'Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.' No
reason is assigned. The absence may have been purely accidental, but
the specification of Thomas as 'one of the Twelve,' seems to suggest
that his absence was regarded by the Evangelist as a dereliction of
apostolic duty; and the cause of it may be found, I think, with
reasonable probability, if we take into account the two other facts
that the same Evangelist records concerning this Apostle. One is his
exclamation, in which a constitutional tendency to accept the blackest
possibilities as certainties, blends very strangely and beautifully
with an intense and brave devotion to his Master. 'Let us also go,'
said Thomas, when Christ announced His intention, but a few days before
the Passion, of returning to the grave of Lazarus, 'that we may die
with Him.' 'He is going to His death, that I am sure of, and I am going
to be beside Him even in His death.' A constitutional pessimist! The
only other notice that we have of him is that he broke in--with
apparent irreverence which was not real,--with a brusque contradiction
of Christ's saying that they knew the way, and they knew His goal.
'Lord! we know not whither Thou goest'--there spoke pained love
fronting the black prospect of eternal separation,--'and how can we
know the way?'--there spoke almost impatient despair.
So is not that the kind of man who on the Resurrection day would have
been saying to himself, even more decidedly and more bitterly than the
two questioning thinkers on the road to Emmaus had said it, 'We trusted
that this had been He, but it is all over now'? The keystone was struck
out of the arch, and this brick tumbled away of itself. The hub was
taken out of the wheel, and the spokes fell apart. The divisive
tendency was begun, as I have had occasion to remark in other sermons.
Thomas did the very worst thing that a melancholy man can do, went away
to brood in a corner by himself, and so to exaggerate all his
idiosyncrasies, to distort the proportion of truth, to hug his despair,
by separating himself from his fellows. Therefore he lost what they
got, the sight of the Lord. He 'was not with them when Jesus came.'
Would he not have been better in the upper room than gloomily turning
over in his mind the dissolution of the fair company and the shipwreck
of all his hopes?
May we not learn a lesson? I venture to apply these words, dear
friends, to our gatherings for worship. The worst thing that a man can
do when disbelief, or doubt, or coldness shrouds his sky, and blots out
the stars, is to go away alone and shut himself up with his own,
perhaps morbid, or, at all events, disturbing thoughts. The best thing
that he can do is to go amongst his fellows. If the sermon does not do
him any good, the prayers and the praises and the sense of brotherhood
will help him. If a fire is going out, draw the dying coals close
together, and they will make each other break into a flame. One great
reason for some of the less favourable features that modern
Christianity presents, is that men are beginning to think less than
they ought to do, and less than they used to do, of the obligation and
the blessing, whatever their spiritual condition, of gathering together
for the worship of God. But, further, there is a far wider thought than
that here, which I have already referred to, and which I do not need to
dwell upon, namely, that, although, of course, there are very plain
limits to be put to the principle, yet it is a principle, that solitude
is not the best medicine for any disturbed or saddened soul. It is true
that 'solitude is the mother-country of the strong,' and that unless we
are accustomed to live very much alone, we shall not live very much
with God. But on the other hand, if you cut yourself off from the
limiting, and therefore developing, society of your fellows, you will
rust, you will become what they call eccentric. Your idiosyncrasies
will swell into monstrosities, your peculiarities will not be subjected
to the gracious process of pruning which society with your fellows, and
especially with Christian hearts, will bring to them. And in every way
you will be more likely to miss the Christ than if you were kindly with
your kind, and went up to the house of God in company.
Take the next point that is here: