of Israel. Jesus was trying to get them to see a different paradigm, so his Gospel message was, ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Open your mind, see things differently, and believe the good news.’ (Mark 1:15)
3. Can you think of times of paradigm shift (of metanoeō), times when you have begun to see things differently?
Sometimes this happens due to significant changes in our lives; change of job/career, the break-up of a relationship (or conversely when we get married), when we become a parent, when our own parents need help, when people close to us die, etc. And sometimes paradigm shifts happen because of small, everyday things; perhaps in a word or phrase that we hear, something we read, or an experience/event that helps us see things from another perspective.
As we learn and grow, paradigm shifts (large and small) happen in all parts of our life and faith.
Looking back on our lives we all can have times of doubt and times when we encounter the presence God for ourselves. Take a moment to reflect for yourself on:
times when Jesus seemed impossibly distant and unreal?
times when have you known him as Lord and God?
And share them with others or write this in a journal.
Pause to reflect and ask God what he might be saying to you through this.
A prayer to finish:
Father forgive us for those times when we refuse to hear your words for us through other people, when we doggedly stick with our ideas and aren’t open to seeing things from the perspective of others.
Please help us to see what we fail to see, to be open to your working through other people, to see things through the eyes of others, and to see things through your eyes.Father help us in our doubts and strengthen us in our faith.
In the turmoil of our world
help us to be open to your love,
to encounter the reality of your presence with us,
to receive you in our hearts and
to be filled with your grace and peace…
So that, with Thomas, we might fall to our knees afresh
proclaiming, ‘My lord and my God.’
Amen
Ignatian imaginative contemplation on this passage
As before, the background and the story provide a window to help look at the passage imaginatively for yourself. If you want to go deeper:
1. Ask God to speak to you through the passage
2. Slowly read the Bible passage again
3. Visualise yourself as one of the characters, or as an observer. You might work through the whole passage, or just sit with a certain scene within it.
Pay attention to the details of the scene; what do you see, hear and smell?
What would it be like to be Mary or Peter, trying to reason with Thomas? How would it feel if you know the resurrection to be true, but you see Thomas still lost in grief over Jesus’ death?
4. Again, ask God what he wants you to take away from this.
You might like to note any thoughts or feelings in a journal before moving onto the next chapter.
[1] Kuhn, Thomas – ‘The structure of Scientific revolutions
[2] Metanoeō is often translated as ‘repent’. And the word Metanoia is translated as ‘repentance’. However, whilst Metanoeō may lead to repentance, it means much more than that; more literally, it means open your mind, or see things differently.
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