"I was in the garden when Judas kissed Him. I saw them lead Him away. I saw the soldiers scourge Him. I saw Him crowned with the crown of thorns. I was out on Calvary when the black night came on at midday and I heard that wild, bitter cry. Oh! I will hear it forever more: 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' I saw His head bowed and I saw the brute of a soldier thrust the spear into His side. Don't talk to me about seeing Jesus again. Jesus is dead."
The very bitterness of the sorrow of Thomas had driven him to despair. He found it hard to believe always. Here he found it impossible. Now, there are some folks who are sweetened by sorrow and made better. There are others that are made bitter and morose and despairful. I heard a man cry one day, an awful cry "Oh, I could curse God," he said, "if I knew there was a God, for letting little Mary die!" For Thomas everything had collapsed. There was not a star in his sky. There was not a horizon in his life in which he might hope for a dawn. So that he, the neediest man of them all, was not there when Jesus came.
And now, will you see what he missed. Truly, the man was right who did not wonder what people suffered, but wondered at what they missed. And just see what this man Thomas missed by not being in the little meeting among the ten. First, he missed the privilege of seeing Jesus. He missed the privilege of seeing Him who had throttled Death and hell and the grave and had brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. He missed seeing Him, one vision of whose face would have changed his sobbing into singing and his night into marvelous day.
He missed seeing Jesus, and failing to see Him, he missed the glorious certainty of the after life. It is Christ, my friends, that makes Heaven and the eternal life sure for us. It is He who enables men to go down into the great silence without a doubt and without a fear. It is He who makes us absolutely confident that there is a Home of the Soul, that—
"There is a land of pure delight
Where saints immortal reign."
Having seen Him once dead and alive forever more, we have no slightest doubt of the truth of His promise that, because He lives we shall live also.
By staying away that day Thomas missed the thrill of a great joy. Had he been there he might have seen the Lord. This is not a possibility in every service, possibly, but it ought to be. It is a possibility in every successful service. I heard of a preacher once who thought that what his congregation wanted was beautiful epigrams. He thought that they were more hungry for bejeweled verbiage than for the Bread of Life. He thought they were thirsting more for a stream of eloquence than for the Water of Life. But he was mistaken. And once he came into the pulpit to find a card lying before him on which was written this word: "Sir, we would know Jesus."
At first it angered him a bit and then it made him think. And then it sent him to his knees. And then it sent him into the pulpit with a new message. And one day he came again into his pulpit to find a second card before him. Picking it up, he read these words: "Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord." Of course they were. Their gladness was the gladness of the ten that met in the Upper Room. Their gladness was the gladness that might have been experienced by Thomas. It was intended for him, for he was the saddest and most wretched man in Jerusalem. But Thomas was not there.
Thomas missed also the gift of peace. Jesus said to those present, "Peace be unto you." And how Thomas needed that gift! Thomas was in a fever of restlessness and wretchedness. He was whipped by a veritable tempest of doubt and utter unbelief. And all the while he might have had the peace that passeth understanding. He might have had the vision of Him who stood then, and still stands, the central figure of the ages, saying, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Those present that day were blessed with the gift of peace. They had "fervor without fever." They had motion without friction. But Thomas missed it because "he was not with them when Jesus came."
The disciples who were there were re-commissioned that day. Jesus said to them, "As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you." With His death everything seemed at an end. The great program that He had given them seemed to have lapsed forever. A man said a few years ago, "Life doesn't seem worth living since I found that Christianity is not true." It was so with these men. They were men without a goal. But Jesus came and recommissioned them, laid upon them again the high task of conquering the world. And Thomas missed that great blessing because he was not there.