“My Lord and my God”
Is Thomas being redundant here? Don’t “Lord” and “God” mean the same thing to the disciples, at least in their understanding of the titles? Well, no. By “Lord,” Thomas was saying Jesus is his master, the one he follows and obeys. It is a title that a servant would give to his overlord. It is significant to call Christ “Lord,” sure. After all, to most people on the Roman Empire, Caesar was Lord. Calling anyone else “Lord” could get someone living in the empire into serious trouble. But Thomas is going a step further here. He is not just calling Jesus, “Lord”. He probably already considered Jesus to be his Lord, so if he just said, “My Lord” when he met Christ after the crucifixion, one could say that Thomas was just accepting the reality that it was indeed Jesus, his Lord, whom he was encountering. But Thomas also says, “My God.” Did Thomas believe Jesus was God before this point? We know St. Peter did. Maybe the other disciples did as well. It’s even more likely that they did after witnessing his resurrection. But Thomas did not witness it until that point. Was this the very moment Thomas accepted Jesus as not just his Lord, but also his God? Was it in this moment that Thomas acknowledged Jesus as the creator of the universe, the giver of life, the God of his forefathers who performed all the miracles he had been learning about from his youth? If this is the revelation Thomas is receiving in this moment, it is especially significant. Thomas is the skeptic among the disciples, saying, “Unless I see the marks ... I will not believe.” So if even he, a skeptic, was coming to believe by seeing Christ that day, perhaps even the greatest skeptics in our lives would be convinced that Jesus is God after an encounter with the resurrected Christ as well. May we pray for the skeptics in our lives to experience just that, because the resurrected Christ is still among us after all. Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. One could easily believe that Jesus is just talking about belief in his resurrection. Of course, he is talking about that. But let’s not forget that it’s not only true that Jesus rose from the dead. It’s just as true that he is risen from the dead. That’s why you will see it written on the signs on people’s lawns and church marquees as, “He is risen,” to emphasize the fact that Christ is alive and among us today.