A character that has been much praised about Thomas was his -courage to cling on to Jesus in spite of possible physical dangers to his life. When Jesus decided to go to Jerusalem to be beside his friend Lazarus who had just died, Thomas stood by him although the other disciples discouraged him from taking up such a visit which would put Jesus’ life in danger from the hard-core Jews there. Thomas’ words on this occasion have been recalled again and again by the Christian faithful down the ages: “Let us also go that we may die with him” (Jn 11:16). The courage of Thomas was not just a spur of the moment bravado, but his audacity arising out of his conviction that the Jewish stand against Jesus was merely a self-centred abhorrence spearheaded by the self-seeking Pharisees and Scribes of Jerusalem. And Thomas was ready to be with Jesus come what may, since Jesus’ mission was certainly to liberate the Jews from the throes of many a selfish Jewish leader. But in order to understand better the valiant stand taken by Thomas we should have a better understanding of the real situation in the Jewish capital of Jerusalem, and the fundamentalist Jewish leadership.
i. The Mission of Jesus in a Fundamentalist Jewish Society
The proud section of the walled city of Jerusalem was none other than the temple constructed by King Solomon in the 8th century B.C., attracting millions of Jews every year. Situated in the region of Judea, Jerusalem was also the capital city of Palestine. All the religious leaders as well as the political authorities resided in Jerusalem. The High Priest the most important person in the Jewish community not only presided over the cultic activities but was also the .president of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious council which judged all matters concerning Judaism.
Jerusalem was also a place where the Scribes and Pharisees moved around flaunting their power as they performed their respective functions. The former were the official interpreters of the Law and the latter the recognized custodians of Jewish cult and tradition.
The Jewish society was a totally theocratic one with the fundamentalist traditions of cult and Law dominating every aspect of the day to day life of people. Some of the harshest expressions of such fundamentalism were the rigid demands of Sabbath observance, and the harsh treatment meted out to the Samaritans, the Gentiles, the women, the tax collectors all of whom were considered as “sinners”. In general the sinner class included all the poor of Palestine, who formed nearly eighty percent of the total population. And they were the poor agricultural farmers who were at the mercy of constant draughts and famines, the uneducated fisher-folk around the sea of Galilee, and the numerous sick population like the blind, the lame, the paralytic, the leper - most of them maimed even from birth thanks to the ill-fed mothers who begot them.
The fundamentalist Jewish religious leadership just got used to the miserable socio-economic conditions of their people and even attributed their misery as God’s punishment on them. But Jesus manifested a totally different attitude towards the society of that time as he began his Kingdom mission among them.
Jesus’ style of functioning was unique. He was a person totally committed to the people and catered to their spiritual as well as their temporal needs. In the midst of a life of economic poverty, social discriminations and political oppression the people set their hopes on the Messiah who would soon come and help them out of their misery. It was a time of anxious expectation. And Jesus did not belie their hopes. He gave them assurance that he had come to relieve their misery. In fact in the inauguration of his mission at the Synagogue of Nazareth, the text of Is 60:1-2 with its clear allusions to the mission of the future Messiah to the poor and the needy was fully endorsed by Jesus with the words, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”(Lk 4:21). Here is a summary of Jesus’ ministry:
- He assured people that a new society of love and justice was soon to dawn on them with such solemn proclamations as, “The time is fulfilled; the Kingdom of God is at hand....” (Mk 1:15)
- He raised the hopes of the poor by assuring them “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven!” (Mt 5:3)
- He gave comfort to everyone saying, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10)
- He defended his healings performed even on the much revered Sabbath days when all work was forbidden. His life-giving mission should not be hampered by meaningless regulations. His casual remark was, “The Sabbath was made for human kind and not human kind for the Sabbath” (Mk 2:27)
- He saved the women caught in adultery going against the old law of Moses and even challenged her accusers, “let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone against her” (Jn 8:7)
The Jews of the higher class in general and those in authority like the Pharisees, the Scribes and the Priests in particular, were up in arms against Jesus even from the first days of his ministry. In the first place they were not able to accept the fact that Jesus attracted large crowds of people particularly among the poor. His mission in favour of the Kingdom of God with all its characteristics of love, compassion, justice and equality could not but enthuse the poor and be in disagreement with the obsolete, outdated and anti-people rules and regulations of the Jewish faith. The Jewish authorities became hostile to Jesus and began to look for an opportunity to do away with him even from the earliest days of his ministry (Mk 3:8).
Jerusalem, the centre of Jewish authority was aggressively hostile to Jesus.
ii. Jesus’ Controversial Visits to Jerusalem
Jesus, the good Jew that he was, did not fail to go to Jerusalem and worship in the temple. But every visit of Jesus to this sacred city ended up in a controversy just because his way of functioning did not correspond with the traditional approaches of Jerusalem. In fact he challenged the Jewish authorities either directly or indirectly every time he took upon some activity in Jerusalem. Significantly the Synoptic Gospels present Jesus as making just a single solemn visit to Jerusalem and that was to undergo his passion and death.
But the fourth evangelist records several visits of Jesus to Jerusalem and every visit is momentous by the controversy that is created around him. Our study of the brave declaration of Thomas to go and die with Jesus at Jerusalem should be seen in the context of these visits.
i. The first official visit of Jesus to the city of Jerusalem was to celebrate the Passover festival (Jn 2:13-25). In fact it was the cherished desire of every Jew to celebrate this most important festival of their religion at least once in Jerusalem. Wherever a Jewish family celebrated the festival with the Passover meal, it was to conclude with these noteworthy words, “Next year in Jerusalem!”. The Passover reminded them of the liberation they received form Yahweh from the slavery of Egypt and it also in a way urged them to show a similar concern to the poor and the needy around them.
Jesus’ first Passover visit became a big controversy because of his violent behaviour within the precincts of the temple. The temple was no doubt crowded with devotees who flocked from all over Palestine in order to make their festive offerings. But what was a purely religious affair gradually developed into a roaring business of selling birds and animals for sacrifice, and exchanging of money to make offerings. It was certainly done with the generous approval of the temple authorities, the priests, for the immense profit it brought to them. At the very first sight of this scene Jesus was incensed with anger. Taking a whip in his hand, he indulged himself in a most unexpected behaviour, namely driving the traffickers out of the temple with a violent use of the whip. Why such an aggressive action on the part of Jesus? It was his zeal for the temple! In what way was the temple contaminated? Well, the place where the marketing took place was precisely the court of the gentiles where the discriminated non-Jews were permitted to worship (Is 56:6-7). Hence the heinous crime of injustice was committed in the very temple premises. And Jesus’ Kingdom mission would not accept such a blatant violation of justice. And if proof was required for the authenticity of his action, it would be given after he was killed. A new temple, namely Christianity which would become the universal temple, with membership from every ethnic race in the world, would come up with his resurrection.
The prophetic action of Jesus in the temple did have its bitter repercussions on him. The Jews eyed him with anger and hatred.
His first Passover visit to Jerusalem thus ended with Jesus being considered unwanted in Jewish circles.
ii. The second visit of Jesus to Jerusalem described by Jn 5:1-18 could have been on the occasion of another festival of Passover or the feast of the Tabernacles. One more controversy comes to the fore with this visit of Jesus. The event concerns his healing of a paralytic who had suffered from his physical infirmity for over 38 years. His long cherished dream that he could be healed in the pool of Bethsaida by the healing powers of the occasional bubbling spring could never be realized, as someone ahead of him became the beneficiary of the immediate effect of the spring each time it sparkled up. In such pitiful circumstances Jesus heals him immediately and asks him to go home carrying his bed as a sign that he was totally alright.
The healing event becomes a controversy simply because it took place on a Sabbath day. In the ten commandments given by God through Moses the people of Israel were asked to rest from all activities on the Sabbath (Ex 20:8-10; Dt 5:12-14). The Jewish understanding of the origin of the Sabbath with its basic tenet of a cessation of all work is linked to God himself. He takes rest and hallows the seventh day after he had completed the work of creation in the first six days (Gen 2:1-3). Hence the Sabbath had a divine connotation and had to be taken seriously.
But in the course of time certain exaggerations on Sabbath observance crept in. The Pharisees increased their self importance by assuming to be custodians of Sabbath and included many a ridiculous prohibitions interfering even with basic human rights. Some of these were like carrying a bed (Jn 5:10), nursing a sick person (Mk 3:2; Lk 13:14), picking up ears of corn to satisfy hunger (Mt 12:2), and walking further than a prescribed distance (Acts 1:12). Jesus did not condemn the Sabbath itself, bat the inhuman prohibitions attached to them. He preached that the Sabbath obligations should yield before the precept of the love of neighbour since the Sabbath. was made for man and not man for Sabbath (Mk 2:27). Besides certain essential works of God continue in process even on Sabbath day and restoration of the health of a person is certainly an essential service at which God is continuously at work. Hence Jesus’ assertion near the pool of Bethsaida, “My Father is still working, and I am also working” (Jn 5:17). The event of the Sabbath healing ended in a note of bitterness against Jesus with the Jews seeking to kill him not only for breaking the Sabbath but also for claiming that God was his Father (Jn 5:18). After this controversial visit the Jews were really looking for an opportunity to kill Jesus, and he did not wish to go about in Judea, as freely as he did in Galilee (Jn 7:1).
iii. The third visit of Jesus to Jerusalem along with his brothers was yet again on a festival, the festival of tents, another occasion for a pilgrimage to the holy city. It was essentially an agricultural festival of the ingathering of fruits (Dt 16:13-15). This festival commemorated the Israelite settlement in the greener pastures of Canaan after a difficult life in Egypt as well as the desert of Sinai. (Dt 26:6-11).
As Jesus visited Jerusalem and the temple during this festival, he began to teach the people there as his custom was. This time his teaching was of an apologetic nature, defending his work with the people. It is on the last day of the festival that Jesus makes this important but controversial revelation about his mission. The following assertions of Jesus could have further annoyed the Jewish leaders and added to their hostility. What made matters even worse was that many of the common people were gradually drifting away in his favour:
- “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the ones who believes in me drink” (Jn 7:37-38), and the immediate response of the crowd was, “This is really a prophet....This is the Messiah” (Jn 7:40)
- “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (Jn8:12); this statement of Jesus followed the event in which he saved the life of the woman caught in adultery, and totally bewildered her accusers, the hard-core Jews
- “I testify on my own behalf and the Father who sent me testifies on my behalf” (Jn 8:18).
- “Very truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am” (8:58).
And this bold assertion of Jesus was followed by some of them picking up stones to throw at him, and he left the temple (Jn 8:59).
No doubt Jerusalem, the temple precincts, and the neighborhood surrounding it were quite dangerous for Jesus as well as his disciples. And Bethany was just two kilometers away from Jerusalem. The Jewish leaders had built up a systematic hatred against Jesus, and they were convinced that he could not be permitted any more to continue with his mission of defying their age-old traditions. Their leadership ran the risk of being rejected by the people. That would mean a total change of Jewish perspectives and outlooks. Hence their animosity against Jesus. And Jesus was bent on going to Bethany to show his love for the family of Lazarus, and to raise him up in spite of the dangers to his life.
Thomas, the Valiant
Thomas’ determined courage to support Jesus and follow him even to death does indeed leave a very favourable impact on his behalf. How come that he stands apart from the rest of the apostles in his valiant support for Jesus? Certainly Thomas was possessed of a character which depicted a deep commitment to the person and message of Jesus. He had simply developed a mature personality over the years and this bore fruit at a critical stage of his discipleship with Jesus. This astonishing character trait of Thomas could also have been reflected by the fourth Gospel from an enterprising role he had been playing in the first century Christian community where this Gospel had developed.
Then what about the stubbornness which the same Apostle Thomas had manifested a few days later in not accepting the resurrection of the same Jesus? As mentioned earlier here too he was honestly representing the prevalent sentiments of his times; but what is again more important is that it is Thomas who makes a total reversal of the sentiment of doubt with his excellent attitude of faith and total surrender to Jesus. Here again the Apostle has shown his, valiant personality. He had the courage to reverse his position when he was made to confront the real truth about Jesus. The wounds received by Jesus on the Cross which have been haunting him are now presented to him as the triumphant marks of the risen Jesus.
And he did not need any more proof as he surrendered with his profound confession, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28)
