We have seen the Lord.
What the other disciples described seemed impossible to Thomas. It seemed impossible because he was acutely aware of the horror of the cross, of the nails that pierced the hands of Jesus, and the spear that pierced his side. He knew that there was no way for Jesus to survive, that he had in fact died. He assumed that was the end of the story. Death was, after all, always the end of the story. Sure, Jesus seemed to be so full of promise that they had all become convinced that he was most likely the messiah. But there was to no stronger counterclaim to that possibility than death. The movements associated with other claimants to the title of messiah ended when they were killed, and now it seemed that Jesus would be no different.
That the other disciples had seen the Lord also seemed impossible to Thomas because he hadn't been there. In the event that something supernatural did happen Jesus surely wouldn't have forgotten anyone, forgotten him. The most likely explanation was thus probably that they had lost their grip on reality and begun to believe what they wished were true. They had experienced something somewhere on the scale of confusion to collective hallucination. But they hadn't seen Jesus. Because they couldn't have. He was dead. This was why Thomas responded with the insistent graphic realism he thought it would take him to change his mind.
Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands
and put my finger into the nailmarks
and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.
He thought his brothers had become foolish and credulous. So he demanded realism. No doubt he was also pushing back against the idea that Jesus would remember all of them and forget about him. After all, we know that he was going to see Jesus in a week. But he didn't. For all he knew he would only ever have the word of the other disciples about what they had claimed to see. In some way he was probably jealous that they would get to live on believing, at least, that they had seen the Lord. Considering what the state of his heart must have been we can only find it admirable that this did not put a bigger divide between him and the others. Even if he couldn't accept their testimony he still continued to gather with them, and was therefore with them a week later when Jesus again appeared.
Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands,
and bring your hand and put it into my side,
and do not be unbelieving, but believe."
Thomas was not given time to make his demands of Jesus, which in any event were probably forgotten in that moment, before Jesus offered up his wounds for scrutiny. Jesus had not unaware of what Thomas demanded. And that meant that neither had he forgotten Thomas himself. He deprived him temporarily of his visible presence but he never lost sight of his heart. The fact that Thomas had missed out on the first resurrection appearance might have been in some measure his own fault for being absent, if he ought to have been with his brothers. But even in that case, Jesus allowed it, and appeared when Thomas was away, because he knew that it could lead to a greater good. The doubt of Thomas could lead to a more realistic and grounded faith than would have been possible otherwise, not only for him, but for the future generations who would read his testimony.
Thomas answered and said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
Jesus said to him, "Have you come to believe because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."
Already in that moment the revelation of Jesus moved Thomas to the most explicit confession of the divinity of Jesus given by anyone in any of the Gospel stories. He was more than just the messiah, more even than Son of God, since that title sometimes referred, by analogy, to kings and to angels. Jesus was himself Lord and God. This confession was the great good for the sake of which Jesus temporarily deprived Thomas of a blessing that he gave to the others. And it is a good by which we in turn are now blessed. What Thomas saw was of course visible. But what he confessed was something that he did not see but believed. And the same is now true for us who share in his blessing. Blessed are we who have not seen and have believed.
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