Readings: 1 Peter 1: 3-9, John 20: 19-31
Let us pray:
May the words of my mouth and the
inspirations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our rock and our
sustainer. Amen.
‘Have you believed because you have seen
me? Blessed are those who have not seen
and yet have come to believe.”[1]
I love the story of Thomas – and I suspect
the early church did too – for it was in the witness of people like Thomas and
in the power of the Holy Spirit that they were able to believe without seeing –
to be truly blessed as Jesus said.
Can we talk today about faith and doubt?
Is it possible that we live a double
standard when it comes to belief and doubt?
There are many things we take as true because for instance a teacher or
a reporter or a television news reader or a person with letters after their
name, or indeed facebook.....
There are many things we have faith in –
that people will stay on the left of the road when driving, that restaurants
will serve what they have on the menu, that the whiskey in the bottle is what
is named on the outside....a certain pub that I worked in many years ago in
Dunedin had no qualms about a variety of brands being served from a Vat69
bottle!
We believe things, we trust eye witness or
written second hand accounts of events or societal standards – yet much of the
world would not afford religious faith that same promise of belief, would
instead ask for proof of existence!
Ironic really isn’t it? Proof expected of the one thing we call
faith, whilst much faith is assumed in those things we take as proven.
Ironic too that those who denounce the very
concept of a God are in fact also expounding a belief that there is no God –
and yet they claim to speak from a position of reason, of proof of absence
shall we say. We can no more prove there
is not a God than prove that there is.
There are those who allow that their disbelief of a particular understanding
is just that – a belief, not a fact. There is an excellent recounting of a
conversation between a Jewish Scholar, Professor Lapide of Bar Ilam University
in Jerusalem and Roman Catholic theologian Hans Kung and when Kung asked Lapide
what he made of the resurrection the reply was:
‘I must say that I cannot accept what you call resurrection...but
neither can I deny it, for who am I as a devout Jew to define God’s saving
action?...that would be blasphemous... I don’t know, that is all I can say.’
There is much that we do not know – and yet
most people here would claim to have a belief in, an experience of the risen
Christ! Why, when we have neither
touched nor seen? What is it that allows
us, in the midst of doubts and questions, to be sure of presence of God in this
world today?
And here is the suggestion of an answer:
through praise, proclamation and practice!
We have been persuaded by the praise and
proclamation and practice of other – by a stream of witnesses throughout the
ages who have known and loved God and have been able to express that love to
others.
Another story might help here – Donald Miller was a man who had never liked
jazz music – his reason was that it never resolved! But then one day he saw someone on the street
playing a saxophone. He stood and
watched for 15 mins and never did the player open his eyes – he was completely
at one with the music. After that said
Miller, ‘I liked jazz. Sometimes you
have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It’s as if they are showing you the way.’[2]
From Thomas to Aquinas to Theresa of Avila
to Calvin to C S Lewis we have had witnesses who have attested to the power of
the risen Christ in their lives, witnesses who by their very lives show us a
deep and abiding faith. Some of you will
know that C S Lewis convicted me in my faith – for he too had struggled with
the perceived gap between intellect and faith and resolved it in a way that
spoke to me.
From Bach to the gospel music of the slaves
to the hymns of John Newton to the powerful hymns and songs of today we have
heard through music the praise for a Christ who is with us even in the midst of
the horrors of life.
From the icons of the early church to the
magnificent artworks of the centuries since to our Ralph Hotere, we have poured
out the passions and inspirations of those who express Christ in their lives
through art. And the poets and the
authors and the sculptors and the architects..... all of whom expressed their
faith, their belief in the living God in their works.
Then there are those who practice faith
every day – there are the well known inspirers such as Martin Luther King and
St Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa but also there are the people who have
been inspirational in our lives, they might be sitting next to us in fact, – who have shown by their actions and choices
and commitments that they believe in a God of love and compassion and justice
for all – despite that they haven’t seen and touched!
All of these people, this cloud of
witnesses, have brought to us and shared with us their belief in the living God
in some way, and so we too are able to believe, able to know the Holy Spirit,
able to live the Christ centred life, even amidst the doubts and questions that
a time like Easter Sunday brings with it.
Thank God for Thomas and his call for hard
evidence, for his witness and his proclamation “My Lord and My God”! May our lives too be the inspiration, the
conviction for those around us and those still to come that Christ is risen,
Christ is risen indeed. Amen
Margaret Garland
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