John 20:19 -31

Ahhh Jesus, you walk straight in to where we are. Even when we have shut the door, even when the sign says closed due to fear, or doubt or (insert your preferred reason for avoidance here).
Can you imagine the frustration of all those disciples, big hand gestures, gasps, pleading, and Thomas, arms folded just shakes his head, “No guys, no way, not having it” gah! Can you feel it, can you identify ? The pacing, the face-palming, the “what more can I say to make him believe me?”
While we are eye rolling at Thomas, we are missing something. Something really important, all of these guys just a short while before didn’t believe Mary Magdalene telling them the same truth. Men who were told Jesus is not in the tomb, and who then ran straight there because they needed to see for themselves.
What went through the minds of these apostles of Christ when Mary told them the impossible had happened? What did you think the first time you heard HE had risen from the dead?
…….You are looking for something to cling to, an emotional crutch.
……..You need to believe this to just get through this time.
………You seem happy, That’s lovely for you…it won’t help me.
……….You’re deceived or your mad.
…………it’s just companionship you need
………..This simply isn’t true, do I tell them or not?
…………I only deal in real.
…………This is your truth, that’s fine, it’s not my truth.
Mary Magdalene only knew He’d risen after He called her by name.
The apostles only believed after HE had walked right through their closed doors and spoke peace to them.
and Thomas, our friend Thomas had to touch the holes in HIS hands and the gash in HIS side to know what he had been told was truth.
Each of them needed a very personal encounter with the risen Christ to believe. They needed to fill their own lamps with oil.
So what part did their friends have to play? Was there any point in that heated discussion in the upper room, while Thomas all but called his close friends liars? Should Mary have anticipated the sympathetic looks of how she wasn’t dealing with the grief so well and kept her encounter to herself?
Each revelation perhaps makes a little notch in that doubt process, each proclamation of an impossible truth means maybe, just maybe there’s something in it. The last lines of this Divine Mercy Sunday Gospel tells us, this was written down, professed “so that YOU may believe that Jesus is the Christ”. If you’ve met HIM it needs to be told, even when there’s not one person who believes you.
However, if you live under the rule of “if it sounds too good to be true……” then ask Him for proof, ask HIM to walk through your own locked doors, show you his wounds while his gaze rests on yours, to open your eyes at the breaking of bread…or if you are brave enough, maybe just ask him to call you by name, the one written on the palm of His pierced, wounded and wonderful hand.