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Thomas Feels Abandoned Too

‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ (John 20.19-31 (https://www.biblegateway.com NRSVA)
The situation that the disciples find themselves in is strikingly similar to our own. They’re gathered behind locked doors because they’re afraid. But they’re not alone. Suddenly they realise Jesus has come to be with them. He breathes his Spirit on them and offers them the gift of peace. ‘Do not worry about tomorrow,’ he seems to say, ‘For tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.’ (Matt 6.34) And as Paul was later to say, ‘If God is on our side, who is against us?’* (Romans 8.31) Kevin Mayhew put it well when he wrote, ‘Peace, perfect peace, is the gift of Christ our Lord.’
But Thomas missed out on this encounter with Jesus and in consequence his nickname has been forever changed from ‘Thomas the Twin’ to ‘Doubting Thomas’. Yet his reaction isn’t unreasonable. Thomas is feeling bereft and abandoned. He’s in that stage of grief which is marked by anger at being left behind by the one we loved and trusted, and this mirrors Jesus’ own sense of abandonment on the cross. Thomas says he  won’t believe until he can actually ‘thrust’* his hand into Jesus’ wounds.
And that’s not just a gory detail in a graphic piece of storytelling. Jesus’ wounds are the crux of the matter. William Shakespeare reminds us that ‘Jesus’ wounds’ were something English people often thought about at one time. So much so that the expression had the same common currency when he wrote his plays as ‘Jesus wept’ has today. But we’ve airbrushed them out of the Easter story - until now.
Thomas is saying that he’ll only believe he’s not been abandoned when he knows that the same Jesus who himself felt abandoned on the cross is with him now. And, eight days later, Jesus suddenly comes alongside him and urges him to ‘bring your hand here and thrust it into my side.’*
Thomas’s story seems to have been the original ending to the Gospel. Later, another episode was added to it, but this ending reminds us that the purpose of the Gospels is that, like Thomas, we might ‘come to believe in Jesus’.
*Translation from The New Testament Freshly Translated by Nicholas King

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