"Peeping Thomas"

We've all probably watched enough television and read enough John Grisham books to be familiar with the term "Habeas Corpus." It's a Latin expression meaning, "to have a body." An old friend of mine once said that a better way of saying Habeas Corpus is, "Where's the beef?"

Down in St. Paul, a man named Johnson was on trial for murder. Everything pointed to Johnson's guilt. Never in the history of jurisprudence had so much evidence been posited toward a man's guilt. It's as if flashing neon lights above Johnson's head were pointing to him and saying, "This guy's guilty." But the prosecution only had one problem: there was no corpse. Tons of circumstantial, anecdotal evidence, yet nothing physical proving that anyone had been murdered had been admitted as evidence. Still, Habeas Corpus didn't seem to be enough to keep Johnson out of Stillwater for the rest of his natural life.

When it comes time to present closing arguments, Johnson's attorney Anderson is well aware that he has to pull a rabbit out of his hat. So he buttons his coat, approaches the jury, and in his best Johnny Cochrane voice says, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have a surprise for you all." He pauses for a very pregnant silence and looks at his watch. "Within one minute, the person presumed dead in this case will walk into this courtroom." And with that, he turns around and looks toward the courtroom door. Every juror immediately looks toward the door. A minute passes, then two, then three. Nothing happens. Finally, Anderson the lawyer says, "Ladies and gentlemen, what I just told you was not the truth. I actually said these things to make a point: every last one of you looked at that door as if there might be some credibility to that statement. This means that every one of you has a reasonable doubt that my client is guilty of the charges brought against him. And so I urge you to keep this reasonable doubt in mind as you deliberate, and that you return a verdict of not guilty for my client."

At that, the judge excuses the jury and the lawyers go out for lunch, thinking that it might be a few days before the jury returns. The barristers have barely cleared the courthouse before being summoned back into the courtroom. The jury had returned a verdict in just a few minutes.

After everyone has returned to the courtroom, the defendant is asked to stand. The judge asks, "Mr. Foreman, have you reached a unanimous verdict?"

"We have Your Honor?"

"How do you find?"

"We the jury find the defendant guilty of first degree murder."

At that the defense lawyer forgets all about courtroom decorum and screams at the foreman, "How in the world could you do this? There HAS to have been some doubt. I saw ALL of you stare at the door."

The foreman replies, "Well, yeah sure WE did, but your client didn't as much as peep at the door."

Habeas Corpus. Reasonable doubt. Skepticism. Thomas has been called the patron saint of skeptics; the Dali Lama of doubters.

Doubting Thomas. A complex guy, this man sometimes-called Didymus, the Twin. Who is he? A person in the true spirit of Thomas might question whether or not Thomas even existed.

And, by the way, is it such a horrible thing to question things? Isn't a little reasonable doubt good at times? From her soft and glowing demeanor, you wouldn't know this about Jeanette, but she is always questioning things. As a matter of fact, she's so skeptical, her blood type is R.U. positive.

But I am here today, ladies and gentleman, in the capacity of an attorney. I am here to defend the charges against Thomas that he is nothing but a skeptic. I will contend that Thomas' skepticism can actually be a positive thing. I will also assert that we can learn many more constructive things from his life than we can the negative aspects.

I present as Exhibit A, the 11th chapter of John. Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, has been sick: very sick. Deathbed sick. Mary and Martha, being close friends with Jesus, ask Him to make a housecall and heal their brother. Yet after hearing their request, Jesus goes the opposite direction of the plea and stays two days longer where He is.

Now, the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is worthy of several sermons that stand on their own. As a matter of fact, the very first sermon I ever preached was about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. But I call your attention to two very crucial facts.

First, Jesus delays His housecall to Mary and Martha's home for a very good reason: He wants to make sure Lazarus is not only dead, He needs to insure that Lazarus is good and dead, deader than dead. He wants to be like the coroner from the Wizard of Oz, who gives his report on the Wicked Witch of the West:

"As Coroner, I must aver,
I thoroughly examined her,
And she's not only MERELY dead,
She's really most SINCERELY dead."

Jesus wants Lazarus to be this dead so that there would be NO DOUBT about demonstrating His power to raise the dead.

Second, John has a deep, underlying atmosphere of fear. When Jesus says it's time to leave, the disciples say, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone You, and are You going there again?" Jesus answers with His famous words, "Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them." After saying this, He tells them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him."

Somebody says, "Lord, he'll be all right if he's just fallen asleep."

Jesus tells them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."

All that is said and done to this point is prelude to Thomas' role in the story. The disciples don't think that they are going to a little resurrection party: they believe that Jesus is going there to die. And what is the most pronounced, basic desire in a human being? It is to survive, to stay alive. The disciples don't want to check out of the Earth Motel 6 just yet. And who is it that steps up to the plate and puts the other disciples to shame? It's Thomas, the guy always given the rap for being a doubter. In this case, Thomas doesn't have a shred of doubt in Jesus. He turns around and says, "Let us also go, that we may die with Him." Thomas echoes the words of Job, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him, but I will maintain mine own ways before Him (Job 13:15)." Rather than doubt Jesus, Thomas believes Him enough to lay down his life with the Lord. Hardly the words of a skeptic.

I now call your attention to Exhibit B, which is the 14th chapter of John. Jesus and the disciples are in the Upper Room, and it is here that He utters those words you've heard a thousand times at every funeral you've ever attended, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going."

Have you ever heard a person say something that is either so profound or so beyond your realm of understanding that you don't know what to say? You deal with it by just standing there smiling and nodding your head and saying to yourself, "I don't have a CLUE what he's talking about." You don't want to appear ignorant, so you let on that you know understand the speaker perfectly. Why do we do this? It's because we would rather appear to be smart than to be smart enough to say that we don't comprehend. It's a switcheroo of the old saying that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

But ever so often, someone has the courage to look the speaker in the eye and say, "I DON'T know what you're talking about. Would you please explain it to me?" Now, I've been on both sides of this equation. Having taught Greek at the college level, I can remember the class being in two separate groups: those who "got it" and those who didn't. I can easily re-live the frustration I felt when NO one from the head-scratching "what'd he say" crowd would raise her hand and ask, "Would you please explain that to me?"

Thomas has the courage to look stupid. He would rather APPEAR to be stupid than to keep quiet and actually BE stupid. So he raises his hand and says, "Lord, I don't understand this. We don't really know where You are going. How can we know the way?"

Even though it's not in the text, I can imagine Jesus the teacher smiling and, saying, "Excellent question. Allow Me to clarify: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

A good teacher is not threatened by questions. Au contraire, a good teacher will be thrilled that she doesn't leave the station if there are passengers who don't board the train with her. God WANTS us asking questions. God WANTS us to understand, and if we don't understand, He takes delight in His children wrestling with whatever it is we're trying to understand.

So we've seen two of the three characteristics the scriptures tell us about Thomas: 1) that he is a man of deep faith and courage who is willing to put his life on the line instead of just talking about it and 2) that he is inquisitive and wants to learn and to understand life. I don't know about you, but those are good characteristics in my book.

But the book isn't finished on Thomas. I present for your consideration Exhibit C, the 20th chapter of John. The crucifixion and the resurrection have just taken place. Jesus appears to ten of the original 12 disciples. Two are missing. One is Judas Iscariot, who was hanging around elsewhere, and the other was Thomas. Why was Thomas not present?

We don't really know why, but he's somewhere else when Jesus appears to the ten. After that encounter with Jesus, the disciples find Thomas and say, "We have seen the Lord."

Now, we've demonstrated that Thomas is a very smart guy. He uses his brain. He wants to understand things. Some would say that Thomas is a poster child of the scientific mindset, that nothing is real unless it can be proven through sensory observation or contact.

Although Thomas is a thinking person, he's like the rest of humanity: he has an emotional side, and his soul-driven, feeling side has just taken a beating. The man that he followed and worshipped had just been crucified. All the dreams he had dreamed had gone up in smoke. Thomas looks at the disciples and thinks, "You WANT to believe that He's still alive so badly that you've concocted this imaginary world where He IS alive. But it's all fantasy."

Thomas throws down the gauntlet: "Unless I see the mark 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."

Now, remember how Jesus delayed His visit to Lazarus to make sure Lazarus was most sincerely dead? Jesus very well could have instantly appeared before Thomas in a poof of smoke and said, "Surprise, surprise!" But He doesn't. He delays His return visit for an entire week. He wants to make sure that Thomas' doubt is most sincerely entrenched. He wants to make sure that Thomas' faith is "not only MERELY dead, it's really most SINCERELY dead."

A week later, eleven of the original twelve are there in that locked house when all of the sudden Jesus appears, says, "Peace be with you," and doesn't waste any time. He says 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."

Now, some may have been embarrassed and ran. They would not want to look stupid. They would have conjured an excuse such as, "Hey, I believed it all the time: I was just joking."

But Thomas, in addition to being brave and courageous and inquisitive, also knows when he's been wrong. Having had his doubt ripped to shreds by Habeas Corpus, he utters those immortal words, "My Lord and my God!"

So, in summation, what can we learn from Thomas?

First of all, every individual experiences doubt. All of us go through times when we doubt. Sometimes we doubt the existence of God; sometimes we doubt His love for us. Sometimes we doubt His willingness to answer our prayer. Sometimes we doubt that He even cares. And let's be honest: sometimes we doubt if He knows what He's doing.

When Thomas has this major crisis of faith, he doesn't separate himself from those who DO believe. Instead, he gets with his friends. He echoes the words of the faltering father in Mark 9:24: "I believe. Help Thou my unbelief." Many people, when engaged in a spiritual crisis, will separate from their Christian friends, preferring to go it alone. Yet Thomas is brave enough to let others share in his struggles and is open to possibilities far beyond his understanding.

Secondly, ask questions. Be inquisitive. If you don't understand something, ask. The true sign of the progress of knowledge is not so much the information one acquires, but rather in the increase of questions that result in obtaining that knowledge.

Thirdly, don't discount your emotions and feelings. Whenever you find yourself overly rational, consult your emotions: what are they be telling you? Though recognized as a logical, left-brained person, Thomas was honest enough to admit when his emotions and logic contradicted what was actually seen.

On the flip side of the coin, whenever you find yourself overwhelmed with emotions, try to step back and consult with your powers of reason. Will this thing last forever? Is it able to be overcome? Will I be weeping or blathering forever? You'd be surprised with the conversations you can have with yourself.

Fourthly, remember that, just like Thomas' name, we are all twins. Part of me believes; part of me doesn't believe. Part of me is overflowing with faith; part of me is bone-dry in trust. Part of me wants to follow Jesus even to His death; part of me wants to scram at the least hint of difficulty while following Him.

You see, faith in Christ is like Habeas Corpus: all of this evidence and no body. Yet He continually stands knocking at our heart's door. May we all be like peeping Thomas and be ever glancing in His direction.