Sermon for the Feast of St. Thomas
“My Lord, and My God”
Thomas, called in the Scriptures, Didymus, is more commonly known as “doubting Thomas”. He is the apostolic Advent saint, par excellence, since his commemoration always falls in late Advent, indeed, close to the winter solstice, the darkest time of nature’s year, and the longest night. Yet there is a wonderful paradox. Somehow, through Thomas’ doubting or questioning, we are, as Thomas Aquinas puts it, provided with a greater confirmation of faith. The Collect picks up on that sensibility and understanding.
Advent is the season of questions. The story of Thomas belongs to the accounts of the Resurrection and to the struggles of the disciples about the meaning of Christ as Lord and God. Thomas was not present with the other disciples huddled in fear behind closed doors on the evening of the day of Easter when Jesus revealed himself to them. Thomas has heard from them about what they saw and heard “but he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into his side, I will not believe”. He seems to be insisting on the reality of Christ’s bodily existence. “Eight days later, [the[ disciples were within and Thomas with them, then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst”.
The marvel of this account is that it is preceded by Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene whom he commands noli me tangere, “touch me not”! Here Jesus bids Thomas to do the exact opposite, namely, to touch and see, specifically with respect to the wounds of his crucifixion. In a way it is a testimony to the bodily reality of the Incarnate Christ and to his Resurrection. Once again, we are reminded of the inescapable connection between Christmas and Easter.
In that sense his feast day belongs to the last days of Advent in the near approach to Christmas, to the birth of Christ, to the Word made flesh. That Jesus says one thing to Mary Magdalene and another to Thomas in the same chapter of John’s Gospel recognizes the different forms of human knowing. He speaks to each according to the capacity of the beholder to behold, we might say. His doubting is really his questioning about the nature of God’s engagement with our humanity. Theologically, it is a telling rebuke to what will become one of the earliest heresies, Docetism, which denied that God could become human, denying the engagement of spirit and matter, of God and man, seeing that as unworthy of God thus maintaining the complete separation of both.
