Sermon Topic – Doubting Thomas
Photo of picture By Michael Angelus Merisi Caravaggius – http://www.christusrex.org/www2/art/images/carav10.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6804893
A healthy scepticism towards myths and propaganda is vital, but doubt should not be an end in itself or we become like Pontius Pilate who said ‘What is truth?’
The story of doubting Thomas is a challenge to our sceptical age. Thomas managed to miss the resurrection and this rather blunt young man famously said ‘I will not believe unless I can put my fingers in the nail marks’. It is interesting that he says ‘will not’ rather than ‘cannot’ raising the question as to whether faith is a choice. And his response when he finally faced with the risen Christ is not intellectual but personal. ‘My Lord My God’. The suggestion therefore is that faith is not in intellectual problem, it is a choice based on the evidence. We don’t all get the same encounter as Thomas, we don’t all get Pauls road to Damascus experience. And yet we get enough evidence to believe if we seek it. Jesus says to Thomas ‘‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”