Thomas had not seen the risen Christ, and so he refused to believe that Jesus had really risen. Jesus does not rebuke him, but he does point out that “blest are they who have not seen and have believed.”
One reason why we are so far from the Kingdom is that we refuse to believe what we have not seen. We have not experienced a world without war, so we refuse to believe that peace is possible. We have always had poor among us, so we refuse to believe that poverty can be eliminated. We see only our own economic system and we refuse to believe that anything else will work.
The saying of Jesus echoes through the centuries: “blest are they who have not seen and have believed.” Blest are those prophetic voices raised in anticipation of a new day, a new world of justice and peace. They “no longer look for Jesus among the dead,” but find him instead in life and in the fullness of life. They base their lives on their total faith that we “have become a new creation.”
Will the world ever succeed in changing that selfish and bellicose mentality which, up to now, has been interwoven in so much of its history? It is hard to foresee; but it is easy to affirm that it is toward that new history, a peaceful, truly human history, as promised by God to men of good will, that we must resolutely march.
