What follows are my thoughts after translating through the Gospel of John and reaching these passages:
John 20:19-29: There is in Avengers: Endgame a scene where Black Widow confronts her best friend Hawkeye to tell him there's a viable plan to bring everyone back from Thanos' snap. In the previous movie, half of the planet's population was murdered with a snap of the big bad guy's fingers. Included in that number was Hawkeye's family. For five years, he had operated without hope, without caring if he lived or died, angrily tracking down earthly bad guys as a wrathful, rogue assassin and ending them. When we first meet him in this state after Black Widow finds him, he's lost. He looks lost, his eyes hold nothing but pain, sorrow, and hopelessness. And then Black Widow tells him they have a plan to bring everyone back, and his pained, achingly grieved response is "Don't do that. Don't give me hope."
This is the substance of where Thomas is at when the other disciples tell him they've seen Jesus. "Unless I see the mark of the nails... I will not believe." How did Thomas know that they had nailed Jesus to the cross? Or for that matter had stabbed His side instead of breaking His legs? This wasn't common practice. He knew because he had watched the whole thing, and like Mary the Magdalene had been devastated by it. Mary's response to the trauma of Jesus' death had been to withdraw in pain to the point where she didn't care if she was caught at His tomb and arrested. Thomas' response was to get angry, lost, and hopeless. Why wasn't he with the other disciples when Jesus first appeared to them? It was the same day Mary saw Him early in the morning, the third day after His crucifixion. Where was Thomas? Why didn't he show up until after the fact? Maybe he was wondering the streets of Jerusalem for three days traumatized by the brutal death of the man he had thrown away everything for and devoted himself to. Maybe he wasn't the only one, but just the last to wander in the door of the upper room.
Jesus doesn't reveal Himself to Thomas specifically for another eight days, the following Monday. Why? Maybe Thomas wasn't actually ready yet to see Him. Maybe Thomas still needed a little more time to come back from the dark place he found himself in. But He doesn't just abandon Thomas any more than He abandoned Mary, or later Peter. The Scriptures don't record it, but as I read this text, the scene that plays out in my head is Thomas dissolving into tears, maybe even grabbing and clinging to Jesus, maybe falling on his knees in a total breakdown as he says, "My Lord and my God!" Much like Hawkeye reacted upon getting his phone call from his wife when his family returned to life.
Thing is, Hawkeye wouldn't have been ready to see his family yet either when Black Widow found him. Not in the place he found himself in. He had to be brought back by his friends too before he was ready to hear his wife's voice again. He had to experience the process of recovery, even the loss of his best friend Black Widow, before he was ready to receive his family again.
Like Mary, Thomas loved Jesus. His doubt wasn't a rational one. It may not have even actually been doubt. It was an emotional response because of the severe trauma he had just gone through of losing a man who had become his whole world, just like Mary. He couldn't bear hoping and then going through that crushing loss again. His mind couldn't take it.
It's hard for those who haven't experienced similar crushing loss to understand this kind of emotional response. You don't want to hope because you don't want to have that hope stolen from you again. You don't know what you'll do or who you'll be if it is, and so it feels safer to push that hope away, to keep it at a comfortable distance emotionally so that you can't be hurt by it again.
On a different note, another interesting thing about this passage in Greek is vv. 22-23 which can be translated literally, "And having said this He breathed on, and says to them, 'Take holy spirit; whosever misfires you would let go have been let go to them, whosever you would hold by force have been held by force.'"
There is no definite article for "holy spirit" in verse 22, and the verb used can and does mean "take" as much as it does "receive" (as it is usually translated). There is also no real justification (other than theological bias) for inserting a definite article here as 'holy spirit' follows the verb 'take' rather than preceding it, which would make a stronger argument for "the Holy Spirit" rather than "holy spirit."
An interesting point too is the verb usually translated as "retain" or "retained" in verse 23 actually means "to hold by force or strength." It's a cognate of the Greek noun "kratos" meaning "force, strength, authority, power, etc." The verb is also frequently translated "arrest" or "seize" when it is used of the temple officers attempting to arrest Jesus.
Another passage which these verses remind me of is in Matthew where Jesus says in no uncertain terms that if a person forgives another's offences, then their Heavenly Father would forgive their offenses, but if someone does not forgive another's offences, neither would their Heavenly Father forgive that person who did not forgive.
Traditionally, these two verses are used in support of the Sacrament of Reconciliation where one Christian makes confession and receives absolution from another, usually a member of the clergy (as a representative of the Apostles who first received this authority), but in some denominations and traditions another member of the laity (St. Symeon the New Theologian promoted the idea of lay confession and absolution in the Eastern Orthodox Church). Regardless, the implications of these verses coupled with the aforementioned statements by Jesus in Matthew do impose a further, serious responsibility on Christians to forgive and not hold fast the errors and malfunctioning behaviors of others.
John 21: And now we come to Peter. In the last chapter we saw Jesus tending to two of His disciples who were utterly devastated and beside themselves because they loved Him and were hurt so badly by His crucifixion and death.
Peter was in the upper room with the other disciples. He was just as devastated as Mary and Thomas, but he didn't abandon his post, so to speak. Not only was he devastated by what happened, but he carried with him the internal guilt of having disowned Jesus when he swore he wouldn't. He stayed with them. He became their rock that didn't move in spite of his own pain and despair. He was there the first time and second when Jesus appeared to them from out of nowhere. Upon hearing that Jesus' tomb was empty, he shot out the door without a second thought, and only John ran faster than he did to the tomb. There is no question really about Peter's love and devotion to Jesus, and his understanding of Who Jesus is.
What's interesting here in this exchange in 15-19 is that Jesus begins, not just by asking him if he loves Him, but "Do you love me more than these guys?" That is, "Peter, do you love me more than they do?" Referring to the other disciples sitting there. Peter believes so as he responds without hestation, "Yes." What's also interesting here is the Greek word used for "know" (oida) as he says, "You know that I have affection for you." It's used again in verse 17 along with "ginosko" (also 'to know'). Oida means something like to instinctively know, to know by insight, to just know something. “Ginosko” is more to know by experience or to recognize. He says to Jesus effectively, "Lord, you instinctively know everything! You recognize that I have affection for you!" Jesus' omniscience is a fact to Peter. He knows Who Jesus is. He's known it for a long time. He might not know how. He might not know how it fits into the Jewish theology he was taught in the synagogue, but he knows it nonetheless.
When Jesus talks about how Peter will die, it seems to me that He was reaffirming to Peter that he, in spite of his best effort, wasn't supposed to die that night with Jesus. Jesus didn't want him to die that night. He was supposed to live until he was an old man who had to be dressed by someone else, led around by the hand, and taken places he didn't want to go. Things played out the way they did, because they had to. In some respects perhaps, Jesus was counting on Peter's getting scared in order to protect him from himself and his reckless devotion to Him which he had just demonstrated by swimming three hundred feet to shore before the boat. Peter didn't think before he leaped when it came to Jesus, he just leaped. He didn't care what was over the edge of the cliff. If that was where Jesus was going, that's where he would run headlong.
And that's why Jesus told him, "Graze My lambs, shepherd My sheep, graze My sheep, follow Me." That's why, of all the disciples, Simon Peter was the first among equals, and led the earliest church. He wouldn't be scared again. Jesus had given him a job to do, and he was going to do it even if he died for it.
Another point of interest is that Peter got a do over for his disowning Jesus, and it was in front of the High Priest himself. He got a chance to make it right. And when he did, he accused the High Priests of murdering their Messiah by crucifixion in cold blood, daring them to do the same to him.
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