Portraits of the Passion - John 20:24-29

THE BLESSING OF DOUBT

 

How can doubt be a blessing? We all struggle with doubts to varying degrees. We all have questions about our faith in the crucified and risen Jesus – we do. And this bothers us. It’s okay to admit that you have doubts about Jesus. If this isn’t a safe place for doubters, then we need to change some attitudes. If the can of worms were opened the questions would come spilling out. 

            Doubt has been made out to be a plague to faith. It is so unwelcome in Christian circles that space has not been made to allow it. We even fear it. What will it do to our young people? If I express doubts about Christianity, I will be put out of the church. You may feel, “Doubt is sin, after all.” 

            There are two kinds of doubters. We need to identify that there are unwelcome doubts and doubts that can be a blessing.

            Unwelcome doubts come from doubters who use doubt as a cover up for sin. They think they are being intellectually honest and cannot find a balance between reason and faith. Faith, they say, does not make sense in the 21^stcentury. Faith is for the weak. Faith is just a set of rules that limit my life experience. What they are saying is, faith in Jesus keeps me from living how I want and if I find out that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, I will have to change the way I live. 

            The blessing of doubt is altogether different. Those who have honest doubts hate that they doubt God. They are miserable; they want to believe, but they are plagued by genuine, honest questions. Blind faith doesn’t work for them. They need credible answers for their doubts. 

            CS Lewis was at one time an atheist. In those days of unbelief, he had no doubts. When he gave his life to Christ, then he began to doubt. But those doubts led him to explore the questions of faith. Selwyn Hughes, a devotional writer, said, “Those who doubt most, and yet strive to overcome their doubts, turn out to be some of the Christ’s strongest disciples.”

The Doubt of Thomas (John 20:24-25)

 

We all struggle with doubts that cloud our faith in the risen Christ. No one owned a greater distinction in history than Thomas. He is forever known as “Doubting Thomas.” It’s not a fair label, but here’s where it comes from:

“Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So, the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

            We know very little about Thomas from the gospel accounts, so we can only guess at what led to this demand. There are four factors that contributed to his doubt:

Personal Failure – On the night of Jesus’ arrest, all the disciples promised to be loyal to Jesus. They all fell away. But Thomas had been particularly outspoken the week before the Passion. Jesus wanted to go to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead, but the disciples knew that it was too close to Jerusalem and thus too dangerous. Thomas, in his cheerfully pessimistic manner said, “Let’s all go so that we may die with him,” (John 11:16). That loyalty would melt away when the mob came to arrest Jesus. That failure helped plunge Thomas into the clouds of doubt.

Lack of Understanding – How many times did Jesus tell the disciples that he was going to Jerusalem to die? Mark 8, 9, and 10 record three times. That means Jesus repeatedly explained to them that his mission involved dying as a ransom for many. They didn’t get it. Thomas, like the others had a “conquering king” image of Messiah, not a “Suffering Servant” portrait. In John 6:60 many of his fringe followers fell away when Jesus taught them that they would have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. One of my own questions as a young adult drove my own theological doubt: How does one man dying on a cross save me from my sins? 

PTSD Over Jesus’ Crucifixion – Seriously! The horrifying details of Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion left Thomas in a state of shock. Thomas seemed fixated on the specifics of the wounds, the gory and bloody scene playing over and over in his mind. I remember when a friend of mine was killed in a tree-planting accident how the scene played over and over in my imagination. I literally saw my friend pinned between two logs in an engorged and flooding river in a BC mountain. Shock can leave you in a state of susceptibility to doubt.

Isolation – Why was Thomas missing on the Sunday night when Jesus appeared to the Ten? Where was he? Grief affects everyone differently: some need people around and others want to be alone. Thomas chose the latter. But being alone with your doubts and depression are the worst thing – all you have is your own mind and its irrational thoughts to keep you company. Then the other disciples say they saw Jesus and Thomas must have thought it was a cruel joke. It’s like missing church when you’re having a bad day, and everyone tells you it was the best service ever. It was like Jesus was really present in the worship time. Greeeaaaaat! 

            Do these factors contribute to your doubts about Jesus? Where do you go for the answers to your questions? 

 

The Invitation (John 20:26-27)

 

“The Incredulity of Saint Thomas” (1602) is a painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio that portrays the moment when Jesus appears to Thomas. You can see four intimate figures in a Roman setting. Caravaggio used light and darkness to tell the story: Thomas’ doubt is seen in the shadows behind him, while Thomas touches Christ’s wound as if being drawn into the light. His surprised expression shows his unbelief. Note too that Jesus does not have a halo around his head in this painting emphasizing his in-the-flesh persona.

            “Eight days later” suggests that according to the Jewish way of counting “a week later” – It’s Sunday evening again! Knowing of Thomas’ challenge, Jesus appears again and invites Thomas to investigate his wounds. Jesus graciously offers him to touch the holes left by nails and the gaping gash where the spear pierced his side. Go ahead, find your proof! 

            In other words, if you have doubts use those doubts to investigate more of Jesus. When I struggled with doubts about Jesus, someone encouraged me that it was a good thing. You’ve got questions – use those questions to find out if there are answers. And there were answers! I kept reading. I kept studying. I kept preaching. And I am more certain than ever that Jesus is who he says he is! Doubt doesn’t have to freeze your faith. Doubt is not a sin if it urges you to seek answers.

            Life with Jesus is not a victorious straight line. What I mean is, we get sucked into the sneaky narrative that some preachers tell you that life with Jesus is perfect. Everything that is wrong will be fixed immediately. That’s not how discipleship works. 

            First, we see in the Bible that there are people of faith that had doubts. And God embraces those people. Abraham and Sarah doubted when God told them they would have a son in their senior years. Mary was incredulous when Gabriel told her she would give birth to the Messiah. Do you know who didn’t have doubts? The Pharisees. They stood out as those who think they had God all figured out. They never asked questions, only gave pat answers. And they were wrong. 

            There is a way to deal with doubt from a place of faith. Take your doubts to God. Read the Psalms; they are full of people questioning God. Psalm 42:9, “I say to God my rock: ‘Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?’” This psalmist went to God and said, “I don’t get this. Help me understand.” Tim Keller said that we should talk to ourselves but don’t listen to ourselves. Tell your doubts to remember God’s character and how he has been faithful to you. Go to other believers and, unlike Thomas who went it alone, share your questions. 

            The Bible shows us that God welcomes doubts because he wants the “real you” to know the “real Him.” Knowing God is a lifetime pursuit. And he is pursuing you too by giving you the questions. He wants you to investigate him.

 

The Blessing of Believing Without Seeing (John 20:28-29)

 

Thomas is face-to-face with the risen Christ. He sees the wounds of Jesus as Jesus pulls back his garment. All Thomas can say is, “My Lord and my God!” He is not saying, “Oh my God, that’s gross!” He is not blaspheming, and Jesus does not rebuke him for calling him “God”! Thomas is making a declaration of faith. It is the first time in John’s account that someone calls Jesus God. 

            Greg Boyd made an interesting observation about the disciples’ faith. He said they didn’t believe in Jesus because of their scripture (OT); they were convinced by Jesus’ claims, his love, his life, his authority, his miracles, his death, and especially his resurrection. Once they believed in Jesus, they looked for him and found him in the scriptures. 

            Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is home base for faith. It is the foundational truth of our faith. It is the place we return to again and again when the Christian life is hard to figure out. 

            After you come to believe in Jesus, you will still have doubts and questions over difficult problems in the Bible and in your daily life. You may struggle with how a loving God can allow evil in the world. Or how children can be sold into slavery for the sex trade. Maybe you struggle with the idea of hell and how some people are bound for judgment. 

            Listen, you may not get the answers, it may be a lifetime of studying the Scriptures, or it may be a mystery only solved when we see Jesus. But you can trust that God is good and is faithful because of one amazing fact: God raised Jesus bodily from the dead. I may not understand the world and all its complicated mysteries, but I come back to Jesus. He is risen from the dead, was seen by the Apostles, by Thomas who wanted proof, and by 500 more witnesses. If Jesus is risen from the dead, then his claims are true and your issues with how the world works are secondary issues. As Paul said, “…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins,” (1 Cor. 5:17). 

            The resurrection of Jesus is the touchstone. An ancient Christian creed began like this: “…Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures…he was buried…he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures…” (1 Cor. 15:3-4). 

            Thomas saw Jesus and believed. Jesus replied, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,” (28). That’s you and me.

 

Do you have doubts about the Christian faith? I challenge you to make your doubts a blessing by looking for the answers. 

            Charles Spurgeon said, and I paraphrase, “I think, when a man says, ‘I never doubt,’ we should doubt his certainty. We need to say, ‘You poor guy, I am afraid you are not on the road to discipleship, for if you were, you would see so many things in yourself and in the person of Jesus Christ than you deserve to see, you would be ashamed, and you would say, ‘This is too good to be true.’” 

            Sometimes doubt is a rite of passage into maturity as when a young person needs to own the faith that his or her parents raised them in. 

            Sometimes doubt is connected to moral choices as when people don’t want to believe in Jesus because God forbids the things they want to do.

            And then there is doubt like Thomas’ who rooted in fear and lack of understanding about Jesus leaves unanswered questions that need investigation. 

            As we approach the Easter season and celebrate its meaning, these are the facts:

·      Jesus died on a Roman cross for the sins of the world.

·      The tomb was found to be empty. 

·      No corpse has ever been discovered.

·      Jesus appeared to a lot of people who put their own lives on the line and died saying, “This is true!”

And do you know what happened to “Doubting Thomas”? Hippolytus, a 2^nd century historian gave a credible account that Thomas preached in what is now Iraq, Iran, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and finally India where he died for Jesus. That territory covers 25 US states. One of my Sunday School teachers at Braeside was from India and his name was Thomas Matthew. That’s the legacy of one who saw the resurrected Jesus.

            “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is in expressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls,” (1 Peter 1:8-9). 

 

                                                            AMEN