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Easter A John 20: 19-31 April 7,2002
Doubts and Questions
Flip chart to list doubts / questions
add a few of my own
Why is there so much cancer?
What is God doing in Kosovo?
Does God really have a plan for my life?
Why do I have just as many problems as non-Christians?
Is the church the way God wants it to be?
Does God really exist?
Thomas
- had some real doubts / wanted proof
- one of the disciples, had been there for a lot
- confession of faith at time of raising of Lazarus
- still with the group
- wanted to know for himself
- fearful group, only Thomas asks the question, expresses the doubt felt by them all
- why would they be locked away
- was it disloyal on Thomas’ part?
- Seminary
- people upset
- professors made us question what we believed
- somehow unfaithful to question
- lot of people confused, angry
- after the year or two, we knew why it happened the way it did
- had been living on inherited faith
- an unquestioned faith would not get us through a life of ministry to people who were willing to ask the questions / express doubts
Doubts and questions can be used to help strengthen one’s faith.
- There is something about asking questions and making the faith one’s own
In good company
- stories of the saint and great biblical characters we see them struggling and growing through their doubts
- Martin Luther - where would we be without his anguish and struggles over faith
- willingness to admit that we do not know everything, have all the answers
“If a man begins with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content with doubts, he will end in certainties” Francis Bacon
Not only alright to express doubt, but essential
- makes faith personal, gives it passion
“Those who believe they believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not God himself.”
Quoted by Madeline L’Engle
Research done in how adults learn
- doubt plays a major role
- if we never doubted anything we would never go looking for answers that make sense, never question anything, never learn much of value
- same in faith
- need to be willing to question why we believe the things we believe, why we do things the way we do
- doubt strengthen our faith rather than weaken
- way in which God helps our faith grow
- Jesus comes to Thomas and says, “peace be with you”
- not the explosion of the rolling away of the tomb
- quietly coming amongst the fearful disciples with “Peace be with you.”
- the fear of the disciples couldn’t keep him out
- the doubts of Thomas did not keep him away
Same for us
- sometimes Jesus waits patiently at the door for us to answer - remember the famous painting with Jesus knocking on the door with no handle on the outside?
- sometimes comes to us quietly even through the locked doors of our doubts and fears
- comes to us with the words, “Peace be with you.”
Comes to us with a commission
- takes us with our doubts and works with them
- we like the disciples are touched by his forgiveness, his Holy Spirit, and empowered for the mission of spreading the word
- “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
- commissioned to continue to make God in Jesus known to the world.
- doubts are strengths which God can use to increase our faith.
Faith is inescapable. We have to have faith in order to live. Even scientists have it. They have to have faith in their methods and in a world so ordered that their methods can come up with reliable data. But there’s another kind of faith, a radical faith that is trust in God, that believes that God has done for us all that’s claimed in Jesus Christ. It is staking our lives on this fact - that God is, that Jesus reveals God, and that through following Christ we find the true meaning and purpose to life.
Faith can use doubt and questions to nourish faith.
Doubt is not unbelief. To doubt is to be uncertain as to the truth or reality of something; undecidedness of belief or opinion. Unbelief is the stubborn refusal to believe.
Unbelief is choosing not to believe.
Doubt is choosing what to believe.
Jesus welcomes us in our doubts and leads us on. Somewhere along the line we make decisions of what we choose to believe. We can question this from time to time but ultimately we believe. There is no concrete data to validate what we believe only faith and trust.
Martin Luther said “Faith does not require information, knowledge, and certainty, but a free surrender and a joyful bet on God’s unfelt, untried, and unknown goodness.”
We have scripture that bear witness to God’s actions in history. We have our lives and the lives of others to bear witness to God’s actions today.
It is all right to doubt and to question, but those of us who have been touched by God’s grace are given the opportunity to grow in faith. We are also given the commission to speak of what we know and what we hope and what we believe.
I have my questions and my doubts, and I will keep adding to my list as long as I live. One thing I do know is that God loves me, cares for me and speaks the words I need to hear when I am deepest in the midst of my doubts and fears, “Peace be with you.”