In the Christian calendar, yesterday (July 3) was the feast day of St. Thomas, one of Jesus’ Twelve Apostles.
He is often known as “Doubting Thomas” because of his refusal to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead unless he touched the wounds left by the nails and put his hand in the spear wound in his side.
A week after Jesus’ first appearance to his disciples, Thomas was given the opportunity to do just that (John 20:24-29).
Thomas’ nickname was Didymus, which means twin, giving support to some early Christian legends that Didymus Judas Thomas was Jesus’ twin brother.
Ancient tradition also has Thomas, in the days of the early church, traveling to India to spread the gospel.
The Christians of Malabar claim that it was Thomas who evangelized them. He is also known as the patron saint of architects, for legend has it that while in India he helped build a palace for a king.
As the story goes, Thomas was killed by a spear while in India and he was buried at Mylapore, near Madras. An ancient stone cross still marks the spot to this day.
One of the most sensational archeological discoveries of the 20th century has also put Thomas in the limelight; the unearthing of the Gospel of Thomas near the Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi in 1945. The find also included 51 other early Christian writings.
This gospel is a collection of Jesus’ sayings that claims to have been written by Didymus Judas Thomas.
It records 114 “secret teachings” of Jesus. Some of these are quite well known, as they can be found in the gospels of our present Bible but others are quite different, causing some scholars to believe that the sayings of Thomas may be closer to what Jesus actually taught than what we find in the New Testament, while of course others will disagree.
The gospel begins by stating that anyone who learns the interpretation of these words will have eternal life (Saying 1).
There are other early writings attributed or connected to Thomas, such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, depicting scenes from Jesus’ childhood; the Apocalypse of Thomas and the Acts of Thomas, which is the text that supports the tradition mentioned earlier, that Thomas brought Christianity to India and of Thomas being Jesus’ identical twin.
It seems, in the end, that Thomas was a person much like the rest of us, with our good points and our bad, trying to live his life the best way he could, following the Way of Jesus.
So I end with the words used at the end of our Sunday services: “Go in peace to love and serve one another, for in doing so, you love and serve the Lord.” God bless.
-The Reverend Simon Shenstone is pastor of Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Grand Forks
