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"MY LORD AND MY GOD"
Leonard skaria

Thomas the doubter's moment of enlightenment is an amusing side note to the triumphal event of our Lord's resurrection.  And quiet often we look upon " the doubter " with a contended, condescending smile- with a retrospective, yet triumphant ' we told you so!'

After all, didn't he have the testimony of his fellow disciples?   Didn't they tell him, " We have seen the Lord!"  (John 20: 25).   And shouldn't that be proof enough?

Certainly, we can blame him for missing the initial meeting that Jesus had with His disciples, when the Lord had shown them His hands and His side (v. 20).

But quintessential faith dictates that we 'not see and yet believe'.  The Lord himself tells him as much (v.29)

Yet, a question remains:

What should Thomas have done?   Should he have merely taken his fellow believers at their word and should he have simply believed ?   was he wrong to want to see and feel the Lord before believing?

Dear brothers and sisters and fellow doubters " Don't believe merely because your pastor told you that Christ is risen, or because you were born to Christian parents who took you to church since your second day on earth.   Don't believe because a sister named Mary told you that she had once seen the risen Lord.

Don't count on witnesses who just happened to see an empty tomb to come and feed your faith.

Insist just as Thomas did that "Unless see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand in to his side, I will not believe itˆ.(v. 25) 

Wrestle just as jacob did (Genesis32)

But how?

search .   search through His Word with your own hands.  Feel the texture of the prophesies for yourself.  Thumb through His covenants both in the Old and New Testaments, written and sealed by His bruised hands.  Kneel at His feet tonight.  Seek and knock and He will, indeed before you have a chance to ask Him, open the hidden truths and tell you and show you till you are satisfied.  He is a Lord who satisfies the hungry.  He is a Lord who grants you the desires of your heart.... if your desire is towards Him, if it is to understand His will.

The psalmist says, " Taste and see that the LORD is good.... (ps . 34:8 NIV).   Let us taste and see that He is real. 

Doubt.   but then approach Him with that doubt.   The world may brand you as a doubtor.  But you must see, feel, and touch before you can make others see, feel, and touch his King whom they have never met before.

Feel the bones that were broken to strengthen you the stripe or His back by which you had that miraculous healing.  The other day, the scars on His, once, blemish free face.  Ask Him  about the silence at the garden of Gethsemane and how to endure even when a prayer or two go unanswered .   Ask Him about how it felt to be forsaken by God on the cross when He was dying for your sins and mine.   And He will tell you.  

Consider how privileged we are.  The Israelites were warned not to touch even the foot of the mountain upon which the Lord had descended, lest they die (Ex. 19: 10-13).   In Exodus 3:5, God tells Moses, " Do not come any closer, take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground, " How privileged we

are that we can approach this forbidden, holy ground, with out even having to cover our faces as Moses had to during that meeting .    How privileged we are that we can feel Him, touch Him and speak with Him through the redemptive blood of the Lamb that was shed on the cross.

By His actions, it seems, that instead of rebuking the doubter, our gracious Lord is saying, " If you have the desire to see me, feel me  and  know me at a more personal level, then I will show myself to you".

Not just a group of knowledge, but seek a personal, intimate, knowledge of Christ.  Personalize the savior who died on the cross- as far as you are concerned - for you and you alone.

So when we meet Him, whether it is tonight at a prayer meeting with our Bible Study group, or from the last row of a large, impersonal crusade, or all alone in the middle of the night from a hidden closet in our heart, we can exclaim with joy - filled recognition, ' My Lord and MY God!"