TITLE: We Are Thomas

SUBTITLE / INTRO LINE: A Letter to My Children · John 20:24–29

There is a detail in the twentieth chapter of John’s Gospel that the text drops quietly, almost without ceremony, and then moves on. Seven words in the ESV: “Thomas was not with them when Jesus came.”

No explanation. No apology. Just the fact of his absence, and then the story continues.

I have been sitting with those seven words for some time, and I want to share with you what I believe they mean — not just for Thomas, not just for the disciples in that locked room — but for us. For you and me, right now, on this side of the resurrection.

The Night Thomas Missed

It was the evening of the first Easter Sunday. The ten remaining disciples were gathered behind locked doors, afraid. And Jesus came. He showed them His hands and His side. He breathed on them. He said, “Peace be with you.” It was, by any measure, the most extraordinary moment in human history.

Thomas was not there.

When the others found him and told him what had happened, Thomas refused to believe it. His response was not quiet skepticism. It was a full, public declaration:

“Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”
— John 20:25

We call him Doubting Thomas, and there is something a little unfair about that name. What Thomas was doing, at bottom, was being honest. He was not pretending to believe something he didn’t. He stated plainly what he needed, and he stood by it.

Eight days passed.

The Second Appearance

When Jesus came again, Thomas was present — along with all the other disciples. This is worth noting. Jesus did not arrange a private meeting. He came to the gathered community, the same brotherhood that had witnessed Thomas’s declaration of doubt, and He addressed Thomas directly, in front of all of them.

“Put your finger here, and see my hands. Reach out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.”
— John 20:27

He met Thomas at the exact point of his stated conditions. Every specific demand Thomas had made, Jesus answered. And Thomas — who had been the hardest holdout in the room — became the one who spoke the highest confession in all four Gospels:

“My Lord and my God.”
— John 20:28

Why Was He Absent?

The text never tells us. Scholars have wondered for two thousand years. Grief? Business? Temperament? We simply do not know.

But consider who was in control of the timing and conditions of the resurrection appearances. Jesus walked through locked doors. He appeared and disappeared at will. He was the risen Lord of creation, in whom all things hold together.

There is no version of this story in which Thomas’s absence was a logistical inconvenience that Jesus simply worked around.

God knew Thomas would not be there. God knew what Thomas would say when he heard the news. God knew the exact words — “unless I see… unless I touch” — before Thomas opened his mouth. And God arranged the whole sequence anyway.

That is not accident. That is authorship.

Written for Our Instruction

“Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”
— Romans 15:4

This is not a minor footnote. It is a declaration about the primary purpose of everything in Scripture. The events are real — historically, bodily, literally real. But they were recorded, preserved, and handed down not merely as history. They were written for us. For the generations who were not in the room.

Which means the Thomas story was always aimed at us.

God arranged through Thomas’s absence three gifts for every future reader:

The legitimacy of honest doubt. Thomas did not pretend. God did not punish him for intellectual honesty — He met him precisely there. The text teaches every doubter that they may bring their conditions to Christ.

The sufficiency of testimony. The ten told Thomas what they had seen. John wrote it down. The church carried it forward. That chain of witness — eyewitness to written word to reader — is sufficient ground for faith.

The beatitude as direct address. Jesus speaks one statement in the resurrection narratives that breaks the frame of the historical moment and reaches forward through every century to land on us:

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
— John 20:29

We Are Thomas

My dear ones — we are Thomas, every one of us.

Not because we are chronic doubters, though honest doubt is nothing to be ashamed of. But because we stand in exactly the same structural position he occupied in those eight days between the appearances: we have heard the testimony of those who were there, we have not seen for ourselves, and we are asked to believe.

We are not at a disadvantage because we were not in that room. The beatitude of verse 29 tells us plainly that our position — believing without having seen — is not a lesser form of faith. Jesus called it blessed. He honored it above the seeing itself.

There will be seasons when the room feels locked and the testimony of others seems thin against the weight of what you are facing. In those moments, remember Thomas. Remember that the risen Christ walked through locked doors to meet one man’s honest doubt with nail-scarred hands.

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

What we do with the witness we have been given is the same thing Thomas was finally asked to do — not a scientific experiment, not a set of conditions to be satisfied — just the simplest and hardest thing in the world:

Do not disbelieve, but believe.

With all my love,

Iam Kerr

“Who do you say that I am?”

John 20:24–29 · Romans 15:4 · 1 Corinthians 10:11