A Case of Sheer Bullheadedness

I was sixteen and being incredibly stupid. I'll spare you the details of the actual stupidity; you can rest assured that my parents knew I was being stupid and they told me so -- not in so many words, but, you know, close. I knew I was being stupid, but I didn't want to admit it, because that would have meant a.) my parents were right, and b.) I'd have to stop being stupid. In other words, I had come down with a severe case of sheer bullheadedness.

One day, mid-stupidity, a good friend called me. This was fairly unusual -- he lived in a different state, and this was back in the day when people wrote actual snail-mail letters, so that was mostly the extent of our friendship. So when my mom handed me the phone, I was excited to hear from him. Until...

I must admit, I held this friend in quite a bit of awe. He was a fifteen-year-old evangelist and prophet. He was the first person I credit with waking me up out of spiritual lethargy, enough to realize that my "Sunday School Christianity" was boring, and that it was possible and even exciting to have fire and passion and zeal for the Lord. Every word he spoke pointed to Christ in one way or another, and if it didn't directly point to Him, he very quickly steered the conversation that way.

The weird thing was, it wasn't annoying. Or in your face. Or anything like that. It was a picture of the zenith of a love relationship. 

So I respected this friend greatly. And he called me one day in the middle of what was quite possibly the worst case of spiritual bullheadedness I have ever displayed, and he called me out! He nailed me to the wall. "I was praying this morning, and the Lord showed me a vision of you."

Gulp. "He did?" Kids, don't ever think you can hide from God. Fun fact. You can't.

"Yep. You were in the driver's seat of a car. Jesus was in the passenger's seat. You had a death grip on the keys, and Jesus had His hand outstretched, asking you to give the keys to Him, but you wouldn't. You kept telling Him you wanted to drive. You wouldn't give Him the wheel." (This was years before Carrie Underwood came out with Jesus, Take the Wheel.)

There was no way my friend knew my circumstances. I respected him so much that I had very carefully omitted my situation from any letters, because I didn't want him to think badly of me. Our physical disparity kept him from having any knowledge of what was going on.

I remember gripping the phone to my ear and sliding off my bed onto the floor. My hands were shaking. "Did you see anything else?"

"No, just that. He told me He wanted me to tell you what I'd seen, so I called you today." 

This was my first experience (that I can remember) with "a Jesus wake-up call." I had been a Christian for years; I had been growing in Him steadily. I knew I loved the Lord. I knew He loved me. But this period of rebellion and the Lord's subsequent snap of His fingers in my face with a Wake up, Tamara! was my first (certainly not my last) experience with a physical reminder that He is with me always, and that He always calls me to follow Him. Not just once. Every day.

Thomas was one of those Jesus called to follow Him. I wrote about him a few weeks back in reference, ironically, to his absolutely staunch and devoted faith in the face of death. Today, we see instead his bullheaded clinging to his doubts.

John 20:19-31 continues with Jesus' post-resurrection appearances. He begins with Mary Magdalene in the garden outside the empty tomb. That evening, most of the disciples (Thomas excluded) were together in a house with locked doors, because they were afraid of the Jews. Perhaps they were meeting to discuss Mary Magdalene's news. "I have seen the Lord!" she'd told them earlier that day.

What does it all mean? Had she been dreaming? Sometimes distress and fatigue give hallucinations; perhaps that's what has happened. But Peter and John saw an empty tomb, too, so maybe there is something to what Mary claims.

I have no idea what they were discussing; that's my closest guess. Given the significance of these things, it does seem like this might have been a central point of conversation. While they're discussing, perhaps praying, Jesus shows up despite the locked doors. He stands in the middle of the room and greets them. "Peace be with you!" 

He must have loved the looks on their faces. Shock. Awe. Disbelief that rapidly changed to belief, acceptance, joy, overflowing joy! He's alive! He's here! How can it be! But it is! 

Jesus reminds them of the peace He'd promised them in John 14:27, and then commissions them with an important responsibility: "As the Father has sent Me, so I am sending you." And He promises to send the Holy Spirit to help them with their new commission.

A week passes. I can't imagine what happens during that week. News must be spreading like wildfire through underground channels -- again, because of the Jews. Jesus is alive! We saw Him. He talked with us! I wonder if the Pharisees get wind of this. Jesus appears in many places to many different people before He returns to heaven -- all for the purpose of cementing in fact with eye-witness accounts His miraculous resurrection. I would love to know what was going through the mind of Caiaphas and the members of the Sanhedrin who had so vehemently called for Jesus' death by crucifixion. To them, it must have been the most nightmarish game of whack-a-mole. Stop showing up! I thought we got rid of You!

Hehehe.

One person John tells us does hear of this locked-door meeting with Jesus... is Thomas. The disciples find him and tell him: "We have seen the Lord!"

Thomas -- the same Thomas who shows deeply entrenched faith when he tells the other disciples in his best Eeyore voice: "Let us also go, that we may die with Him," -- says: "Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe it."

Despite all circumstantial evidence to the contrary, despite eye-witness accounts by trusted friends, despite empty tombs, despite (quite possibly) a highly unsettled high priest who is doing his level best to stifle rumors... Thomas flat out refuses to believe that Jesus is risen.

He's got a bad case of sheer bullheadedness. And it's going to take something really special to wake him up.

Jesus has something special all prepared. The aforementioned week goes by, and once again, the disciples get together at the same place, Thomas included this time. And once more, the doors are locked. It's deja vu of the week before. They're talking, praying, discussing... and Jesus shows up despite the locked doors and stands right in the middle of the room. He doesn't stop to shoot the breeze. He greets them, and then looks right at Thomas and speaks the very words Thomas used earlier that week to deny the miraculous reality of Jesus' resurrection: "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe!"

How this echoes in my heart! I've prayed thousands and thousands and thousands of prayers throughout my life. And I've believed the heart of them far fewer times than I've prayed them. Beth Moore once said (and I think I may have written about this before in a blog post): "Stop praying hollow prayers. When you pray, pray like you believe!" 

Stop doubting and believe!

Thomas is the victim of a "Jesus wake-up call." (May we all be so blessed!). Jesus steps into the physical, gives the equivalent of a finger snap in Thomas' face, and calls him out from doubt. 

Thomas wakes up. He sees what he's done. He looks at the shredded leftovers of his cloak of doubt in which he'd wrapped himself. He lifts his eyes from those tatters and looks full in the face of his Savior. "My Lord and my God!"

The ultimate declaration. The best realization. It's not about the shredded and scattered doubts. It's about keeping his gaze fixed on the face of Jesus the Risen One. 

Jesus tells him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Ouch. There's a little bit of burn in that statement for Thomas, a little bit of discipline. But it leaves room for a blessing for many of us who plod along, day after day, faithful in our relationship with the Lord, who may never have had a mountaintop experience, but yet know, know, our Savior lives. It's statements like this that pull us through the dark times.

When I hung up the phone with my friend, I sat there in silence, staring at my feet. Because you have seen Me, you have believed. 

I should have known better. But I'm so thankful He took the trouble to send me a wake-up call.

Here's the verse I love best in this chapter. In fact, it serves as the theme of John's entire Gospel message: "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of His disciples (eye-witness accounts!), which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His name" (John 20:30-31).

Get rid of those doubts you're clinging to like treasured crowns. "They lay their crowns before the throne..." (Revelation 4:10) Cast them aside. Look up into the face of the Savior, and declare: "My Lord and my God!"