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John 20:24-29 Matthew 28:16-20
24But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
26A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
16Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Remember back two weeks ago as our Easter worship service was coming to a close, Leisa gave the benediction – but the choir back here was so full of the Spirit that they just had to break out in song? What can you do? They had the mike. “Oh de angels rolled de stone away – oh de angels rolled de stone away – ‘twas on dat Eas-ter Sun-day morning, dat the angels rolled de stone away.” The basses could not contain themselves and chimed in: “Great God, Almighty!” Then, our choir director Joe sang to us: “Brother Thomas he came runnin’ and his eyes were open wide – Jesus said ‘Man if you doubt me, come put your hand right in my side.’” Again, the basses could not contain themselves and chimed in again: “Great God, Almighty!” It is that Thomas Joe sang about two weeks ago who is still on my mind. It is that Thomas Joe sang about two weeks ago who we read about a few moments ago that is still on my mind. It is that Thomas Joe sang about two weeks ago who a number of people of the faith can readily identify with. It is that Thomas Joe sang about two weeks ago who we ponder this morning.
“Ah, if only I could have been there and met Jesus in person. If only I could have been with the disciples in the Upper Room and met the risen Jesus. Struggles of faith and doubt would not be such an issue.” At times those have been my thoughts. At times, yours, too?
So, we approach faith in God centuries after the events narrated to us from the pages of the Bible. Somehow we are supposed to take the faith they had and hold onto it – pulling it in – caressing it – just believing it. But it is not always so easy. Gone are the days of belief just because we are to believe it. Gone are the days of unquestioning faithfulness to a Church which lets us all know just how we are to believe. Gone is any sense of simplicity of faith – relaxed about God being God and we being who we are. This is the five hundredth year of John Calvin’s birth. A reformer. A thinker and writer who added tremendous influence to the Protestant Reformation taking place across Europe. John Calvin was a product of his era and his era was the Enlightenment – Protestantism is a child of the Enlightenment – Protestantism was a point in the Church when faith moved from something of the mystery of the heart into the brilliant brains of the peoples during the Enlightenment. Born when Leonardo DaVinci was reaching his peak of creativity, John Calvin was trained to think. To think and think and think. Eventually to write and write and write. Ultimately to influence and influence and influence.
So, as children of the Enlightenment, and as inheritors of Western Greco-Roman rationalism, we look back almost two millennia to a person who walked and talked with Jesus the Christ as that rather revolutionary Near Eastern Rabbi gathered a group of rather normal and common people around him in the northern regions of the Galilee in Palestine. With the dubious gift of educated hindsight, we look back to the Thomas of our Gospel reading – the Thomas Joe sung of two weeks ago – the one who has become known as Doubting Thomas. Many of us find ourselves looking to Thomas as a sort-of Patron Saint because, he being known as the doubter, we might somehow be comforted in the knowledge that we are not alone with our own doubts. What the heck are we to do with our doubts? Within the context of Church culture, are we even allowed to name our doubts? Or, should doubt be part of the experience of our souls? Would and should that be a failure on our parts? Many of us learned early in our lives to keep doubts hidden, fearing that doubt on our part only advertised to all those around us a weakness of faith. Failure. Somehow an ideal – a model of faith is out there somewhere – and too often we do not live up to it. So, we keep our mouths shut, smile, and drink coffee with everyone else during the Social Hour following worship. And then go home saddened again that somehow when the gift of faith was handed out, we were overlooked. Souls sad with emptiness. But yet, we come, week after week, hoping that faith might be something like a virus we might be able to catch should we just hang around those inflicted with the disease. For all of us for whom faith is a struggle, Brother Thomas becomes our Patron Saint.
But before we just leave it at that, maybe we could and should reconsider our so-called Doubting-Thomas. Beginning with the concept of doubt. Something we project back over the centuries from ourselves to that one disciple. He was overwhelmed with belief in the resurrection of Jesus.
Abraham Joshua Heschel writes that “There is no word in Biblical Hebrew for doubt; there are many expressions of wonder... Doubt is an act in which the mind inspects its own ideas; wonder is an act in which the mind confronts the universe.” (God in Search of Man, p.98)
Interestingly, it is Thomas who probably made the first real profession of faith: “My Lord and my God!” Other disciples had identified Jesus as the Messiah, but that Messiah concept certainly came with much baggage. But equating Jesus with God: “My Lord and my God!” – that was new. The first “professor” of Jesus being at one with God came from Doubting Thomas. In our Tuesday evening Men’s Bible Study, a few weeks ago we watched the second half of a two hour documentary on India. It was called “Out of India.” Fascinating documentary. But that hour we watched took us to southern India where Christianity is surprisingly fairly widespread. The church there is very ancient with traditions tracing its beginnings to the disciple Thomas. Tradition tells us that somewhere in the mid-First Century, Thomas travelled to India and began the Church there in the southern region. Tradition also is that after a couple decades, Thomas was martyred in India. Even today, particularly in the southern parts of India, the Disciple Thomas has been included as one of Hindu’s pantheon of the gods. This the doubter? If there really was doubt – if Thomas is the Patron Saint of doubters – then there is hope for the rest of us.
Doubt is a puzzle. A moment ago I quoted Abraham Joshua Heshel. Doubt is not a concept known to Biblical Hebrew. They do not even have a word for doubt. So, what gives?
In my concordance, I can count that the word “doubt” in all of its forms appear only fourteen times in the whole of the Bible – Old Testament and New Testament. Only five of those “doubt” words have anything to do with doubts about faith. The Bible is amazingly silent about doubt. But, yet, doubt is something which looms large for many of us. Within our common understanding, often the concepts of “faith” and “doubt” are paired. Faith and doubt. Almost as though they were opposites of each other. But at its deepest, doubt cannot exist without faith. One cannot doubt if one does not have faith. Doubt is not the opposite of faith, doubt is only part of faith. Doubt is part of the journey of faith. Doubt is part of the struggle of faith. Not its opposite.
Back to the concordance. Five entries for doubt which have anything to do with faith. But hundreds of entries for fear. At its deepest, the opposite of faith is fear. It is fear which can tear our souls apart. It is fear which can cast us into the pit of despair. It is fear – fear of life – fear of a vast pit of nothingness – which can drive us in desperation to the edge of the cliffs, and with the deepest of torments, fight the raging battle to either walk away or to push ourselves off. Desperation at its most desperate screaming into deeply bruised souls that the God of Love is to be left behind – to stretch our arms out into the nothingness of the abyss – to run from any hope of living. Amazingly numb to any fear of the thousand foot drop one step away from the ledge, but deep in fear of a life in which the world makes no sense. But then, at life’s most desperate moment, the arms of God somehow appearing out of nowhere, hanging on, hanging on. “You are loved! You are loved! You are loved!”
One week after the Resurrection, Jesus came among the disciples, and particularly to Thomas: “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”
That was Thomas! But there was another scripture we heard a bit ago which can be even more mysterious. Following the resurrection, the disciples met Jesus on the mountain. They saw him. They worshipped him. But some doubted. Again, what the heck? They saw him and worshipped him. And then some doubted? Suppose Thomas was one of the doubters? I doubt it. Again, doubt is not the opposite of faith. We all could wish that Matthew had written more about that doubt, but really, it is amazing he even wrote those words at all. Doubt is part of the process of faith. Irritatingly to many Children of the Enlightenment, faith is not as easy to pin down as we would like, so in frustration and maybe even disillusionment, we choose not to follow the path of faith. Is that God’s problem? Maybe. But it shouldn’t be. That’s our problem. If we do not want to follow the path of faith, the universe is not going to end. God does not have to rely on our believing in God in order for God to exist, to create, to love. Believing is up to us. But if we want to know, if we want to find Love, we do have to look and we do have to follow – maybe even chase.
I bumped into a word this past week that I had heard many times over the years, but never paid much attention to. Somehow this week it caught my delight. The word is “exfoliation.” Those of us who are Caucasian should be quite aware of such a word because of all the races, Caucasians reproduce skin cells slower than any of the other races, so that means that our skin can get dried and cracked – particularly our heels in the middle of the dry air of the winter. Exfoliation is the process of removing those dead skin cells so that the cracks in the dried skin does not become a problem. There are all kinds of treatments for it. A sandpaper-like thingy you can scrape your heels with after a shower; creams which help remove the dead skin cells. A novel approach is putting one’s feet into a fishpond filled with little fish that like to nibble dead skin cells off of the feet. In geology, exfoliation is the process in which rocks splinter and layers of rock fall off. Should you recall the calling of the Apostle Paul – blinded by a bright light, it was as though scales fell off of his eyes, and he began to see reality consistent with the reality of God. Creepy as it may sound, Saint Paul’s eyes were exfoliated. But the definition I am most intrigued with takes us back to the root of the word exfoliation. To remove the leaves. That can mean in the autumn with the leaves fall off of the trees. But the image I like the best is the parting of the leaves. I imagine myself inside the dense edge of a forest. I take my hands and part the leaves which block my view. Exfoliation. To remove the foliage. And then to be able to see.
That is faith. God is there. God’s love is there. We can doubt all we want. Big deal. We can keep ourselves hidden all we want. Big deal. But what it is all about is parting those leaves and peeking out. It is there that we can finally encounter the incredible God of Love. Amen.