Thomas the Convinced

There are two classes of minds which habitually stand in the post of outlook — the man of the laurel and the man of the cypress. The first sees the world as rose-coloured. It is all brightness, all beauty, all glory — a scene of splendid possibilities which is waiting to open for him its gates of gold. The second, on the other hand, approaches it with dismay. To him the prospect looks all dark. He is a pessimist previous to experience. He is sure he will never succeed. He is sure the gate will not open when he tries it. He feels that he has nothing to expect from life. He hangs his harp upon a willow, and goes forth to sow in tears.

And each of these has a representative in the New Testament. I think the man of the laurel

is the evangelist John. From the very begin- 131 ning he is optimistic. Even when Christ was on the road to that martyrdom of which He had warned His disciples, John is so sanguine of success that he applies for a place in the coming kingdom. And through life this optimism does not desert him. His very power to stand beside the cross was a power of hope. It was not that he excelled his brother-disciples in the nerve to bear pain. It was rather that to him the spectacle conveyed an impression of less pain — that he saw in it elements of triumph as well as trial, signs of strength along with marks of sacrifice.

But if the man of the laurel is John, the man of the cypress is assuredly Thomas. There are men whose melancholy is the result of their scepticism; Thomas’s scepticism is the result of his melancholy. He came to the facts of life with an antecedent prejudice; he uniformly expected from the banquet an inferior menu. It is a great mistake to imagine that the collapse came with the Crucifixion. Strictly speaking, there was no collapse. If I understand the picture aright, it represents the figure of a man who could never stand at his full stature but was always bent towards the ground. It was not from timidity. He was a courageous man, ready to do and dare anything even when he was most downcast. It was not from a mean nature. He was a man of the noblest spirit — capable of the most heroic deeds of sacrifice. That which gave him a crouching attitude was simply a constitutional want of hope — a natural inability to take the bright view. It was this which made him a sceptic. He was indisposed to give anything a trial. When the disciples assembled at their first spiritual seance in the hope of getting a vision of their risen Lord, he refused to attend;’ when told that a vision had been given, he refused to believe it. It was too good news to be true. He would have believed the story of an earthquake or a pestilence or a shipwreck; but he could not credit the earth with the power to witness a scene of glory.

‘I think the same religious hopelessness would keep him from attending the meeting for silent individual prayer in Gethsemane; I do not believe he was one of those who fled that night.

Now, the question which arises is this, Why is Thomas so leniently treated? He demands as an evidence of the risen Christ that very kind of proof which the Pharisees had demanded as an evidence of the Divine Christ — a physical sign. We know how Christ treated the Pharisaic demand, how He had said, ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given unto it. ‘Is it thus that our Lord meets Thomas .-’ On the contrary. He grants his request — not perhaps without reproach, but certainly without loss of tenderness; He bids him put forth his hand and touch the material sign — the print of the nails. There must have been something in Thomas which won upon Christ, which made the request in his case comparatively harmless. What was it.’’ It is a question well worthy of our consideration. We are familiar with the saying that circumstances alter cases; it is equally true that persons alter cases. The boon of a physical sign denied to the Jewish nation is granted to a Jewish individual. There must have been something in that individual which to the eye of the

Master changed the complexion of the case and rendered it possible to relax the rigidness of the rule.

And a moment’s reflection will convince us that in the picture of Thomas we have a specimen quite unique in the male section of Christ’s first hearers — a figure which must have been unique even to Jesus Himself. For consider, the natural melancholy of this man made his approach to Christ an unselfish one. He expected nothing from the world — nothing from a world even under the auspices of Christ. Yet he came to Christ — -spite of this absence of physical expectation. Whatever drew him to the Master, it could have been nothing external. Here was something fresh and new. All around Him Christ saw men who came on the chance of a physical glory. The sign they asked was not so much a sign of Christ as a sign of their own felicity. Even the circle of the apostolic band was pervaded by the hope of a physical glory. With some it took the form of Messianic conquest; with others, like Simon Peter, it assumed the aspect of an earthly

Paradise far from the din of men. But whatever form it took, it had always the same essence — outward reward. The Christ was measured by His power to change the present order of physical things — to place two ignorant fishermen at the right hand of heaven, to bid the stones be turned into bread, to change earth’s water into plenteous wine, and expand the few loaves into food for the million.

But here is a man who approaches Jesus in a totally different attitude. He was a man of the cypress — a man to whom the world did not present possibilities. I do not say it did not present attractions; but where attractions are believed to be beyond our reach they have no motive power. It is a proverbial saying that an infant cries for the moon. But the infant cries for the moon because it believes that luminary to be within its reach; if it had a contrary belief, we are absolutely safe in stating that it would not cry. All aspiration is born of hope. If I believe an object to be beyond the stretch of my arm, I do not stretch my arm towards it. It is equally true with the things of the heart.

I do not make an effort to attain that which I know to be entirely above me; desire, in such cases, is paralysed on the threshold. And such I conceive to be the case of Thomas. He looked at the world from under his cypress-tree, and he pronounced it an impossible world — a world whose gates of promotion and whose doors of promise were not for him. He had too keen a sense of life’s difficulties to be impelled by any worldly hope in Christ, and therefore he never could have joined Christ for any such motive. Yet he did join Him. He threw in his lot with Jesus and accompanied His train. Why.’* So must have asked the Son of Man Himself; and the answer His mind gave must have been refreshing in the extreme. Amid the many who came to Him for His surroundings, here was one who came to Him for Himself. Christ beheld in Thomas a devotion to His person. Had he recognised in the Master some of his own cypress leaves — something which prevented Him from having fulness of joy y I cannot tell; but I know that the man of depression drew close to the Man of Sorrows, and I feel that the bond between them was stronger than any material chain.

In this portrait of Thomas I think there are revealed two things of great significance. We see a Christian love in the absence of a Christian creed; and we see what is more remarkable still — a Christian faith in the absence of a Christian creed. Let us look at each of these separately.

And first. Let us take one central incident in the portraiture of Thomas. Perhaps if the question were asked, What is the most central incident in the portraiture of Thomas.? the majority would answer, * The touching of the nail-prints.’ That is not my opinion. I think the circumstance which most broadly marks the character of Thomas is his attitude towards Jesus on hearing of the death of Lazarus. Let us review the facts for a moment.

There has been a commotion in the streets of Jerusalem. The transition of Jesus from the work of a reformer to the work of a theologian has produced also a transition in the feelings of the multitude. They pass at a bound from applause to reprobation. Goaded by the suggestion of heresy in His teaching, they assail Him with stones. The majesty of Christ’s presence saves Him — paralyses the directness of their aim. Evading the fury of the populace, He retires into a secluded place, and for some time is visible only to His disciples. At last, to this desert spot come tidings of the death of Lazarus. Then Jesus resolves to return. The disciples are startled — on His account and their own. They are very unwilling to come into the vicinity of a place which had been so fraught with fear, so full of danger. Jesus, for His part, is determined. He says, ‘I go. ‘He does not ask any one to accompany Him; He simply expresses His personal resolve. Then through the silence one man speaks out for the company — ‘Let us also go, that we may die with Him! ‘It is the voice of Thomas.

Now, I say that this utterance of Thomas reveals at one and the same moment the deepest scepticism and the highest love. The scepticism does not lie in his expectation of Christ’s death. That was the very thing which Christ wished His disciples to expect, nay, to build their hopes upon. But the scepticism of Thomas comes out in the belief that the death of Jesus would be the death of His kingdom.

* Let us go, that we may die with Him. ‘The man who uttered these words had, at the time when he uttered them, no hope of Christ’s resurrection. No man would propose to die with another if he expected to see him again in a few hours. Thomas, at that moment, had given up all intellectual belief. He saw no chance for Jesus. He did not believe in His physical power. He had made up his mind that the forces of the outer world would be too strong for Him, would crush Him. The penitent said to the dying Lord, ‘Remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom. ‘Thomas could not say that; he saw no kingdom beyond the death; he could only cry, ‘Let me die with Him! ’

But what a cry was that! It was the voice of a boundless love. The natural sequence to the view held by Thomas would have been,

* The game is lost; save yourselves v;ho can! ‘The average man would have said, * Our Master is bent on a course which must inevitably end in the ruin of His cause; it now becomes imperative that we should provide for ourselves.’ Thomas says, on the contrary, ‘It now becomes imperative that I should share His ruin — die with Him.’ It is what I would call the logic of love — a kind of reasoning which on any other ground would be deemed absurd. It never occurred to Thomas that there could be a possibiUity of separation between his interests and the interests of his Master. In his mind they were one. He would have been glad to have shared in His good fortune had good fortune been His lot; but since the cypress and not the laurel had been His, the only remaining consolation was the possibility of being overtaken by the same storm and crushed in the same ruin. I know not in all the opening life of the apostolic band where to look for such a form of love. To find it in the primitive Gospel I must go out of that band. To meet with a perfect analogy I must go to those women who followed Jesus from the obscurity of Galilee to the obsequies of the grave. I think they were animated by r42 THE REPRESENTATIVE MEN

the love that dwelt within the heart of Thomas — the love which could exist even amid the belief that Christ had no outward sun. I think these women believed that Christ had no outward sun. They came to the sepulchre; but it was not because they looked for His resurrection; it was to anoint His body with the spices. Their whole solicitude was for the preservation of the body; ‘They have taken away my Lord, ’ cries one of them, * and I know not where they have laid Him! ‘They never would have brought the spices if they had expected a resurrection. Why anoint a body for the grave which the grave in a few hours was to yield up to life and liberty! The bringing of the spices was the highest proof of their shattered creed, and it was at the same moment the strongest evidence of their deathless love. They had taken up at the last the uncrowned Christ whom they had accepted at the beginning, and they had lavished upon Him all the treasure of their hearts. To these feminine souls Thomas Mras more allied than to any of the first apostles in their first days. He was drawn to the Master by something which the world could neither give nor take away; he had not expected the crown and he was not repelled by the cross.

But this same fact has a second aspect. It not only reveals a Christian love existing in the absence of a creed, but a Christian faith existing in the absence of a creed. For, let us understand distinctly what that was for which Thomas was prepared to die. It was an ideal. Paul says there is a faith which worketh by love. The love of Thomas reveals such a faith. What he proposed to die for was really a belief — the belief that death with Jesus was better than life without Him. I would call this a dogma of love as distinguished from a dogma of knowledge. It was an article of faith prescribed by the heart and enshrined in the book of the affections. Thousands of martyrs have died for their faith in Jesus; Thomas was willing to do so too. What is the difference between the faith of Thomas and the faith of the martyrs? It is this: The martyrs saw the sacrifice from under the laurel; Thomas contemplated it from beneath the cypress. The martyrs had their eye upon the rainbow; Thomas looked upon the cloud. The martyrs were convinced, not only of Christ’s spiritual beauty, but of His physical power; Thomas was satisfied only of the former. The martyrs beheld an eternity beyond; Thomas did not. Hence the martrys really said, ‘Let us die for Him ‘; Thomas exclaimed, ‘Let us die with Him. ‘It is the difference between optimism and pessimism; but it is not a difference in the intensity of faith. When I say, * I believe in that man, ‘I express my confidence in the man himself — confidence in his honour, in his uprightness, in his integrity of character. If I should be obliged to entertain dark views about his worldly prospects, this will sadden me, but it will in no wise shake my faith. My faith was not in his worldly prospects, but in himself — in my ideal of the man; and that ideal will remain unbroken, undimmed, unaltered, by any contingency that can befall his fortunes.

But behind this cry of Thomas there is something more — something which gives his faith an aspect higher than he himself knew. For, what was this determination to die with Jesus? It was really an unconscious act of homage to the majesty of a human soul. He was declaring, not by word but by deed, that mind is greater than matter, nay, that a single mind can to him outweigh all the material glories of the universe — its suns and its systems, its silver and its gold. The man whose deed could say that, was very near the hope of immortality. He might call himself an agnostic, an unbeliever, a man without a creed; but the mental act of sacrifice to the majesty of mind proclaimed him not far from the vision of eternal life. I do not wonder that Jesus offered him an aid to the belief in resurrection. It was worth while to help such a soul. He was nearer to the belief in resurrection than many who professed it. He had not seen the city of gold; but he had seen the transcendent beauty of the human soul. To have the vision of such a beauty is to be more than half-way to the happy land of Beulah. There are a greater number in the world like Thomas than the world dreams of. There are those whom we call secularists, nay, who call themselves so. They say, * Never mind looking beyond the skies; let us attend to the wants of our brother-man; let us surrender our lives to the life of humanity! ‘And many of these labour in that cause with great success. But why? It is because, like Thomas, they think man more worth serving than matter. There is more in their heart than in their catechism. Their catechism says, * Do not look beyond the earth ‘; but their eye has in an unconscious moment already looked beyond and seen that humanity is more than common clay. Living philanthropy is latent faith.

I have been endeavouring to account for the problem involved in that wonderful episode of the Picture where Thomas is represented as asking a special sign that Christ has risen — ‘Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe.’ The problem lies in the fact that the request is granted — that Christ in the case of Thomas departs from His usual practice of discouraging speculative curiosity. But where we err is in attributing that spirit to Thomas. I have heard Thomas described again and again as a speculative mind — a mind seeking to dive into the secrets of the future. A more unfair view of his position is not to be conceived. Perhaps he was the least speculative of all the apostles, and for the very reason that he was the least hopeful. Speculation is inspired by hope. it was hope that made Peter see his vision at Joppa. It was hope that gave John his vision at Patmos. It was hope that opened to Paul a glimpse of the highest heaven. But Thomas was not a man of hope; he was a man of despair. Curiosity was no part of his nature. His cry for a sign of the risen Christ was not really a cry for the resurrection; the present life had not been so bright to him as to make him interested in another. But what he was interested in was the survival of his Lord Himself. What cried out for satisfaction was not his curiosity but his love. The sign he asked was a sign that his Master was alive — a sign that he could meet Him again, speak to Him again, commune with Him again. Thomas had no wish to lift the curtain of eternity. He was content to remain in ignorance of what ‘the angels desire to look into.’’ All he wanted was to be convinced that his Lord was in the land of the living by the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that had been still.

And Christ granted him that conviction. * Reach hither thy finger, ‘He says, ’ and behold My hands, and thrust thy hand into My side, and be not faithless but believing ‘; and with a great cry love recognises its object and clasps its restored treasure. But even in his moment of transport Thomas receives an intimation that the sign which he asked was not the best thing — ‘Because thou hast seen, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. ‘What does Christ mean by these words.’’ It is worth while asking, for they express the reason of His habitual unwillingness to reveal Himself by material signs. Are we to understand that it is a more blessed thing to believe on slender evidence than on grounds of assured conviction y This is, I think, the common interpretation. The value of faith is supposed to lie in its want of credentials.

One of the Church fathers says, ‘I believe, because it is impossible. ‘It reminds one of the familiar story of a little girl in a Sunday-school who, when asked to define * faith, ’ wrote this answer — ‘It is the power to believe something which you know to be false.’ But our Lord’s view here is just the opposite of this. When He says, ‘Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed,’ He means that they are blessed because their faith rests on higher evidence — the evidence not of the sense but of the soul. The writer of the Acts says that Christ burst the bands of death because it was not possible death should hold Him. This is what I call unseen evidence — his Christ was not immortal because He rose from the grave; He rose from the grave because He was immortal. If the rising had taken place unknown to any human soul, it would not have altered this man’s opinion. Christ and death were to him two irreconcilable quantities; he could not think of them together. His formula would be, not * the Resurrection proves Christ, ’ but ‘Christ proves the Resurrection.’ That is a faith which Christ pronounces, which we must pronounce, blessed. To feel that the life of Jesus is its own witness, that the purity of His heart is bound to see the King in His beauty, that the self-surrender of His spirit ensures Him the kingdom of heaven, that His mourning for sin demands in the hereafter a compensating comfort, that His meekness merits a future inheritance, that His hunger and thirst after man’s righteousness has a claim to be filled ’ in the sweet by and by ’ — this is a faith which rests upon a rock impregnable, and compared to whose blessedness the sight of material wonders is poor indeed.

LORD, there are times in which my experience is the experience of Thomas. There are days when I hear not the bells of Easter Morn. I tread the road to Emmaus, and I meet not the risen Christ. I call to the five hundred brethren, and they answer not. I stand on the mountain of Galilee, and there comes no voice amid the breezes. I sail on Gennesaret’s lake, and I see no vision. I frequent the upper room, and get no hint of His presence. My faith cannot walk by sight in hours like these. What shall I do at such times, O Lord! Hast Thou a remedy for the loss of light.’’ Yes, my Father. Thou hast a gate where faith can enter without seeing where it goes; its name is Love. Lead me by that gate when my eye is dim! When I cannot follow Him to Olivet, let me worship Him on Calvary! When betimes I lose sight of His risen form, do not shut me out from the bearing of His name! In the days when immortal hope is dim, make room in my heart for immortal memory! If I cannot soar with Him into heaven, let me at least go back to finish His work on earth! Let me gather the fragments of the cross which remain on the Dolorous Way! Let me distribute of the twelve baskets which were not served in the wilderness! Let me take up His burden at the spot where He was too faint to carry it! Let me mourn with the Marthas whose Lazarus I cannot raise! Let me pray with the paralytics whose weakness I cannot cure! Let me sing to the sightless whose eyes I cannot open! Let me lend to the lepers the touch of a brother’s hand! Let me find for the fallen a chance to renew their days! Then shall my evidence come back — brighter, stronger. Then shall my Easter Morn shine again through the clouds of night. Then shall I know the meaning of these words: ‘Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. ’