We're still at the stage of shock/disbelief/awe/fear/amazement in our Easter readings from the gospels. Not surprising, and these stages of grief-turning-to-joy should not be underestimated. For the disciples, their world had been completely turned upside down. They had in some way come to accept the unsettling of their world in the three years they had been with Jesus, but this new reality of resurrection demanded a bigger leap, a wider imagination, an exploding and emerging shift to all they had known.
I imagine it was all pretty untidy, this acceptance of resurrection, with some casualties- ideas, cherished notions, if not people- along the way. But it had a collective feel about it; the disciples, the women, the witnesses, could explore the implications, the Lord's directions, together.
That untidiness is hinted at in today's gospel; Thomas wants evidence- a reasonable request- before he believes any more than the has gains of the last three years. Doubt and evidence; vital components of a lively faith, otherwise we have uncomprehending, blind, unreasonable, -and ultimately eminently mockable- cultic 'faith'.
Yet Thomas ultimately comes to the deepest acclamation of faith in the gospels- 'My Lord and my God!' So let's hear it for untidy, disputatious searchers for truth, and help them on their way; who knows, they might venture as far as exotic, unimagined India (qua Thomas) in the reality of the good news?
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