The set text for the Second Sunday of Easter is the story of doubting Thomas (John 20.19ff). Thomas, who would not believe until he had seen and touched the risen Christ.
A couple of weeks ago I went to see the new Tim Burton movie ‘Alice in Wonderland’. It was a fantastic romp of the imagination. Alice is poised on a gazebo of a lovely, rambling English country house and, with many family and friends about, receives a proposal of marriage from a person who is emphatically portrayed as an upper class twit. She sees a rabbit in the hedges, follows and disappears down a rabbit hole. Thus begins a bizarre series of adventures that culminates in her defeat of the Red Queen’s prize fighter, the dragon-like Jabberwocky. On Alice’s return to ‘reality’, she has the confidence to resist the proposal of marriage, which was strongly encouraged by members of her family for her sake (and their own).
The trip down the rabbit hole is sheer fantasy. It seems. And yet in the midst of this bizarre fantasy is a deep and abiding truth. In this case Alice discovers the strength of her abilities and character. She will not bow down to the pressures of family or convention. Without that tumble down the rabbit hole, would she have accessed this truth?
John Ashton has produced an excellent book on the Gospel of John called Understanding the Fourth Gospel (for anyone interested in John it is virtually required reading!). In it he refers to the resurrection and post-resurrection stories as fantastical, with a dreamy, Alice in Wonderland quality.
Purists might object to this characterisation: it is true, isn’t it?
Yes, it is true. And perhaps this truth is so much more convincingly portrayed in its sheer sur-reality.
Imagine sitting in that upstairs room with the disciples. Something comes in that looks like Jesus. Physical and yet can enter a locked room. Unreal. There is fear and perhaps joy and of course the peace with which Jesus blesses them. Weird.
Thomas says, ‘Rubbish’. Next week, same thing happens. Some strange presence appears again. It is Jesus, and Thomas has the courage to reach out and to touch (or try to touch) this presence. His response: my Lord and my God!
How weird. How true. This risen Jesus exists somewhere between concrete physical reality and a spectral, shimmering cloud closer to a ghostly presence. In this surreal atmosphere we begin to get to the truth that John and his early community experienced: a Jesus both real and more than real.
Like Alice, Thomas perhaps learns about himself. There is an unbelievable courage there: who would reach out to touch this presence? Mary tried in the garden but was dodged by Jesus. This courage is joined to insight. Amongst all of the followers in the Gospel it Thomas, and only Thomas in this surreal scene, who calls Jesus ‘my God’.
We learn that Thomas has unique courage (see the reference to him earlier in the Gospel) and unique insight. In this bizarre world truths proliferate. Truths beyond our everyday ken.
In this doubting there can but be joy. Not the simplistic, childlike joy of great smiles and hugs and hands-in-the-air. But the joy that comes from awareness, insight, recognition. The joy that is immediately followed by call. Thomas, the one who doubted the most is the one who travelled the furthest. Tradition tells us that he travelled to India and established the church there.
Can there be joyful doubting? Undoubtedly.
But first we ourselves must disappear into these surreal stories and access a truth beyond the everyday. And there doubt and joy and faith await.
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