The Good News About Doubt

The Rev. Dr. David A. Van DykeThe House of Hope Presbyterian ChurchSaint Paul, MinnesotaApril 11, 2010        Second Sunday of Easter

Prayer: Like the disciples long ago, we too are gathered together in the aftermath of what happened, bringing with us our questions, our concerns for the world and the way we should live in it, and maybe even our doubts.  As we open your word, speak to us what you would have us hear. And as we break bread together, be present among us. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our risen Lord. Amen. John 20:19-31I've  said before and I’ll say it again now, that I love this Sunday almost more than any other Sunday of the year. Not that Easter isn’t great.  Not that the Sundays throughout Advent don’t inspire me each year. It’s just that this Sunday I think, gets it right. It meets us where we live much of our lives. Because most of our days are not lived on Easter Sunday, nor are they lived in the valleys of Good Friday.  If we’re honest, most of our days are spent living here, in a post Easter world where because of the resurrection everything is supposedly different, and yet when we look around us, far too little of the things that need to be different, are different.Most of our living is done in the same way we encounter the disciples in today’s text—in a hazy, sometimes confused, sometimes frightening world where the tomb has been found empty alright, and yet it’s also a world where the things that need fixing are still broken.  The wounds that need healing are still glaring, and the things that are dead still need raising.  So we’re left with our questions and our doubts and our nagging suspicions.Isn’t that how you would describe the world as you see it?Thomas was not present the first time the risen Christ appeared to the others, and when they told him what they’d experienced, he didn’t believe them.  “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”Some people are just slower in coming to faith than others, which is ok.  Maybe Thomas is like all those who have been unfairly labeled.  “Doubting Thomas” he’s been dubbed.  “Don’t be such a doubting Thomas!” implying something negative about him.But here’s what I think.  The opposite of doubt isn’t faith. The opposite of doubt is certainty and certainty has nothing to do with faith. And furthermore, where others may have seen pessimism in him, I wonder of Jesus didn’t see in him the courage to ask what the others were afraid to ask?  I wonder if where the others heard questions, Jesus heard honesty?  And where others saw doubt, maybe Jesus saw an inner love that was so deep that it needed to know if something promising to be so good could really be true?So when the risen Lord appears to them again and this time Thomas is with them, there are no harsh words for Thomas—no judgment on the part of the risen Christ.  In fact, even before Thomas can issue his challenge about seeing and touching, the risen Christ extends his hands in his direction and says to Thomas, “Here, put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out and put your hand in my side.  Do not doubt but believe.”The clear message in all of this is that doubt is not a four letter word. And I think you can even draw the conclusion that the reason faith becomes strong in the first place is because of doubt. Like weight training that is built on the theory of resistance, doubt can serve to strengthen our faith and not necessarily weaken it.I mean, consider all the good that has come about as a result of doubt?  There isn’t a great scientific or technical advance—no major medical breakthrough that hasn’t come about because someone first dared to doubt all previously held assumptions.Doubters are often courageous because they’re not content with the way things are and instead, see possibilities most others do not see.  It’s why Galileo called doubt the father of discovery.And consider for a moment the ways in which Jesus himself was a doubter.  I made that comment one time speaking to a men’s prayer breakfast back in West Michigan and some guy cornered me afterword and barked at me, “Jesus never doubted a thing!” before storming off in a huff.  But when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on that donkey, he knew people were looking for a military hero to overthrow the occupying Romans, but Jesus doubted that as a solution to the problem or as the way the Prince of Peace should conduct himself.Jesus was raised being taught that an eye for an eye was an appropriate response to violence, but he doubted that the world would be better off with two blind people instead of one, and that turning the other cheek and loving our enemies are actually more creative and fruitful responses.  Jesus saw people standing conspicuously in the temple, reciting long prayers believing that being seen by others carried some weight, and Jesus doubted that a public relations campaign in the temple meant anything at all in the grand scheme of things.  Jesus was raised in a culture that viewed Samaritans as an inferior race, women as undeserving of rights and sick people as guilty people, and he doubted any society or religion that taught and believed such things.And so to those of you who have heard the good news of the Gospel presented in tones more characteristic of Good Friday than of Easter, say to yourself, “I doubt it.”  Whenever you hear someone position the Gospel of Jesus Christ as a hard-edged list of rules meant to judge and exclude rather than to love and include, say to yourself, “I doubt it.”  And anytime someone tries to convince you that doubt is a sign of weakness, say to yourself, “I doubt it.”I love what the late William Sloan Coffin, in his book Credo, says,There is nothing anti-intellectual in the leap of faith, for faith is not believingwithout proof but trusting without reservation. Faith is no substitute for thinking.On the contrary, it is what makes good thinking possible. It has what we mightcall a limbering effect on the mind; by taking us beyond familiar ground, faithends up giving us that much more to think about. Certainly Peter and Andrew andJames and John, in deciding to follow Jesus, received more to think about thanhad they stayed home. And so it is with all of us—if we leave the familiarterritory and take the leap of faith, what we receive in return fills our mindsaltogether as much as it fills our hearts (p.8).Standing in that locked room, with their world shattered and their hope gone, Jesus simply came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  And in saying that, he was saying to them and to us today, “Peace be with all who grieve; peace be with all who are afraid; peace be with those who are feeling lonely and abandoned, and peace be with any who doubt and demand signs.”If you are demanding hard signs and concrete proof as conditions for belief, hear the words of the risen Christ in your midst, “Peace be to you…”  In other words, “Try relaxing your self-imposed criteria for belief and entertain instead the wider, broader possibilities that faith allows.”Remember, that without actually receiving the physical proof Thomas demanded as a condition for believing—without actually placing his fingers in the holes in the hands of the risen Christ, Thomas cries out, “My Lord and my God.”And sometimes that’s how it happens.I’ve heard the arguments and so have you—that there is no God, no creative force animating the universe.  Maybe creation really is nothing more than a collection of protons and electrons on their own—an accident is some backwater corner of the universe with all of the world’s beauty and all of the innate goodness of human character occurring only by chance?  Maybe—but I doubt it!And if you ask me what happened shortly after Jesus was crucified—what was it those disciples experienced when they were together in that locked room scared to death, I will tell you that I do not know.  I could no more explain that first experience of the risen Christ than I can say for sure how it was that Jesus walked on water, turned water into wine or fed a multitude with just a few loaves and a couple of fish.But I know this, time and time again we experience in our midst the presence and power of the risen Christ—if we will only see it.  When the restless become content.  When the wandering one comes home. When strangers are welcomed. When the wounded are able to forgive.  When enemies become friends. When the sick become well.  When cowards become courageous. When the lost are found.  When the lowly are honored and lifted up. When the broken are made whole.  When sinners become saints.  When the dead come back to life, and when bread is broken and the cup shared, and hungering and thirsting souls are satisfied.And I don’t know about you, but because I see these things happening all the time, I have all the proof I need to cry out “My Lord!” and “My God!”Amen.