John 20:19–31
Thomas was not with the twelve when Jesus first appeared and he didn’t believe them. He wanted to see something more. It is reasonable to want to see something more. Earlier in chapter 20 of John’s Gospel, Peter and John go to the empty tomb but they don’t understand it. Thomas is not wrong. People don’t just come back from the dead. We do not expect it to happen today nor did they 2000 years ago. Let’s say that you read about an old, high school friend who passed away. Let’s imagine a pre-COVID world where you were able to attend the funeral and grieve in your own way. And then, two weeks later, you hear that this same friend was out getting a bite to eat. You should be incredulous about this news. It is not expected. The analogy falls apart fairly quickly, but the point is that we should not be shocked by Thomas and by a desire for confirmation about strange and unexpected news. Miracles like this do not normally happen.
In our world today, to paraphrase Fredric Jameson, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of prisons. The vast majority of my congregation and Christians in this country and this world have yet to truly imagine an end to the carceral state. It is the way of the world. Its existence is like the reality that people just don’t come back from the dead.
Easter, though, changes our expectations about what is possible. What is impossible for humans is possible for God. If Christ is risen from the grave, the status quo is not our ruler. What has been is not what always will be. A world without prisons can be imagined within the scope of God’s promise and God’s power. The question for the church today is how far does the good news go? Does go all the way to the structures of society or does it just stop at our comfort level? God is much more concerned with transforming lives than with maintaining the comfortable.
But what can we do in a world of Thomases who have never dreamed of the possibility that setting the captives free means all of them? We should speak like Jesus: directly, purposefully. Jesus doesn’t leave Thomas behind but brings him along. In this season of Easter, the church has chance to claim how much it believes. Abolition is a faith claim. Abolition is a resurrection claim.
Wilson Pruitt is a Methodist pastor and translator in Spicewood, TX.