On the evening of the great first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."
Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. When the other disciples told him that they had seen the Lord, he declared, "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 it."
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!" 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."
Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:19-31, NIV)
E. S. Martin has observed:
Within my earthly temple there's a crowd,There's one of us that's humble, one that's proud,There's one broken-hearted for his sins,There's one that unrepentant sits and grins;There's one that loves his neighbor as himself,And one that cares for naught but fame and self,From much corroding care I should be free,If I could once determine which is me.1
1. E. S. Martin, as quoted by Melvin A. Hawmarberg, My Body Broken, Fortress, Philadelphia, 1963, p. 15.
Happy Doubters' Sunday! A strange greeting for the Sunday after Easter? Not at all when we stop to realize that this Sunday the Gospel is about St. Thomas, the doubter who said, "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 it."
A Doubters' Sunday? Yes, not only because the Gospel is about St. Thomas, but also because in a very real sense, St. Thomas is the patron Saint of the twentieth century. There are many doubters outside and inside the church in our age.
It is not my purpose today to encourage doubt. It is my purpose today to include the doubter. Jesus said to Thomas, "Stop doubting and believe ... Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Jesus also said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side ..." In other words, Jesus encouraged faith, not doubt, but he included the doubter in the inclusive fellowship called the church. The story of Thomas is about inclusiveness. It is also about wounds.
Our Wounds and His Wounds
"A Christian is not someone who doesn't doubt, but someone who doubts his doubts more than he doubts his faith." Dr. Helmut Thielicke, the German theologian, said that. He said it in the context of World War II. War, like all catastrophic events, raises many doubts about God and Christianity for people.
It is my belief that most of our doubts come from unresolved conflicts and situations which seem intolerable. We project our troubles onto the Almighty, not knowing what else to do with them. Most of our doubts are not intellectual conclusions made on the basis of research into the nature of things. Doubts often come from our wounds.
When Thomas was wounded by the sudden turn of events that first Holy Week, when he grieved over the loss of his best friend, he defended himself against further hurt by falling into what was for him a familiar pattern, a skeptical outlook. When Jesus confronted the wounded Thomas, he showed him his wounds.
The resolution of doubts is not an intellectual exercise in mathematical or philosophical propositions. It is a matter of being included in the circle of the wounded. Jesus, the wounded healer, shows us his scars.
One of the greatest creeds of Christendom was uttered by a father who wanted his demon-possessed son healed. (Mark 9:20-29) "How long has he been this way?" Jesus asked, watching the boy go into convulsions, rolling on the ground. "From childhood," said the father pathetically, "from childhood ... if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us." Jesus replied, "If I can? All things are possible to him who believes." The father cried out this magnificent creed: "I believe; help my unbelief." And Jesus commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the boy.
Belief and unbelief are the twin motivators within every human heart. The question is not whether we have doubts - some have many, some few - but what we do with the doubts we have.
There is a beautiful picture of the resurrected Lord surrounded by children who are playing around him and enjoying his presence. One little girl is not playful, but serious. She is looking at the scarred hands of Jesus. "Did it hurt?" she asks. Yes, it hurt, but Jesus was "wounded for our transgressions ..."
Thomas is called the Twin and with good reason. There are two persons, not one within each of us - one that believes, one that doubts. When we are wounded, sometimes the doubts grab a foothold, at least for a season, and we say, "See, I told you so. God doesn't care." Not so. Jesus was wounded. This is a story about wounds and about faith.
Faith
A poet has written: "Doubt is pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother." Paul Tillich has expressed the relationship between faith and doubt this way: "Faith is courage that conquers doubt not by removing it, but by taking it in as an element into self." Concretely, honest doubt need not be the opposite of faith; it can be an expression of it. Alfred Lord Tennyson in his poem "In Memorium" said, "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds." Martin Luther experienced honest doubt in depth. It was a soul despair called "Anfectung." Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish theologian-philosopher experienced the upheaval of the inner man called "angst." Like the apostle Thomas many great Christians have wrestled with doubt in a hand-to-hand struggle which at times seemed unbearable.
It seems to me that two of the most important dynamics of doubt are (1) a willingness to expressdoubts to other Christians and to God and (2) a willingness to doubt our doubts when we see the wounds of Christ.
The psalmists doubted. God isn't predictable and life is often confusing. The ancient Hebrew poets expressed their feelings clearly to the Almighty. The psalmists faced their doubts honestly. They told God that they did not understand him. They fought with God, argued with him, questioned him and chided him, but the most significant factor in their doubting was that they talked with God, not just about him.
In Psalm 73 the psalmist expresses his feelings that sinners prosper while the righteous suffer. He calls God to task for the injustice of it all and then says, "Nevertheless, I am continually with thee." In the Christian faith we believe because of a number of things we see and feel but also in spite of a number of things. "Nevertheless," is a great resolve from an honest agnostic who turned the corner when he went into the Temple and got a higher perspective.
The Psalmists expressed their doubts, but they expressed them to God. They talked with God. Many modern skeptics only talk about God. There's the difference between godly skeptics and secular skeptics.
The question for Christian agnostics is not, "How could God let this happen to me?" but "God, how could you let this happen to me?" In other words, we can speak to God personally about our doubts. He understands.
You can talk to God about anything if you stand in the biblical tradition of expression. You can be that honest with God about your feelings, whatever they are, as long as you talk with God, not just about God, as long as you utter your feelings in the atmosphere of human limitation and confession, instead of just complaining to other people about God.
Jesus said, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" He expressed his feeling of being forsaken. Once and for all he silenced those who would have us express only nice, kind thoughts to our Father! But notice how he speaks: "My God," he says.
Christians need to express their real feelings to God no matter what these feelings are! This is generally done best in the context of Christian fellowship where people openly share their problems, questions and doubts. Doubt is a lonely phenomenon. When we can set solitary doubt in families, it can be "taken in as an element of faith." As Christian agnostics get together with other Christians and express their doubts honestly and openly to God and other strugglers, Jesus has a way of appearing. Christian agnostics need to doubt their doubts, question their questions. Our skepticism at any given moment may very well arise because of a frustration, a fight in the family, a disappointment, or suffering which seems unbearable.
If we would see our doubts as natural expressions of our humanity and our limited existence, we could take them to God and deal with them honestly and openly. Thus we would stand in the biblical tradition.
What some churches and pulpit pounders have often advocated is a watered-down faith that suggests that doubt is wrong and that a Christian is a mild-mannered, pious-sounding, ever-smiling, happy, cheerful and totally unrealistic dud. If you read the Bible, you discover the superficiality of that kind of ideal. The apostles all doubted, and argued and struggled for top spots and fought and were faithless ten times more often than they were faithful. We have been encouraging a phony belief in belief. No wonder some young people laugh at the incredible and utterly unrealistic schooling they get in church. Christians are human, and that means they can doubt. But they should also doubt their doubts.
A student with a smattering of psychology once said to William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury, "You only believe what you believe because of your early upbringing." The eloquent churchman, with a sparkle in his eye, replied, "You only believe that I believe because of my early upbringing because of your early upbringing."
We do need to ask why we are questioning as well as why we believe. Sometimes acting skeptical is just a means of drawing attention to yourself. Sometimes it is an expression of depth.The great English preacher Charles Spurgeon once said:
If you have ever been dragged through the mire and clay of soul-despair, if you have been turned upside down, and wiped out like a dish as to all your own strength and pride, and have then been filled with the joy and peace of God, through Jesus Christ, I will trust you among fifty thousand infidels. Whenever I hear the skeptic's stale attacks upon the word of God, I smile within myself, and think "Why, you simpleton! How can you urge such trifling objections? I have felt in the contentions of my own unbelief, ten times greater difficulties."
How many people are outside the church today because they have doubts and feel uncomfortable around believers. They would not have felt uncomfortable with Jesus. He would simply have helped them understand their doubts and led them to confess: "I believe, help my unbelief." Jesus helped Thomas "take his doubt in" by showing his wounds to the apostle. As we show our wounds to one another, instead of just speaking about our virtues, we encourage the incorporation of unbelief into belief in the family of God.
The counterpoint of belief and honest expression of doubt is expressed by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship. Bonhoeffer is considered by some to be one of the greatest Christian theologians in the twentieth century. He is remembered for his strong opposition to Adolf Hitler, for his suffering, for his imprisonment for the sake of the gospel, and for his faithful witness to Jesus Christ which converted some of his guards and strengthened his fellow prisoners. He should also be remembered for his honest and open expression of the counterpoint of faith and doubt which were a part of his humanity. His poem, "Who Am I?"2 shows us some of his wounds. Through his showing of wounds many see Jesus appearing.
Who Am I?
Who am I? They often tell meI stepped from my cell's confinementcalmly, cheerful, firmly,like a Squire from his country house.
Who am I? They often tell meI used to speak of my wardersfreely and friendly and clearly,as though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell meI bore the days of misfortuneequably, smilingly, proudly,like one accustomed to win.
AM I THEN REALLY THAT WHICH OTHER MEN TELL OF?OR AM I ONLY WHAT I MYSELFKNOW OF MYSELF?
2. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, MacMillan Company, New York, 1963, pp. 18-20.
Restless and longing and sick, like a birdin a cage, struggling for breath, as thoughhands were compressing my throat,yearning for colours, for flowers, for thevoices of birds,thirsting for words of kindness, forneighborliness,tossing in expectation of great events,powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinitedistance,weary and empty at praying, at thinking, atmaking, faint, and ready to say farewellto it all.
WHO AM I?THIS OR THE OTHER?
Am I one person to-day andto-morrow another?Am I both at once?
A hypocrite before others,and before myself a contemptiblewoebegone weakling?Or is something within me still like a beaten armyfleeing in disorder fromvictory already achieved?
WHO AM I?They mock me,these lonely questions of mine.
WHOEVER I AM,Thou knowest, O God,I AM THINE!
This is the age of analysis. The most important thing seems to be our "ratings." God is not much interested in popularity polls or Nielsen ratings. He wants to know why we feel the way we do. He wants us to know why!
One of the reasons why doubt has caused us so much trouble is that our doubting has been done as if we were the measure of things, as if our doubting and questioning determined truth, as if we ourselves could vote on whether or not God is important, as if our opinions were the most important issue of all.
Doubt is a legitimate exercise, a meaningful experience for a limited human being, but if in doubting, man sees himself as the measure of all things, he will remain in what John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress calls the "Sloth of Despond."
If when doubts assail you, you bring them to God and act on what you believe, you will discover that tomorrow your belief is richer and deeper than today.
Only in the atmosphere of free expression and willing obedience will you hear your name called. "Thomas." It is almost as if Jesus says what he said to the blind man long ago: "Ephphatha." ("Be open.")
It is important that someone who knows everything about you calls you by name.
This strange Eternal Friend does just that.
Listen ... The still small voice within is making reply: "My Lord and my God."
"I believe. Help my unbelief."
"Peace be with you."