This morning the thing that is striking me the most about John 20:26 is that Thomas was STILL with them 8 days later. That is a big deal. He would obviously be outcast, not sharing the faith of the others that saw and believed (I’ll still call that faith) or the belief of the others that didn’t see but still believed.
The other thing that is getting me (if I can mix in some of my Romans 2 study here) is how Jesus accepts even poor disciples. Jesus didn’t just appear to the heavy hitters or the people that were currently doing or in the future would do the best. Jesus appears to all of the believers. He even appeared to 500 unnamed people!
How often I categorize or rank people according to how well I think they are doing as a disciple of Jesus! And here is Jesus showing up and calling the punk of the group in a merciful, inviting way!What this tells us about the Father: duh. He is an outreacher. I said it to my wife this week: He’s nuts. He’s also nuts with mercy for showing up to the disciples while they are locked up, afraid, in this closed room. Surely there were people that had seen Him or heard Him in other places that weren’t shut up in a room.
Even so, God is reaching for the people that He has been close to in the past and the people that He wants to draw closer to. He is not restricted by unbelief or proximity or door locks.