Thomas

 Thomas loved to listen to Jesus. He knew Jesus was the Messiah who had come to save the world. Thomas just didn’t understand how Jesus would do that!

Thomas and the other disciples had been with Jesus when this message came from Jesus’s friends Martha and Mary, “Your good friend is very sick.” Thomas worried when he heard this message, because he knew the sisters lived in Bethany. Their town was near the city of Jerusalem, where priests and other leaders of Israel hated Jesus and wanted to kill him. 

Thomas and the others but didn’t understand what Jesus meant when he said, “This sickness will not end in death. The reason Lazarus is sick is so that God will receive glory. Everyone will praise God when they see how great and powerful the Son of God is.” Jesus’s followers were glad that after constant travelling, that for two days Jesus made no move to leave the place they were staying, east of the Jordan river. 

But after two days Jesus said, “Let us go to Bethany.”

“No!” the disciples said. “The Jewish leaders nearby in Jerusalem want to stone you to death, Jesus, and you’re going there again?”

“Our friend Lazarus has gone to sleep, and I must go and awaken him.”

“If he is sleeping,” they said, “he will get well!”

Jesus shook his head. “Lazarus is dead.”

Thomas didn’t know what Jesus was going to do, but if he had decided to risk being captured and killed, Thomas planned to be at his side. “Let us go too!” he told the others. “We’ll die with him!”

So they all had gone to Bethany, where Thomas heard Jesus call Lazarus to come out of his tomb. He saw Lazarus alive again. 

But everything had changed quickly after that day. Their fellow disciple Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus. The priests sent Temple guards and Roman soldiers to the garden of Gethsemane in the middle of the night to arrest Jesus. They held an illegal trial that Thursday night and decided he was guilty. 

On Friday they got the Roman governor, Pilate, to say that Jesus should be put to death. Jesus allowed himself to be beaten, spit upon, and made fun of before an angry mob. The Lord Jesus, whom Thomas loved and had followed for three years, was put on a cross to die on a hill between two thieves. 

Thomas went away by himself and wept. He didn’t understand how the Son of God could be murdered on a cross! Why hadn’t Jesus called for angels to fight for him? Nothing made sense to him anymore. Without Jesus, all hope was gone. 

On Sunday, Mary found the disciples. She was so excited. “I’ve seen Jesus. He’s alive!”

Thomas wished he could believe her, but he couldn’t. Later that night he came to the upper room, and the other disciples cried out, “You just missed him. Jesus was here. He really is alive! We’ve seen Him!”

In your dreams! Thomas thought. If only it was true!

“Unless I see and touch the place in his hands where he was nailed to the cross, and put my hand into his side where they speared him. I will not believe.”

The next week, Jesus entered the upper room again. This time Thomas was there. He stared, his heart full of hope again. Jesus held out his hands, palm up. “Touch me, Thomas. Put your hand in my side.”

But Thomas didn’t need to touch Jesus. He knew and he wept, this time with joy!

“My Lord and my God!” He would never doubt the power of God again. 

 

 

Until Jesus died, Thomas faithfully followed him. Then Thomas began to have doubts about what he believed. He questioned whether or not Jesus really was the Son of God. 

Why do you think Thomas had doubts?

What might Thomas had expected Jesus to do when the soldiers came?

As soon as Thomas saw Jesus alive and well, he never doubted again. 

Why do you think Thomas changed his mind about needing to touch Jesus’s scars?