The story we have before us today — the second half of it, anyway — is traditionally known as the story of “doubting” Thomas. We have been told a number of times by any number of scholars of all persuasions that that isn’t really fair to Thomas, and it doesn’t do justice to the story. Indeed, we are told that the word “doubt” in the original Greek does not appear anywhere in the story. Verse 27b — “Do not doubt but believe” — is more accurately translated “Do not be unbelieving.”

Doubters all

            That is all well and good. But the point is not that Thomas was not a doubter. The point is that Thomas was no more of a doubter than the rest of the disciples. Thomas doubted. There can be no, um, doubt of that. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put … my hand in his side ...”! Thomas doubted. Thomas was a skeptic, an unbeliever, an infidel.

            Thomas doubted, to be sure — but Thomas doesn’t really doubt any more than anyone else. This is not a story about Thomas. This is a story about Jesus. This story itself could be entitled “Jesus and the Unbelieving Disciples” — for that’s what they are! Every one of them! Yes, from Mary on Easter morning right on down to, but hardly limited to, Thomas, they are all doubters. Unbelievers! Infidels! Every one of them!

            Look at Mary Magdalene in the opening verses of this chapter. Mary is weeping at the tomb because she saw Jesus die, right before her eyes. She is weeping and grieving and mourning at the tomb, when sudden

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