My thoughts, for some reason, wandered to the apostle Thomas today, a guy who’s had the bad luck to be remembered primarily for the weakest moment of his life. Hence his lasting nickname, “Doubting Thomas.”

If you’re one of our younger readers, it’s fairly likely you don’t know who I’m talking about. So I’ll share a short passage from the Gospel of John, just after the resurrected Jesus has appeared to His apostles (John 20:24-29):

Now Thomas (called Dydymus¹), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Countless preachers have railed about Thomas’s doubting, but what’s impressed me about the story has always been Jesus’s graciousness. I have the feeling that if a medieval writer had composed the story, he’d have had Jesus appear in a blast of lightning, striking Thomas deaf, dumb and blind. Then he’d have Jesus declare, “Woe to him that doubteth. Those carnal senses in which he trusted, behold, they shall be taken from him forever, and he himself shall abide in eternal fire.”

But the Lord Himself is a lot more reasonable. The Kingdom of God isn’t just for easy believers, the kind of people who think they can get rich by letting a Nigerian prince run his money through their bank accounts. It’s also for the skeptics, the people who want to weigh and measure things, the forensic technicians of life. Christ’s words suggest that it would have been better for Thomas to take his friends at their words, but if more evidence is needed, it will be provided. Thomas isn’t a confirmed skeptic, after all. He’s just a guy who’s been burned.

The measure of what I assume must have been his disappointment at Christ’s death a few days before is the stand-up character he’d exhibited earlier. Jesus had told the disciples He was going to Bethany (near Jerusalem), having received news that his friend Lazarus was dead. The political currents of the moment made that a dangerous trip, but Thomas is reported to have said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (John 11:16)

I’ve actually heard one pastor try to turn that passage against Thomas, saying his pessimism was evidence of his essential faithlessness. I have no time for such mechanical exegesis. People who think that way must have a hard time reading the Bible, which is full of actual human characters, not allegorical prototypes.

Very early tradition says that Thomas was martyred as a missionary in India. Interestingly, the Indians themselves agree, and have numerous legends about him.

I’ve always assumed that Thomas didn’t actually accept the invitation to stick his finger into Christ’s wounds. It seems to me that would be presumptuous, under the circumstances.

But we must remember he was Jewish. Maybe he had the chutzpah to do it.

¹That’s Greek for “Twin.”