The Doubter in All of Us! – April 18, 2021
Psalm 33:1-12, 18-22, John 20:
April 18, 2021
Ok, we know this story. And if you’ve been here long enough, you know what I feel about it. So let’s get that out of the way first.
Thomas has been labeled a doubter. He’s become the “poster boy” for skepticism! He is “Doubting Thomas!” That’s what we call him! And we have used that epithet for skeptics for two thousand years! “Oh, you know so and so. He’s a ‘Doubting Thomas.’”
I’ve even heard and read descriptions of him, personality profiles, that said, “Thomas was the skeptic of the group.” “He was pragmatic.” “He needed to see and experience for himself.” “His was a healthy skepticism that sought and celebrated proof for his beliefs.”
But as I’ve said before, Thomas’s problem wasn’t so much one of skepticism as it was location. He simply wasn’t there the first time Jesus appeared to the disciples that first Easter Day! And I don’t think he was any more of a doubter than the rest of them! We know what Luke told us about the disciples, when the women came back from the tomb saying that Jesus was alive! “These words,” he said, “seemed to them an idle tale – a fairy tale! And they did not believe them!” None of them believed! They were all skeptics!
So why wouldn’t we think that any one of them would have doubted the “tale” of the others if, they had not been there when Jesus appeared? As I’ve said before, we could easily have been calling skeptics “Doubting Matthews” or “Doubting Peters” for the last two thousand years. Personally, my money is on Peter! He was the one who would often blurt things out before thinking about them!
I think the story is more about the doubt of the day, than it is about a personality. And that’s what I’d like us to focus on. I’d like us to think not so much about Thomas, by about the doubt that Thomas showed – that all of them showed at one time or another. Because I think it’s safe to say that all of us are like Thomas – and so were the rest! And if you think about it, the claims that Jesus had come back from the dead were pretty sensational. It was unbelievable! And those claims could easily be doubted!
So, let me just say at first, that having doubt is part of this thing called “human nature.” We all have our times of weakness and failure. That happens in all areas of our lives. And it happens in our faith. Sometimes we believe very strongly, and our faith is rock solid, and sometimes we just aren’t sure. And nobody here, no matter how strong a believer they appear to be, is immune from those times of weakness. There is no vaccine for doubt! (Except maybe for the tiny little doubts, that we learn to deal with, that help us grow stronger. That’s sort of what vaccines do!)
The next thing we need to remember about doubts, is that they are often tied to our emotions – our feelings. And our emotions can go up and down like a roller coaster. Sometimes we feel confident in our faith, and then at other times, we might be going through a rough stretch in our lives, and the difficulty and stress we’re going through can make our faith seem weak to us. If we live only by what we feel, without tempering those feelings with the reasoning part of us, we’re in for a wild ride! And some people do just that! They live only by feelings. And their lives are like roller coasters!
One of the greatest examples of that was the old Star Trek character Mr. Spock. We think of him as the one who ruled his life by logic, like all the Vulcans, right? But remember the history. The Vulcan race nearly destroyed itself by their wild passions and emotions. And it was only through choosing the discipline of logic that they saved their planet from destruction. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, was a genius, when it came to developing that kind of subject matter in his characters!
That’s all to say that we can’t rely on our feelings when it comes to faith. We must choose to believe – with the reasoning and thinking part of us! That’s a big part of faith! Faith is not so much an emotional thing, although often it is sparked within us that way, by God touching our hearts. We talked about that last week with the story of the Road to Emmaus. Remember what the men said. “Did not our hearts burn within us, when he talked to us on the road?” And yet that was all about a teaching moment, wasn’t it? Their hearts were touched as Jesus taught them!
The last thing I want to say about doubting is this. What we think or believe about something is tempered by our past experiences and our past understanding about things. Someone who has seen a lot of miracles is more likely to believe in miracles. Doesn’t that make sense? Someone who has had more experiences with God is more likely to believe in and seek the presence of God. Think about that one. Think about how your life’s experiences affect your faith.
When it comes to facing our doubts, we’re up against a lot! We’re up against our own emotional struggles, and how we might be feeling at any given time. We’re up against the logical mind saying, “Hey, that can’t be true.” We’re up against our life experiences. Maybe we feel like we’ve seen too much evil in the world to believe there’s a God in control. And in all that, we need to choose to believe. We need to acknowledge our doubts and temper them with our reason and our experiences of faith. And we need to know that our times of doubt do not always go away so readily. Working through them takes time. But we need to start by choosing to work through them. Because we know that the faith that sustains us is worth it!!
Doubts and weaknesses are part of life. And our world doesn’t know what to do with doubts. Too many people think that, if they doubt, then that’s the end of belief. That’s because too many people in our world live only by emotions. They think and act and believe only on what they feel. Thomas’s response here was an emotional response! There’s an underlying anger in these words, aren’t there? “If I don’t see his hands and his side, I will not believe!” Don’t we read them like that?
As God’s people, we strive to see the big picture. We see life as being on a journey with God. We know that faith is an ongoing work. We need to tend it like we do a garden. We need to nurture it. We need to feed it, and give it light. And we need to know that faith is often like the Biblical concept of “steadfast” love. “Steadfast” meaning love that weathers difficulties and continues on. It means love that, as Paul described it, “Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.”
That’s the kind of love that God has for us. The Old Testament has these words over and over again, “The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever, and his faithfulness is to all generations.” “Steadfast Love” and “Faithfulness” are two of the most important characteristics of God.
In the end, maybe that’s the most important thing we can say about our doubts. Even when we have our doubts and our failings, God is faithful to us! And so, let us make that conscious choice to be faithful to him. Let us be determined to continue on our journey with him. There will be tough times. There will be times we fail him. But he will never fail or forsake us.
Prayer
Eternal God, we thank you for your steadfast love and faithfulness to us. May we be faithful people, loving the world that you so loved. Help us to see past our times of doubt, so that we may be more sure that you are our rock and our fortress, our God in whom we trust. For we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.