1. A week has passed, and without record. It is a blank on which a reverent imagination may dare to fasten. We might have been thankful if the same powerful and devout hand that drew for us the picture of “A Death in the Desert” could have drawn this also-the agony of suspense in such a heart and such a mind as that of the Apostle who had so lately said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Two things we may say with certainty. That week was a week of strong crying and prayer, as when Jacob wrestled with God and became Israel. Again, such a man in such a brotherhood would not have suffered quite alone. Who that has ever pondered on the character of the disciple whom Jesus loved, and noted the fact that he and he alone records all these details in the life of his brother Apostle, Thomas, can doubt that these agonizing hours were cheered by the prayers and the sympathy of at least one earthly friend?
At last the suspense ended. Again the first day of the week returned. Again the disciples were together, this time Thomas with them. Again the same Master stood among them, with the old message of Peace. We can imagine, with reverent awe, with what eyes one of those present gazed upon Him, “looking unto Jesus,” even as he had never looked before. “Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and see my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and put it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.” Thus the evidence that a week before was granted to the others, the evidence that he was certain he needed for himself, was now offered him. There it stood within his grasp. Which of us believes that he grasped it? No, surely no. If before his words had done his heart some wrong, now his heart was better than those words. In the full tide of a satisfied faith, he saw, we may believe, even more than they all. “Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.”
Thomas “the doubter” is the first to pronounce the great word “God,” the first to confess the full Divinity of Christ. This rebound from despair to faith carries the soul farther at one leap than the position reached by more placid minds after long experience. Here is the compensation of the questioning mind. The restlessness of dissatisfaction in the conventional or traditional is very painful. Doubt is always distressing, and when it is carried far into regions of vital importance, agonizing. But when it is dispelled, and sure conviction takes its place, that conviction is more clear and more assured than the faith of unquestioning minds. There is no faith so strong as that of a man who has fought his doubts and conquered them by honest means.
It was his heart that conquered. “My Lord and my God.” It was the deep spiritual life of Thomas that overcame; and in that supreme revelation it was not that he put his brain aside as useless, but that in the deepest revelation-the revelation that comes not to the wise and prudent but to the little child-there is such a degree of certainty that rational methods, however they may substantiate, will make no difference whatever to the assurance of the man who comes into living contact with the Lord Jesus Christ. “My Lord and my God.”
Thomas is the apostle for our century. He has the critical, sceptical mind of the time, but he has the loving heart, the simple heart that will always conquer. I do not think that the brain and the heart are in necessary conflict, because I am quite sure that when Thomas entered into that supreme knowledge of Jesus Christ his brain was no longer in conflict with his heart. He realized the truth, and his brain would give its witness to the truth that had been realized-on a higher spiritual plane the two concurred, “My Lord and my God!”1 [Note: J. E. Rattenbury, The Twelve, 208.]
2. We must not treat him harshly whom Jesus treated gently. In him the triumph of faith was delayed only that it might be thorough. Think rather how fully he now believes than how slowly he came to his faith.
But what Bays the Saviour to him? “Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed!” As he heard these words, Thomas perhaps said in his heart: “Henceforth this blessedness shall be mine. Last week it might have been mine, for I only heard of that which the rest saw. How happy had I been could I have then believed! But, having now received this great ‘sign,' henceforth I will live by a faith confirmed by sight, but not dependent upon it.”
How are we to take these words of Christ? Do they commend those who believe without having seen? or do they, as it were, congratulate them on being able to do so? They teach us to regard such persons as both happy and approved. But they do not imply that it is well to believe without evidence, or that the sight of that which nevertheless we believe without seeing will not afford us peculiar joy. Happy, how happy, are they who see the good days, the good fruits, for which they have long waited! He indeed is blest who trusts an absent God; but how blest is he who opens the door when at last it pleases God to knock thereat as a visitor! They were blest who could calmly believe, when Peter lay in prison awaiting death, that God would provide for His servant whether in death or by deliverance; but how happy were they to find Peter standing at the door, and to know that their prayer was answered! “Blessed are your eyes, for they see,” said our Lord to the disciples. Not thus blest were the righteous men and prophets who had desired to see. And yet to these holy and faithful men belonged the very blessing of which Christ spoke to Thomas. They believed that God would do great things for Israel and the world, that a glorious time was coming; but they knew not when God would work, and only very obscurely how. They believed that God would make of the wilderness “a garden,” and in the desert would give “water springs”; but they did not see these happy changes, or know the time and way in which they would be effected. These men were approved of God; and they were happy as well as approved: for often by faith alone were they rescued from the despair into which others sank, and many of their days were passed in peaceful hope.
Let us then dare something. Let us not always be unbelieving children. Let us keep in mind that the Lord, not forbidding those who insist on seeing before they will believe, blesses those who have not seen and yet have believed-those who trust in Him more than that, who believe without the sight of the eyes, without the hearing of the ears. They are blessed to whom a wonder is not a fable, to whom a mystery is not a mockery, to whom a glory is not an unreality.
St. Jane Frances Chantel never cared to hear of miracles in confirmation of the Faith, nor revelations, and occasionally she made them pass them over while they were reading in the refectory the Lives of the Saints. She resembled in this the great St. Louis of France, who, once when he was called into his private chapel to see some miraculous appearance which had taken place at Mass, refused to go, saying, that he thanked God he believed in the Blessed Sacrament, and should not believe it more firmly for all the miracles in the world, neither did he wish to see one, lest he should thereby forfeit Our Lord's special blessing on those who have not seen, and yet have believed.1 [Note: The Spirit of Father Faber, 77.]
3. The adoring confession of Thomas, “My Lord and my God,” is the climax of the Gospel of St. John. He has led us from confession to confession, steadily upward from Nathanael to Peter, from Peter to Martha, and now from Martha to these culminating words of Thomas. With these he stops, as though his work was done when the loftiest confession of all burst out from the soberest and most cautious of the Twelve.
And to these words of Thomas all Christian life must come. We know well enough what we ought to do. What can be simpler than to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? But where in the wide world shall we find strength to do so? It is not enough to hear of Christ, or to confess Him along with others as our Lord and our God. The belief of others will do you no good, for no truth is truly yours till you have made it yours by labour and toil, and found its echo in your own heart. You are not truly Christ's till you let the world drop out of sight and take Him for your own with the Apostle's cry, “My Lord and my God.” “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.” This is the cry which the Saviour delights to hear; and in it you shall find for yourself a never-failing well of life, and a never-failing stream of blessing for those around you.
Dr. Pusey's daughter (Mrs. Brine), in her description of her father's last moments, says: “I spent the morning either kneeling by his side or leaning over him, and holding his dear hand. It was about ten o'clock that I heard the faint but distinct utterance, ‘Thou Lord God of Hosts,' as if he were conscious of a Presence we could not see. Later on there came a sort of triumphant burst, with the words, ‘My Lord and my God.' He said the words with an emphasis of victorious, assured faith, as if the vision were revealed to him of the Master he had loved and served so faithfully. One must have heard it to enter into what I mean.”1 [Note: The Story of Dr. Pusey's Life, 552.]
The bonds that press and fetter,
That chafe the soul and fret her,
What man can know them better,
O brother men, than I?
And yet, my burden bearing,
The five wounds ever wearing,-
I too in my despairing
Have seen Him as I say;-
Gross darkness all around Him
Enwrapt Him and enwound Him,-
O late at night I found Him
And lost Him in the day!
Yet bolder grown and braver
At fight of One to save her
My soul no more shall waver,
With wings no longer furled,-
But cut with one decision
From doubt and men's derision
That sweet and vanished vision
Shall follow thro' the world.2 [Note: F. W. H. Myers, A Vision.]
