Honest Doubt and Faith

Second Sunday of Easter Year A 2014
St. John’s Dunsford, Christ Church, Bobcaygeon

Lord Alfred Tennyson, a 19th century English poet laureate wrote: There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.”

This morning’s Gospel is about honest doubt. We’ve growing up hearing Thomas nicknamed “doubting Thomas” because of this post resurrection appearance by Jesus to the disciples. It has become part of our vocabulary.

Yet in a way we are all Thomas. We have honest doubts about our faith, even if we are afraid to admit them.

I think Thomas has been hard done by for the last two thousand years. He was missing from the upper room the first time Jesus appeared to his disciples. So when he comes and finds his friends changed men, no longer huddling in fear but energized and ready to proclaim the Gospel, he doubts their experience. He wants to touch the wounded hands of his master so he too can believe.

I identify with Thomas. I am skeptical. I like to see evidence before I decide whether to believe a story.

Thomas is only mentioned once before this story in the Gospels. In John 11, verse 16 we learn Thomas understood Jesus when he foretold his own death. Thomas tells his fellow disciples, many of whom couldn’t accdept what Jesus told them. “Let us go, that we may die with him.”

Doesn’t sound much like a doubter there.

When Jesus first appears to his disciples (when Thomas is away) he greets them with the peace, then he breathes on them.

This breathing of the Holy Spirit is often called John’s “Pentecost” because Jesus conferes the power to forgive sins, and pours his spirit on the disciple, foreshadowing the Day of Pentecost we celebrate in six weeks.

Thomas missed that important moment. But the very fact he was willing to leave the safety of the upper room to go out indicated an act of faith and courage at a time when the followers of Jesus were a dispirited lot.

So when Thomas was back and Jesus appeared he wanted to share in the experience of the risen Christ. He wanted to believe—something demonstrated by his response to Jesus---“My Lord and My God,” surely not the declaration of a skeptic. Doubt had turned to assurance.

And Jesus has more assurance for those of us who could not share in his post-resurrection appearances. “Have you been blessed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

That’s an important teaching, because if faith had only been possible for those who witnessed the risen Christ, or had a chance to listen to their testimony, than Christianity might have been a footnote in history, rather helping to shape the world’s history since that time.

The blessing of Jesus, for those who have faith in things unseen, extends to us today as we struggle with a world where many follow scientific rationalism, and profession no faith in God…only in themselves.

What happened to Thomas after this famous encounter with Jesus.

Accounts found in what are called the New Testament apocrypha, books that weren’t accepted as part of the Biblical Canon, tell of Thomas going to preach the Gospel in India. He was a reluctant evangelist. He didn’t know how he would reach people from a very different culture than his Mediterranean world.

The Acts of Thomas say Jesus appeared to Thomas and told him: “Fear not. Go to India and Preach the Gospel. My grace is with thee.”

After briefly refusing Thomas agrees to go. “I will go whither thou wilt, Lord Jesus. Thy will be done.”

Later he was martyred, dying by the sword. But the church survived in India from that time, and still reveres Thomas as a saint.

What can we learn from the story of Thomas?

Perhaps the most important is there isn’t anything wrong with asking questions. Sometimes during its history the church has persecuted those who questioned creeds and dogma.

Yet our faith is sure one of relationship, with God, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit—all part of our Trinitarian understanding of the divine. And how we live out our faith is not in agreeing to a set of propositions, but in that relationship, and living out that relationship in our lives.

That’s why we can’t or shouldn’t come to church on Sunday and profess a faith, without trying to live it out in the rest of our lives.

Our Christian faith doesn’t provide easy answers. I’m not saying that. But it provides a basis to make choices. If we love Jesus, love our neighbours as ourelves, the Holy Spirit will help us in making the right choice.

Of course we will sometimes have doubts. It was easy for Thomas. It isn’t easy for us.

But a living faith is able to encompass doubt and grow. Let us pray during this Easter season of new birth, new life and resurrection, that we might grow in our doubts and fears, and grow closer to Christ.