Sunday, April 27, 2014: John 20:19-31; 1 Peter 1:3-9

The story of Thomas in John 20, which may have been the book’s original conclusion, salutes those who “have not seen and yet have come to believe.” First Peter offers a similar commendation: “Although you have not seen him, you love him.”

These texts offer encouragement for later generations of Christians. How do people who didn’t see Jesus on earth come to faith? It’s a critical question for John’s Gospel—and for the church. John is clear that he writes in order to help readers come to believe that “Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” Separated in time and space from the resurrected Jesus, we depend on what others say. So our belief is somehow more special, indeed “blessed” (20:29).

Protestantism’s emphasis on justification by faith intensifies this concern for how we come to believe without seeing the nail marks or putting our hands in Jesus’ side. In some branches of this tradition, faith can become a monumental existential exercise—so much that “faith” can even resemble a “work.” In this context, we can understand and even empathize with Thomas’s refusal to accept the witness of the other disciples. Still, it can be hard for him to be a model for us.