It was still the first day of the week. That evening, while the disciples were behind closed doors because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities, Jesus came and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. When the disciples saw the Lord, they were filled with joy. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you don’t forgive them, they aren’t forgiven.” 
Thomas, the one called Didymus one of the Twelve, wasn’t with the disciples when Jesus came. The other disciples told him, “We’ve seen the Lord!” 
But he replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger in the wounds left by the nails, and put my hand into his side, I won’t believe.” 
After eight days his disciples were again in a house and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus entered and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here. Look at my hands. Put your hand into my side. No more disbelief. Believe!” 
Thomas responded to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” 
Jesus replied, “Do you believe because you see me? Happy are those who don’t see and yet believe.” 
Then Jesus did many other miraculous signs in his disciples’ presence, signs that aren’t recorded in this scroll. But these things are written so that you will believe that Jesus is the Christ, God’s Son, and that believing, you will have life in his name. 
 
“Proof – what I want is proof.” That’s seems to be what Thomas needs in our story – proof that Jesus indeed had been raised, proof that the others disciples who had claimed to see him weren’t smoking something, or imbibing too much in the wine in their grief around Jesus’ death. A second-hand account isn’t enough for Thomas – and why should it be? I mean, why do these 10 other disciples get to see and touch Jesus, all because he didn’t happen to be there when Jesus first appeared to them? It’s not fair, and, frankly, why should he believe something profoundly fantastical? Some things you can take someone word on it – but this, this requires more than just the word of a group of grief-stricken disciples. Surprisingly, perhaps, Jesus gives it to Thomas, a moment, an encounter all his own. To help Thomas believe that Jesus is risen, Jesus offers his wounds, the nail marks, the signs that the man crucified is the man before him. It’s interesting that it’s the wounds of Jesus that will be proof to Thomas that it is him, his Lord, this Jesus of Nazareth, truly risen from the grave. And it’s even more interesting that there are, in fact, still wounds and nail marks on that risen body, that love given flesh and bone, buried, and now alive. Look, if you’re going to rise, I would think, wouldn’t you want to rise minus the wounds of crucifixion, or the scars from a long chemo regimen, or lashes found in a body who has died because of an auto accident. And when I rise, which we are promised will happen to us on that last great day, I want to rise with my 21-year-old body, and my head full of hair.
And yet Jesus doesn’t rise with a scar-free body – Jesus rises with his wounds, and he offers them to Thomas so that he can put his fingers into the slash of flesh caused by the sword that pierced his side on the cross – and Thomas can run his fingers over the palms where they beat nails into his flesh. We don’t know if Thomas took him up on the offer, but I think I would have, despite the grossness of it all – I would want to know for sure that these wounds were real, because it would make this reality with Jesus very real to me. It’s also clear that the writer of John wants us to take this moment, the proof given in this moment to Thomas and be able to live with not being able to put our own fingers into Jesus’ wounds, to not experience what these earliest disciples experie