5. Doubting Thomas
A few years ago an elderly aunt in our family suffered from conjunctivitis. When she entered her doctor’s office she was met by a locum doctor, not her longstanding GP.
The new doctor examined her condition and looked up ‘conjunctivitis’ in his pharmaceutical book, prescribing accordingly.
On passing the receptionist, the aunt said, “that chap doesn’t know what he is doing. He has to look it up in a book and I am not going to put the ointment on!”
She was true to her word and booked an appointment the next week to see her old GP. The consultation was brief, simply a matter of prescribing.
The aunt said that the other ointment had done no good but the GP suspected that she had never applied it.
That same day, she applied the new ointment and it did the trick.
When I called to see her later that week, both tubes of ointment were still there. I examined them both and found that they were the same.
This is a prime example of the effects of doubt and belief and how many of us must see evidence of something before we believe.
The account describing ‘Doubting Thomas’ teaches us a similar lesson about faith.
Thomas called Didymus was not with the other disciples when Jesus first appeared to them after his crucifixion.
So when the disciples told him that they had seen the Lord he did not believe them.
Thomas declared, “unless I see the marks of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side I will not believe.”
But a week later in the same house, Jesus appeared and greeted each disciple with the words, “peace be with you.”
Then he said to Thomas, “put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt, but believe.
Without doing so, Thomas replied, “My Lord. My God.”
Jesus then said, “have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to believe.”
This story reflects the human condition of disbelief. All of us suffer from it. We are just like Thomas, demanding proof before we believe.
As a church, the inherent difficulty we face is that to know Christ we have to believe. But how do we display him? We sing hymns, we say the liturgy, share the communion and serve the community.
However, for the vast majority of people of this nation they fail to recognise this as Christ centred. Most simply do not believe.
Let us conquer doubt by speaking openly of why and how we came to believe and the change that this has made to us and others.
If we know lives are changed through believing in Christ, do we not owe it to aid those who do not yet believe?
All of us doubt from time to time, but it is when we turn to Christ he restores our faith and conquers our disbelief. We owe it to others to lead them to believe too.