Why Do You Doubt?

-

[Resurrection Station #4 – Luke 24 and John 20]

Why do doubts rise in your minds?

Today’s question is not actually from the Thomas story as recorded in John. It’s from the first time Jesus appears to the other disciples in Luke 24, which I talked about last week.

And you know, that’s kind of interesting.

We give Thomas all sorts of crap for being THE Doubter. Doubting Thomas. THE one – the only one -- who doubted that Jesus could have come back from the dead. But he wasn’t the only one. Apparently, they all were doubting it the week before . . . and doubting the evidence of their own eyes, his risen body standing in from of them inviting them to touch his flesh and be convinced. Interesting that we gloss over that.

Interesting that the next week, Jesus doesn’t chide Thomas at all for his doubts. He just puts out his wrists to be handled for evidence and tells him it’s time to stop doubting now.

Interesting also that John doesn’t tell us that Thomas actually handled the bodily evidence before proclaiming Jesus as “My Lord and my God!” He just saw him, and he believed, apparently.

Interesting, really, that Thomas gets such a bad rap, bless his heart. And that we Christians give doubt such a bad rap.

I’m a huge fan of C.S. Lewis and particularly of the Narnia series. When my children were little, we watched the BBC versions of many of the books, and a particular scene from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe spoke to me pointedly at the time.

Aslan has just come to life again after being killed on the stone table in the place of Edmund, the traitor.  He is explaining to the girls who witnessed his sacrifice about the deeper magic that the White Witch didn't know which causes the laws of death to be reversed when an innocent voluntarily dies for a traitor.

The BBC then inserts a couple lines that are not C.S. Lewis'.  Lucy says something to the effect of, "So, you knew!  You knew you'd be alive again -- and you just let us suffer in our sorrow."

Aslan replies, "Well, I knew about the old, deep magic . . . but it had never been tested."

Two important things I get from this.  One, faith requires action.  Faith that is "sure of what we hope for and certain of what we don't see" is only activated and legitimized when it is acted on.

Second, Jesus needed faith.  Jesus may have even doubted. Now, I'm sure I have some Christian friends who will squirm at this idea and have plenty of arguments to make against it.  And that's fine -- they may be right.  It's not clear scriptural dogma.  But I don't think it's inconsistent with scriptural teaching, either.

In Hebrews, it tells us that Jesus was tempted in every way we are but never sinned.  If that's so, then the most significant temptation I face in life is not money, or power, or food, or sex . . . it is unbelief.  I'm tempted to look at what God says in his word and say, "Yeah, that's sounds nice, but it just can't be.  It's a pretty story, but it's not reality."  And if I'm tempted to walk away from the most difficult words of God, and if Jesus was tempted in every way that I am . . . well, it makes sense that this atoning sacrifice business would be where that would kick in.

Yes, Jesus was God, but he was also fully human.  And being human means doubting.  Doubting is not sin.  Doubting is a temptation to disbelief, a temptation that Jesus received in its greatest power and overcame.  He wrestled over it to the point of sweating blood, but he believed God. 

Why do doubts rise in my mind? Because I’m human. What do I need to do about my doubts? Look at the evidence of Jesus before me . . . everything I reveled in during the first week of Eastertide . . . then “stop doubting and believe.”

My task for this week of Eastertide: deal with my disbelief. Pick one doubt from my mental catalog and do the wrestling I need to do with God over that. Embrace the wrestling, knowing that God still embraces me in my wrestling. Thank you, Lord, for your never-failing embrace.

 

[Did you miss R-Station #3? Read it here.]

[Ready for the next one? Here’s R-Station #5.]

[Wanna start from the top? Here’s #1.]

[“What’s a Resurrection Station?” you ask. Glad you did. Click here.]

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This One Person

-
Image
Y’all, God has blessed me with really good people in my life. People who love me, support me, appreciate me, and go out of their way for me. The gifts and kind words and all-day-long singing I received on my birthday last week were small examples of that. Seriously, friends . . . how do I deserve you? So many good people. So, I really shouldn’t give as much attention as I do to the one exception, right? One person. There’s just this one person . They are a constant burr in my saddle these days. They make my life harder – and if this isn’t intentional on their part, or at least passive aggressive, it is most certainly selfish. In almost everything they do, they seem to communicate a lack of respect for me.  It’s only one person. Why do I let this one person affect me so much? We’ve all got our baggage, you know. I’ve shared some of mine before here in this blog. One particular parcel I tote around unseen is an unspoken message I’ve heard in my heart since childhood – particula
Read more

Life is People-y

-
Image
I love my job. Really, I really, really do. But my place of employment has had a few rocky years. Every once in a while, we come to a point where I say to myself, Okay, time for a fresh start. The old issues are over. The people who were discontented have left or are appeased. Now we can move forward and have peace. Bu-u-ut no. There’s always something. I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that even though I love my job, there will always be stressors I’m dealing with. Because as my colleague says, it’s a very people-y job. And people are . . . well, people . People are wounded. Everyone has been damaged by someone and bears the scars. And that damage often bleeds out in our behavior toward others. People are fearful. They are afraid of making mistakes. They are afraid of saying the wrong thing. They are afraid of confrontation. They are afraid of burning bridges. They are afraid of being labeled and unliked. People are selfish. Even when they want to be self-less, they
Read more

Hopeful Reality

-
Image
This past July, I spent a couple crazy weeks working at Crystal Sea Drama Company (which I casually refer to as “my theater” because I've spent so much time there over the past decade). It was the year for our New Play Festival, which I’ve said many times is the best thing we do. CSDC students wrote the plays, CSDC alumni directed the plays, and CSDC campers performed the plays. Last fall, I taught the playwriting class preparing for this big event. There were six girls in the class – more than I’ve ever had for a playwriting class. They were all writers already. Most of them had novels in progress, and some of them had two or three they were working on. But writing a play . . . that’s a different kettle of fish, they learned. And it was a fun few months working with them in that endeavor. I was proud of the work they ended the semester with. Only three of them chose to have their plays performed in the festival, which was fine. But not until we were rehearsing this summer did
Read more

INFECTION

-
Image
Y’all, I’ve had two colds in the past three months. That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but for me it can be. If I don’t treat my colds early and effectively, they grow into monsters that do me in for a month or more. That’s what happened in June. I came home from a trip sick. I mean, sick . Sicker than I’ve been for a long time. And that cold progressed into a wicked chest cough that hung around for the rest of the month, even after my doctor prescribed an antibiotic and a heavy-duty cough suppressant (which wasn’t cheap, let me tell you). I mean, people, IT SUCKS. Then the first morning of the second week of school, I woke up with the inkling of soreness in my throat and felt a bit of panic. Thankfully, because I was home this time at that first hint of a symptom, I was able to start taking my Zinc, Selenium, and Vitamin C immediately. That’s my happy little cocktail that seems to kick these little infections out the door if I start it early. The cold came . . . but it was very m
Read more