Acts 2.14a, 22–32, Psalm 22, John 20.19–31
12 April 2026, The Second Sunday of Easter
Austwick, Keasden
Why is the story of Thomas in the Bible? The man who wouldn’t believe what people told him about Jesus’ resurrection until he’d seen the evidence for himself. Countless sermons have warned us against his poor behaviour. By contrast with the disciple who had run ahead of Peter to Gethsemane, reached the tomb first, and finding it empty, ‘saw and believed’; or with Mary, who, recognising Jesus in the garden when he spoke her name, went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”, here we find Thomas discounting the other disciples’ testimonies, saying, “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.”
Why is the story of Thomas in the Bible? Before attempting to answer that, let me just say that I, for one, am glad that it is. For of all the disciples, in this moment, I find Thomas the most relatable; for in his questioning, in his doubting, I recognise myself. It seems to me that he is a person rather like us, who, when life takes a turn for the worst, turn around to find that God seems to have disappeared.
Does this help us to understand why the story of Thomas is in the Bible? Of the four gospel writers, only John makes space for this story, and only John speaks directly to us, his readers, to explain the reason why he wrote what he did: in verses 30 and 31 he tells us, ‘Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.’
‘These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God’ – you who struggle like Thomas to believe him when you just can’t see him.
You, for whom life has taken a turn for the worst, and for whom God seems to have disappeared, ‘These are written so that through believing you may have life in his name.’
John included the story of Thomas to help us to see that it is possible, even in the lowest of moments, to find unbelief making place for belief. It is possible if we do not turn our back on God when it feels like he has turned his back on us – and wait, instead, and watch for him to come again.
I know many people who have walked away from God following a bereavement or a life-changing illness, or because of their pain at the suffering of the world’s innocents; I can’t and won’t criticise them for that, for I have many moments when I’m close to doing the same.
Thomas might have done the same – walked away from the house where the disciples met, never to return. But John shows us Thomas not walking away, but staying, waiting, even in his unbelief.
Maybe John wants us to see Thomas in the same way as we saw Jesus, hanging on the cross. Remember what Jesus said as he hung there: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In his hour of deepest pain even Jesus felt abandoned; at the moment when he most needed to feel the presence of The Father, he felt his absence. We could say that this was Jesus at his most ‘human’, his most relatable, moment.
This is Jesus crying into what feels like a void, just as we cry into that same void about our troubles and our losses, our sense of horror at the injustices of the world, the suffering children, the pain of the innocent ones.
But this is also Jesus doing what Thomas later did: not abandoning faith altogether, but waiting.
We know that Jesus was reciting the opening line of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me, and are so far from my salvation, from the words of my distress? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; and by night also, but I find no rest.”
Jesus was making this psalm his prayer, barely audible to those who stood beneath him at Calvary, but a cry from his heart to The Father. And [because we have recited it together this morning] we understand that this is a prayer which moves, dramatically, from those words of abandonment to a remembrance of what God has done before: “Our forebears trusted in you; they trusted, and you delivered them”; which then moves on to a cry for salvation: “Be not far from me, O Lord; you are my strength; hasten to help me”; and is followed an astonishing moment of revelation on which the psalm pivots, the second part of verse 21: “You have answered me!”
Is this story of Thomas in the Bible to encourage us to not abandon faith when it gets tough, but to remember what good things God has done before, and to wait, in trust that he will do so again?
When considering these things I was reminded of that well-known Christian verse called Footprints in the Sand. Just as John’s story of Thomas is there to encourage us to to believe in Jesus even when it’s hardest to see him, this poem, with which I close, does so, beautifully well:
One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.
Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
other times there were one set of footprints.
This bothered me because I noticed
that during the low periods of my life,
when I was suffering from
anguish, sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints.
So I said to the Lord,
“You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you,
you would walk with me always.
But I have noticed that during
the most trying periods of my life
there have only been one
set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most,
you have not been there for me?”
The Lord replied,
“The times when you have
seen only one set of footprints,
is when I carried you.” [1]
Notes
[1] Wikipedia: Footprints (poem): for a discussion of the poem’s authorship see Rachel Aviv, Enter Sandman: Who wrote “Footprints”? Poetry Foundation, 19 March, 2008.
