Weekly Reflection
April 12th to 18th
Low Sunday
Doubt
Readings: John 20:19-29, 1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-29
19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21 Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ 22 And with that he breathed[1] on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus [meaning twin]), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’
But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.’
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ 27 Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’
28 Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’
29 Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’
1 Peter 1:3-9
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Over the centuries Thomas has had such a bad press, but actually there is a very real sense in which doubt is a stage, a stepping stone, on the road to true faith. If we encounter the story of the Resurrection for the first time, there is a natural human tendency to scepticism, or disbelief; human nature simply says that it is impossible therefore it did not happen:
I have been told, but cannot grasp;
I will investigate for myself and analyse,
Then I will know for sure.
A valid thoughtful process.
I was brought up from childhood to believe in God and I have never doubted that God actually existed; also I am a scientist, and I have occasionally pondered the philosophical question, “What if there had never been any creation? Suppose the earth, sun, moon, stars and planets had never existed, that there had never been any material “stuff” at all? Like many others I have asked the fundamental question, “Where did the universe come from?”
Of course there are two separate basic questions we would need to ask here: “How?” (scientific) and “Why?” (philosophical).
Science today is making a fair stab at explaining the How, to the extent that sadly some scientists say they have explained away the Bible and have either dismissed it or believe they have disproved it. However no-one other than a Christian has got anywhere near an explanation for the Why.
We all know that God is Love, and if we look further and more deeply into that statement I believe we shall see that this is the Why of creation. God is so full of love that He simply had to create a universe to share it with.[2]
The statement “God is” has never been a problem for me. To say. “I believe in God”, however, is by no means straightforward. To “believe in God” is obviously a matter of faith and is very personal, but it is precisely this Why, this personal faith, that leads us to believe in the Resurrection[3], which is fundamental and pivotal to our faith. To say, “I am a Christian but I don’t believe in the bodily Resurrection” (or come to that, the Virgin Birth, which I heard from my School Chaplain when I was about 13), are utter non sequiturs.
And as for the consequences of this belief, we find ourselves engulfed in the wonderful world of God’s Heavenly Kingdom and our place, our Job Description, within it.
In our reading from Peter today we see that through the Resurrection we have been given new birth into a new hope of a heavenly inheritance – the Kingdom of God is now ours if we just believe – believe in Life in all its Fullness, which the Risen Jesus offers us. If you are not yet a committed believer, or someone you know is perhaps on the fringe but is not yet ready to commit completely, can I encourage you to pray and to ask Jesus into your life, and to discuss it with your friend or whoever with this process in mind.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I thank you for your Passion and Death, and for your Rising to life again so that I can have that wonderful privilege of knowing you personally and being guaranteed a place in your Everlasting Kingdom; show me Lord what I have to do to play my part in the growth of your Kingdom, to help to bring others to you. I ask this in your Precious Name Lord Jesus.
Amen.
Peter Sebborn
Christian.Footsoldier@gmail.com
[1] The Hebrew for breath and for spirit are the same word, Ruach; it suggests an invisible but active force.
[2] I have written elsewhere that, “As an integral part of Creation, out of His love God gave us Free Will, and this included the freedom to get it wrong (instigated by Satan – see Genesis 3); God knew that we would make mistakes and so it was always part of God’s plan that, at just the right time in history, Jesus would come to earth to live among us as a human being and minister to us (serve and help us) and show us what the Father is like. Note that this was no Plan B – God knew from the beginning that the price of giving us Free Will was that we would fail and so He deliberately built the Crucifixion and Resurrection of His beloved Son, into the plan for mankind. This shows how much He loved us – He created us out of love, He gave us Free Will out of love, and He arranged for Jesus to come to earth to die on the Cross so that we could be reconciled to His original plan, all out of His love.” (see “The Holy Spirit in your Life”, Chapter 3.
[3] See “The Case for Christ” by “Lee Strobel” (I can find no publication details but copies are definitely available on the open market).