Doubts! Are they okay?

Betty Stroud
Year C, Easter 2
John 20:19-31

What is your opinion of Thomas?

Do you think he acted in a reasonable way?

What do you think of doubt?

Have you ever had doubts?

What sort of doubts have you had as far as the Christian faith is concerned?

Think about Thomas: He had experienced the death of his friend and teacher, Jesus. A horrible, cruel death it had been too. He and the others hadn’t been game to go along and witness it for themselves – they were afraid of being caught too, so they had hidden themselves away. But he knew what that death would have been like – he had seen many such deaths! Bodies hung out to die in the open. Human life worth nothing.

During the time he and the others had spent with Jesus, he had felt his life turn around. He had found new meaning, a new passion, a sense of peace. And now there was nothing.

Absolutely nothing but an overwhelming sense of loss and of grief.

And so he, and the others, were stuck in that closed, locked room, going over and over and over, the events of the past few days. They kept asking themselves ‘What was the point?’

‘Why did this horrible thing happen?’ ‘What will we do now?’ ‘How are we going to manage without Jesus?’

‘They had warned Jesus not to come to Jerusalem, but he had insisted, and look where that had led?

After a couple of days of being stuck in that room, Thomas felt he just had to get out. He wanted his life back, he wanted a bit of normality and so he had returned to his family and there found a sense of solace and relief. It didn’t take the overwhelming sadness away, but it helped.

Let’s hear part of Sue’s story:

Sue was about 55 years old. She was an independent sort of person. She was fiercely involved in politics and was also very environmentally conscious. She had only recently moved to her present church and had joined a Bible study. On the first night she went, the group were talking about the passage from John about Thomas doubting that Jesus had risen.

Other people in the group had really been getting stuck into Thomas. Why couldn’t he have just believed what his fellow disciples had said. Why did he have to question what they had been saying?.

Sue happened to mention that she could relate to Thomas, she often had doubts about things that were recorded in scripture – in fact she often had doubts about whether God was really a God who cared all that much.

When she said this there was dead silence.

After a bit, Sue broke the silence and said – ‘Well, don’t you have doubts? Don’t you ask questions? Do you really just take it all at face value?’

Again, she was met with silence. Sue persisted.

She said, Well, don’t you have doubts? What sort of reaction do you have when you see our world being ripped apart by our greed? Don’t you question where God is in all of it? And what about when politicians ram economic rationalism at us? Don’t you question why God allows the powerful and the rich to dominate at the expense of the poor and the powerless?’

At this point she got fairly wound up and started on all those long held doubts she had about scripture. Don’t you wonder about the creation story as it is related in the Bible? How can you accept that when evidence clearly shows that the world is much more complex? And what about all those battles that were fought in the Old Testament – battles where the victors claimed to have God on their side? What sort of God is that? Or even the two first world wars, where each side claimed to have God on their side.

Sue went on for quite some time ending up with the resurrection of Jesus.

When she had finished there was again a period of silence, and then Ron, one of the other group members said quietly. ‘Maybe Sue you’ve just put into words what many of us have thought at times – only we’ve never been quite game to say it.’

Sue came back at this and said, ‘What do you mean ‘never been quite game to say it?’ Ron, said ‘Well, I’ve been brought up in a church where you’re supposed to accept everything. You’re not supposed to question and you’re certainly not supposed to doubt.’

Then someone else spoke up – ‘I’m a bit like Ron. I can remember being in a group similar to this about 20 years ago. It was at the time when my eldest daughter had just died from cot death. I expressed doubt about God being a God who cared and someone in the group came back at me and said, ‘But you can’t doubt! God has a reason for everything.’ I didn’t come to church for quite a while after that.’

Then another member of the group piped up and said, ‘My experience has been that if you express doubt about things then you’re considered less than a Christian.’
Then Sue went on to say, ‘But this passage that we’ve been studying says quite the opposite.

Jesus didn’t tell Thomas he was wrong to doubt. He didn’t tell him that he was any less a disciple than the other disciples. Sure, he said that those who haven’t seen me and yet have believed are blessed, but he didn’t go crook on Thomas. Doesn’t that tell us that to doubt is not a sin, nor does it make you any less a Christian?’

The members of the group talked for quite some time about the many doubts they had had over the years. All sorts of things came up and it was a good and healthy discussion.

At the end of the discussion one of the group said, ‘ It’s almost as if doubting is a gift. A gift to help us grow in faith.’

If you’ve had an experience of doubting whether God is God or Christ is God’s son, or
whether Christ is really alive, or whether in fact it’s all a load of rubbish, look upon those doubts as positive experiences – experiences that help your faith to grow. And be assured, that God will not desert you in your doubting – even thought it may feel like it at times. Nor will God think any the less of you for having doubts.

Let’s hear from Thomas.

I expected him to give me a serve,
not – as you might think – for doubting.

We had all doubted, at different times,
and he was never angry.

Indeed, he doubted himself, sometimes,
or, if he didn’t,
he certainly understood how it felt,
because he would sing the Psalms of doubt
with great fervour.

Doubt wasn’t an enemy to Jesus.
He could stand us doubting.
It was indifference he couldn’t stand:
indifference and apathy.

I expected him to give me a serve
perhaps for making conditions.
I did make conditions, and I won’t deny it.
‘If only I see this and do that …. then I’ll believe.’
Fancy me,
thinking I could make conditions with God,
but Jesus didn’t take me to task.
He saw that I was happy because I had seen
and he said they were also happy
who believed without making conditions,
without saying ‘if only’ or unless’.

I expected him to give me a serve
because I wasn’t there when he came.
The others were present, I was absent.
It wasn’t their fault or his fault.
It was mine.
I had – for whatever reason –
decided that it was all finished.
He came back to say it was all beginning.

I expected him to give me a serve.
But he didn’t.
He gave me his hand
and, more than that,
he gave me his peace.