IT is most likely that the disciples continued to meet in the upper room where the Last Supper had been held. But they met in something very like terror. They knew the intense bitterness of the Jews who had brought about the death of Jesus, and they were afraid that their turn would come next. So they were meeting in terror, listening fearfully for every step on the stair and for every knock at the door, lest the representatives of the Sanhedrin should come to arrest them too. As they sat there, Jesus was suddenly in their midst. He gave them the normal everyday middle-eastern greeting: ‘Peace be to you.

The coming of the Holy Spirit is like the wakening of life from the dead. When he comes upon the Church, it is re-created for its task.

Another week elapsed and Jesus came back again; and this time Thomas was there. And Jesus knew Thomas’ heart. He repeated Thomas’ own words, and invited him to make the test that he had demanded. And Thomas’ heart ran out in love and devotion, and all he could say was: ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him: ‘Thomas, you needed the eyes of sight to make you believe; but the days will come when people will see with the eye of faith and believe.’

WE do not know for sure what happened to Thomas in the after days; but there is an apocryphal book called The Acts of Thomas which purports to give his history. It is of course only legend, but there may well be some history beneath the legend; and certainly in it Thomas is true to character. Here is part of the story which it tells.

After the death of Jesus, the disciples divided up the world among them, so that each might go to some country to preach the gospel. India fell by lot to Thomas. (The Thomist Church in South India does trace its origin to him.) At first he refused to go, saying that he was not strong enough for the long journey. He said: ‘I am a Hebrew man; how can I go among the Indians and preach the truth?’ Jesus appeared to him by night and said: ‘Fear not, Thomas, go to India and preach the word there, for my grace is with you.’ But Thomas still stubbornly refused. ‘Wherever you would send me, send me,’ he said, ‘but let it be somewhere else, for to the Indians I will not go.’

It so happened that there had come a certain merchant from India to Jerusalem called Abbanes. He had been sent by King Gundaphorus to find a skilled carpenter and to bring him back to India, and Thomas was a carpenter. Jesus came up to Abbanes in the market place and said to him: ‘Would you like to buy a carpenter?’ Abbanes said: ‘Yes.’ Jesus said, ‘I have a slave that is a carpenter, and I want to sell him,’ and he pointed at Thomas in the distance. So they agreed on a price and Thomas was sold, and the agreement ran: ‘I, Jesus, the son of Joseph the carpenter, acknowledge that I have sold my slave, Thomas by name, to you Abbanes, a merchant of Gundaphorus, king of the Indians.’ When the deed was drawn up, Jesus found Thomas and took him to Abbanes. Abbanes said: ‘Is this your master?’ Thomas said: ‘Indeed he is.’ Abbanes said: ‘I have bought you from him.’ And Thomas said nothing. But in the morning he rose early and prayed, and after his prayer he said to Jesus: ‘I will go where you want, Lord Jesus, your will be done.’ It is the same old Thomas, slow to be sure, slow to surrender; but once his surrender is made, it is complete.

The story goes on to tell how Gundaphorus commanded Thomas to build a palace, and Thomas said that he was well able to do so. The king gave him money in plenty to buy materials and to hire workmen, but Thomas gave it all away to the poor. Always he told the king that the palace was rising steadily. The king was suspicious. In the end, he sent for Thomas: ‘Have you built me the palace?’ he demanded. Thomas answered: ‘Yes.’ ‘When, then, shall we go and see it?’ asked the king. Thomas answered: ‘You cannot see it now, but when you depart this life, then you shall see it.’ At first the king was very angry, and Thomas was in danger of his life; but in the end the king too was won for Christ, and so Thomas brought Christianity to India