? He was missing because he had lost hope. He
believed that Christ was dead. He believed that the cause for which he
had stood was lost and lost forever more. He believed that right was
forever defeated; that wrong was forever enthroned. Over his head was
a blackened sky. For him there was not one single ray of light nor one
single gleam of hope.

If I had met Thomas on the streets of Jerusalem on that day and said,
"Thomas, I saw your friends going together to the Upper Room. Aren't
you going? Jesus might come while they are there," Thomas would have
answered, "No, I'm not going. Jesus will not be there. He is dead.
Don't you know if I thought I would see Him I would go? Don't you know
that I loved Him and love Him still better than life, but Jesus is
dead. Dead! Dead!

"I was in the garden when Judas kissed Him. I saw them lead Him away.
I saw the soldiers scourge Him. I saw Him crowned with the crown of
thorns. I was out on Calvary when the black night came on at midday
and I heard that wild, bitter cry. Oh! I will hear it forever more:
'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' I saw His head bowed and
I saw the brute of a soldier thrust the spear into His side. Don't
talk to me about seeing Jesus again. Jesus is dead."

The very bitterness of the sorrow of Thomas had driven him to despair.
He found it hard to believe always. Here he found it impossible. Now,
there are some folks who are sweetened by sorrow and made better.
There are others that are made bitter and morose and despairful. I
heard a man cry one day, an awful cry "Oh, I could curse God," he said,
"if I knew there was a God, for letting little Mary die!" For Thomas
everything had collapsed. There was not a star in his sky. There was
not a horizon in his life in which he might hope for a dawn. So that
he, the neediest man of them all, was not there when Jesus came.

And now, will you see what he missed. Truly, the man was right who did
not wonder what people suffered, but wondered at what they missed. And
just see what this man Thomas missed by not being in the little meeting
among the ten. First, he missed the privilege of seeing Jesus. He
missed the privilege of seeing Him who had throttled Death and hell and
the grave and had brought life and immortality to light through the
Gospel. He missed seeing Him, one vision of whose face would have
changed his sobbing into singing and his night into marvelous day.

He mi