Have you ever have a bad weekend? Just think what kind of weekend the apostles had on that first Easter. They must have been suffering from a severe dose of depression following on from the events of Good Friday. Jesus was dead. The crowd that welcomed him with palms as he entered Jerusalem turned against him that Good Friday morning, calling for the release of Barabbas and the death of Jesus. The apostles, now afraid of the crowd, had shut themselves in for their own protection as we heard in the Gospel. There were ten of them gathered in this nervous state; Judas was no more and Thomas was temporarily absent. Jesus suddenly came into their midst with his healing, “Peace be with you,” and how much better they must have felt now, easing their shock and doubts. That was Easter Sunday evening; the crisis was over, but what a long three days it had been since that Friday morning.

Thomas then returns, and they tell him Jesus is alive– “We have seen him!” Jesus came into the room, despite the fact that the doors were all locked. Thomas thinks this is simply adding insult to injury. You can imagine what he might well have said to them. “You saw his body when it was taken down from the cross. You know he was not breathing. You know there was no blood left in his body; you know his heart had been pierced with the soldier’s lance. You are all raving. It’s getting to you. Get a grip on yourselves!” We heard in our Gospel that Thomas demanded proof, “Unless I see the holes that the nails made in his hands and can put my finger into them, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe.”

What has happened now? Suddenly there is division among the apostles. Ten of them know Jesus is alive. The eleventh, Thomas, is stubborn and refuses to believe. Thomas does not have faith yet, and he is relying on reason alone, but when he will see Jesus later that week, he will believe and so faith and reason will be perfectly aligned. The division among the apostles is like the division in any family between those who have faith and reason in perfectharmony, and those whose faith and reason are out of kilter. If Thomas had been sufficiently sensitive, he would surely have noticed that ‘the ten’ have great peace now; they are not remotely in the same state of mind as when he had gone out earlier. But Thomas considers himself a big, strong, macho man. He has no time for what he thinks is silly, sissy stuff. He wants scientific proof for God and fails to realise that there does not have to be any conflict between faith and science, or between faith and reason. Thomas has yet to learn that faith and logic are meant to be in harmony. The following Sunday Jesus came again to them all, even though once again the doors were closed and bolted. As on the previous occasion, Jesus wished them peace and provided Thomas with the proof that his reason and logic, and desire for a scientific answer needed. “Put your finger here: look, here are my hands. Give me your hand; put it into my side. Doubt no longer but believe.”  Thomas is immediately shamed, and replies, “My Lord and my God.” Now faith and reason are perfectly aligned in Thomas, now that he has actually seen Jesus.  Seeing is indeed believing!

Relying only on reason and logic alone had closed Thomas’ mind to Jesus’ resurrection. His independence, his pride, his wish to be master of his own life, wanting control of his own destiny instead of allowing faith to be in harmony with reason meant that he wasted a whole week, and shut Jesus out of his life. All it takes to meet Jesus is to allow our reason to work together with our faith. So we make that act of faith in God. Surrender into the hands of a loving God. You have nothing to lose but everything to gain. A chant about trust in God goes like this, “Trust, surrender, believe, receive.” The last word is “receive.” If you trust, surrender and believe, you will receive. When Thomas saw the risen Jesus on that Sunday after Easter, he trusted, surrendered and believed. Then he received Jesus. It is the same with each of us. Trust in Jesus – surrender, believe, and you will receive a joy that you will not get from anything, or anybody else.  If we are not happy, it may well be because you and I have gone away from God. Thomas had wasted a week – we do not want to waste a whole lifetime.  If you haven’t yet met the risen Lord, roll away the stone to meet Jesus. Allow faith to work together in harmony with your reason and logic.

I don’t know about each and every one of you, but I’ve always felt somewhat sorry for Thomas, and had more than just a sneaking sympathy with him.  Are we too in danger of becoming ‘doubters’; do we always require proof of everything?  There is all the difference in the world between something which will stand up to scientific scrutiny, and something else, which to some degree defies logic, but yet there is clear reason to suppose that it might well be so.  That is the essential difference between fact and faith.  As Christians we are constantly being required to make this ‘leap of faith’.  It all comes down to putting our total trust in God and his power to save.  As Jesus said to Thomas, “You have believed because you have seen me; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  Living, as we do, over 2,000 years since Our Lord walked this earth, none of us has seen with our own eyes.  The road will only take us so far before there is a bit missing and we have to have the courage to leap over the gap.  Are we all, each and every one of us, brave enough to make this leap of faith, trusting that God will not allow us either to fall, or fail.  Back in my days as a schoolmaster, I used to subject children who were willing to ‘the faith test’, in that I would stand a couple of feet behind one of them, and then ask him or her simply to lean back on their heels and fall backwards, trusting that I would catch them under the arms and not allow them to fall.  Fortunately, and encouragingly, a good number were able to summon up the necessary courage and bring themselves to dothis, but not without moments of doubt and uncertainty along the way.  God is waiting in a similar manner to catch us, if only we are brave enough to trust him – let us pray that each and everyone of us will have that faith.

Amen.