The Second Sunday of Easter – April 11, 2026
We are only one week past Easter Day, and already the glow of resurrection is mixed with something far more familiar: fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The disciples are locked in a room. Thomas is unconvinced. And honestly, who can blame him? Resurrection is not an everyday category. It is not something you simply accept because someone else had an experience you didn’t.
And that is precisely why this Sunday matters. The church has long called this “Thomas Sunday,” but it could just as easily be called “Our Sunday,” because doubt is not a failure of faith. Doubt is one of the ways faith grows.
John tells us the disciples are hiding behind locked doors “for fear.” Fear of the authorities, fear of the unknown, fear that everything they hoped for has collapsed. Jesus appears to them, breathes peace, and shows them his wounds. But Thomas isn’t there. And when he returns, he refuses to accept secondhand resurrection.
Thomas wants what the others received: a direct encounter, a chance to see the wounds, to touch the truth. We often treat Thomas as the problem child of the resurrection story. But Thomas is the only one brave enough to say out loud what everyone else is thinking. He names the tension between faith and experience. He refuses to pretend certainty he does not have. And Jesus does not shame him for it. Jesus meets him in it.
Our readings today are full of people wrestling with what God is doing.
In Acts, Peter stands before the crowd and says, “This Jesus, whom you crucified, God raised up.” Peter is bold now, but this is the same Peter who denied Jesus three times. His proclamation is born out of his own collapse, his own confusion, his own doubt. Resurrection didn’t erase Peter’s failures; it transformed them.
In Psalm 16, the psalmist declares, “You will show me the path of life.” That is not the voice of someone who has everything figured out. It is the voice of someone who trusts God while walking through uncertainty.
And in 1 Peter, we hear that we have been given “a living hope,” even though we “do not see him.” Faith is not about having all the answers. Faith is about living in hope even when the answers are not yet clear.
Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Certainty is. Certainty leaves no room for God to surprise us, challenge us, or grow us. Doubt cracks the door open.
When Jesus appears to Thomas, he does not offer a philosophical argument. He does not demand blind belief. He offers his wounds.
The risen Jesus still carries the marks of suffering. Resurrection does not erase the reality of pain; it redeems it. And Thomas’s doubt becomes the occasion for one of the most profound confessions in Scripture: “My Lord and my God.”
Notice the pattern:
- Thomas doubts.
- Jesus shows up.
- Thomas sees the wounds.
- Faith deepens.
Doubt is not a detour from faith. Doubt is the path through which faith becomes honest, embodied, and real.
We doubt for many reasons.
We doubt because the world is complicated. We doubt because suffering is real. We doubt because we pray and sometimes hear silence. We doubt because we want to believe, but we also want to be honest.
And Jesus meets us there.
Not with condemnation. Not with disappointment. But with peace.
“Peace be with you,” he says to the disciples in their fear. “Peace be with you,” he says to Thomas in his doubt. “Peace be with you,” he says to us in our questions, our uncertainties, our longing for something solid.
Faith is not pretending we never doubt. Faith is trusting that Jesus keeps showing up anyway.
If Thomas teaches us anything, it is that the church must be a place where questions are not only allowed but welcomed. A place where people can say: “I’m not sure.” “I’m struggling.” “I want to believe, but I need help.” “I need to see the wounds.”
A church that cannot hold doubt cannot hold real people. But a church that welcomes doubt becomes a place where resurrection can be encountered again and again.
Jesus ends the story with a blessing: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” That blessing is not a reprimand. It is a promise.
It is Jesus saying: Blessed are you who keep showing up even when you’re not sure. Blessed are you who pray even when you feel nothing. Blessed are you who ask hard questions. Blessed are you who wrestle with Scripture. Blessed are you who long for God and wonder where he is. Blessed are you who doubt—and keep walking anyway.
Because faith is not certainty. Faith is trust. Faith is relationship. Faith is the courage to stay open to the God who keeps showing up with wounded hands and a word of peace.
May we be a community where doubt is not feared but honored, where questions are not silenced but explored, and where the risen Jesus meets us—again and again—with peace. Amen.