A Doubting Thomas Comes to Jesus

By Wayne Brown
Of course, I'd heard all about God and Jesus at an early age. From the age of 5, I filed it away with Santa and the Easter Bunny. Thinking back, it's so fitting that the person of Jesus should come to me in my early twenties via the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas:

These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas wrote. 
1. And he said, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death. 
2. Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. 
3. Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father's) kingdom is within you and it is outside you.When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are poverty."
I remember the impact this had on me as if it were yesterday. It would be years before I put it fully in context. It was the opening: "sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded". Wow. Until then, Jesus occupied that alternate universe of popular mythology. Here, he was presented as a living, breathing person. And not your ordinary living breathing person.

The actual content of the sayings had it's impact too. Strange, but somehow familiar. Enigmatic but somehow deeply meaningful.

Years later, I would have the benefit of some formal Theological training and a bit of Biblical history. I'd learn about the process that excluded "Thomas" from the Canon, but inexplicably admitted "Revelations". To be sure, the theology of Thomas was steeped in the coptic mysticism of Egypt (all about secret wisdom). But it looks odd only because we are familiar with the life of Jesus steeped in Jewish and Greek mythology. Eventually, I'd need to admit I had no idea what Jesus was talking about in the passage that impressed me so much in the beginning. In time, I became drawn to the Person revealed in the canonical Gospels. 

The voice and personality of Jesus speaks down the ages to the hearts of the lucky individuals who can hear it. Over a gulf of 2000 years, it's not surprising that you need to listen carefully and you run the risk of hearing only what you want to hear, but the voice is unmistakable. As it turned out, all the stuff that was supposed to come along with Jesus didn't "stick". I was never comfortable with the idea of God. I never quite understood the concept of Jesus as some supernatural saviour. But His voice remained with me. Nothing spooky about this. Nothing supernatural. Just somebody who knew exactly how we should live.

It makes so much sense to me that this journey began with the writings of Thomas, the "show me" apostle. Perhaps Thomas was the first of the Christian Skeptics.

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