It might be true that “everything happens for a reason.” It might even be true that I need to just “look on the bright side,” “think positive,” and that “it could always be worse.” But when I’m struggling, like really struggling, these are the last words I want to hear. When something has gone wrong, when I’m experiencing anxiety, or having intrusive thoughts, if somebody comes up to me and says, “Well, it could be worse,” I just want to punch them in the nose. I don’t of course. I say, “thank you.” I say, “you’re so right.” And then I remember not to call that person the next time I’m going through something.
They call this type of language “toxic positivity,” and most of the time, when it’s used, people mean well. This language usually comes out of the best of intentions. Maybe folks don’t know what to say to someone when they’re grieving, so they just say the first so-called “upbeat” thing that comes to their minds. Maybe folks even really, truly believe that we should do as they say, we should just “think happy thoughts,” or that we’re “too blessed to be stressed,” or that we should be grateful to know another angel in heaven, and so they share their wisdom with us. And hey, if these words are comforting to you, by all means, hold on to them.
But for many of us, in the midst of the break-up or the death, the foreclosure or the lost job, these words only remind us of what we’ve lost, of how we’ve failed, of how others have let us down. Worse than, you know, bopping someone on the nose, when we take in this toxic positivity, we bypass our real feelings, we stuff them down or away, and then our grief or anger or sadness comes bubbling up days or even years later, stronger, and able to do much more damage on our psyches, our relationships, and our lives.
Even when we say things like “God is in control,” or that I just need to “rise above,” it can be a form of spiritual bypassing. We’re trying to avoid the hurt rather than deal with it, because we are desperate to end the pain we’re experiencing as quickly as possible. And again, it very well may be true that God really does have a plan, and that God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good, but when I’m really in the thick of it, when I’ve really been put through the wringer, at best, it simply goes in one ear and out the other, and at worst, somebody ends up with a bloody nose.
I wonder if that’s what Thomas thought, after he knocked the secret knock, shook the secret handshake, and the disciples let him in to the dark house. Thomas’s arms are full of the necessities that only he was brave enough to go out and fetch - the toilet paper, the canned Vienna sausages, the bread and milk - and he’s about to complain to the rest of the disciples for being their errand boy and how they’re all a bunch of cowards, when they take all these things out of his hands, set him down at the table, and say, “We have seen the Lord!” Yeah. Right. Sure. You’ve “seen him in your hearts.” You’re “feeling a little better now.” We can “keep our chins up.” “Everything happens for a reason.”
I wonder if Thomas receives this good news as simply another well-meaning attempt to make him feel better after the devastating events of the last week. Does Thomas hear these words and want to punch them all in the nose? Is this just another case of toxic positivity?
His refusal to believe them is so adamant that he finally has to tell them what it would take for him to believe — to see the wounds, to see the hands and the feet where the nails went in, to see the evidence of the trauma that Jesus went through, that they all went through.
Thomas needs to be believed, to be reminded that what he went through this past week was real, that all this horrible stuff really truly did happen. He refuses to give in to the gaslighting that it seems like these disciples are trying to do to him. “We have seen the Lord!” - as if the betrayal, the denials, the flogging and the crucifixion didn’t even happen. As if everything could go back to the way it was before. As if they could all just pick up where they left off as if nothing ever happened. All better now! Jesus is back! I don’t know why we were so upset in the first place! We’re too blessed to be stressed! God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle!
No. Thomas can’t take that kind of whitewashing over the events of these past few days. He is forever changed by the heartbreak he’s experienced, and no amount of idealism or positivity is going to get him to deny the reality of what has happened. “No. Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my hand in his side, I will not believe.” No. I’ve got to see evidence that something impossibly awful happened, before I can believe that something impossibly amazing has occurred. Without the cross, there is no resurrection. Resurrection without the cross is meaningless.
Victor Frankl says that the antidote to this kind of toxic positivity is what he calls “tragic optimism.” Frankl was a Holocaust survivor and a renowned psychologist, so he has both scholarly expertise and what the kids call “street cred.” Tragic optimism isn’t the whitewashing of events, or the ignoring of the trauma, or taking a short cut around the hard feelings; rather it is a “search for meaning in the midst of the inevitable tragedies of our lives.”
The search for meaning in the midst of the inevitable tragedies of our lives.
Now, listen carefully to what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” but rather, “when life gives you these hard, impossible, tragical experiences, it’s not the experience itself that is of value, no not at all, but there can be growth in the aftermath of the event, if we take the time to fully process what has happened. If we take the time to go through the pain, the hard thing, and not try to find a short cut around it, we will come out the other side new, changed, and, dare I say resurrected, people. So it’s not that we’re grateful for the tragic event. No. Not at all. But as we try to sort through the rubble of our lives afterward, we can find that something new is being built, something different is being reborn, something is coming from the ashes.
In order for us to find the meaning in the resurrection, we have to find the meaning in the cross. In order to find meaning in the cross, we have to go to the cross. We have to stick our fingers in it. We have to feel the gash in his side. And then we have to sit in how utterly horrible it was. We have to mourn. We have to get angry. We have to feel all the feelings. The only way out is through.
And, I think Thomas gets this. Unless he finds meaning in the cross, he will not believe the resurrection. And I don’t mean a utilitarian kind of meaning, a kind of meaning that says, “Well, you gotta crack a few eggs if you want to make an omelet,” but a kind of growth, a strength, a new perspective, a better understanding, that only comes from walking through the fire and coming out the other side.
Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t expect any of them to “just have faith” to just “let go and let God.” The disciples just don’t happen to mention it to Thomas, at least not in our text. But the disciples really did get the full truth of it. Jesus didn’t come to them all bright and new and full of toxic positivity. He didn’t jump through the window with bunny ears and a tale and say, “Surprise! April Fools!” He showed them his hands. He showed them his side. He showed them both the tragedy and the meaning of the tragedy. And then they believed. They didn’t believe because of some kind of toxic optimism, some pipe dream, or crazy delusion. They believed because what they saw was honest and real and hard. Jesus gave them tragic optimism.
And he gives Thomas the same. Look and my wounds. Touch the hurt. Get close to the pain. Be real about it. This is the only way you’ll be changed. The only way you’ll be transformed. The only way that you’ll be resurrected. If you find some kind of truthful, honest, real meaning in the scars.
I am here with you. Right here. Right now. Right in the midst of what you’re feeling.
When we are present with one who is suffering, we are in the presence of the holy.
Platitudes and quick solutions are not going to fix this. Only Christ’s presence.
I used to think that this was a horrible berating of Thomas at the end of the story, when Jesus says, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” As if Thomas is this anti-hero or antagonist to show us why we all should do better, believe harder, and trust more than he did. “Don’t be a doubting Thomas!” folks say whenever there’s struggle or a so called “lack” of faith. I see it differently now.
I think we need to remember the first words that Jesus says to the disciples - “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” As the Father has sent me to show you my scars and that yet I still live, so does God send you to show your scars, and that you, too, still live.
Blessed are those see Christ’s crucifixion everywhere there is suffering and still refuse to believe that that is the end of it. Blessed are those who carry their scars, who witness the scars of others, and stubbornly wait for a resurrection. Blessed are those who are not content with toxic positivity, but who hold out a little longer to get to the tragic optimism. There is no resurrection without the cross.
Thanks be to God.
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