Note: I suggest that if you haven’t yet read Miracle Of Faith – Parts 1-5 yet you start there.  This way you’ll get the whole story.

Installment 6A

The Second Song:

Through The Eyes Of A Child is very much a song of Dora’s and my imagination.  In none of the four Gospels is it stated exactly which of the disciples were on hand at the miracle of the five loaves and two fishes.  Since it is unclear exactly which disciples were there and who said what, Dora and I decided to make it up.

Actually, in the first song, God Made It So, there was a lot left to our imagination as well.  For instance, the back-story of the boy and his mother, was total conjecture on our part.  There was a boy who stepped forth in only one of the Gospels, but that’s all we know about this young lad.  So we exercised what is called “theater license” and simply made it up.  Who’s to say anyway how accurate the Bible is?  After all, Luke was written some two hundred years after it all happened …

So we decided to make the main disciple the infamous doubting Thomas, who later in the story of Jesus so doubts his master’s return from the dead after the crucifixion that he has to touch Jesus’ wounds to see if he’s not really a ghost.  We figured that someone had to scoff at this innocent boy’s faith, so why not good ol’ Doubting Thomas?

All drama needs an obstacle, a push and pull.  If it’s easy to accomplish the quest, then there’s no play.  With Doubting Thomas we had our foil.  It’s Thomas who says, when the child steps forth and offers all he has in his basket, “ Get outta here, kid.  That’s not nearly enough to feed this multitude.”

But the more we explored this man, the more we looked into his character and thought about the way he interacts with Jesus, the more I personally felt compassion for this gentle doubter.  Which of us today have not had our doubting moments in life – especially when it comes to the so-called miracles of healing?

So we wrote the song from the point of view that as Thomas tells the story, he’s a much older man now looking back on his life and his most special time spent with the master.  He’s a guy who followed Jesus, but he was the skeptic of the group.  Every group needs a skeptic.  A good skeptic can help keep the balance in group discussions and decisions.  Jesus probably knew what he was doing when he included Thomas as a disciple.

So we saw Thomas as a life-long doubter – one of the disciples who never quite “got it” the way Peter (who later raised the dead) did and John and some of the other great disciple stories in The Acts.  Thomas is never mentioned after the Gospels and we just figured that perhaps he was one who never quite figured it all out.

Now remember, some of this is simply fiction.  We’re not saying that this is absolutely what happened.  Rather, this is a musical of the imagination.  Please remember this term: Musical of the Imagination.  We’ll talk about it a lot more as we move forward.  Essentially, we took these age old stories and asked ourselves, “What if …?”  Again it’s simply called “theater license.”  We’re sometimes mixing fact and fiction – reality and conjecture.

So Thomas starts by singing:

I followed Jesus to the mountaintop
Where five thousand souls gathered ‘round
Where we listened to the Master’s stories
And his truths that for centuries
Would astound the world

Toward the end of the day
When the hungry crowd began to leave
Jesus turned to me and said
“We must feed the people”

“With what?” said I
I turned away and scoffed in doubt
Then from the crowd a boy stepped out and said
“Hey Mister, I got five loaves and two fishes”
Say what?
“I got five loaves and two fishes”

This naïve lad with such big wishes (Heh)
Would feed five thousand with all his riches …
Ha!

We think Thomas was earnestly trying to protect the master here.  Trying to be a good disciple and serve his boss as best he could by keeping the time wasters away from him so he could do his work.  Thomas wasn’t a bad guy here; he was just being practical, being a good personal secretary to the boss.

But he had a tough time seeing the whole picture.   His sense of far sightedness was, well… a bit short sighted.  He goes on to sing:

But Jesus turned to me and spoke
“Thomas, you must see through the eyes of a child
Now bring the lad to me and let be
Your doubtful uncertainty”

Oh, to be reprimanded by the master.  This had to be a tough moment for our friend, Thomas.  Just imagine …