John 20:24-29
John 20:1-18
I want to thank those
who have given so generously of their time and talents this Easter season – the
Stations of the Cross through this morning. We are all very grateful for the time and talents of our
many volunteers.
Louis CK is a name
you may or may not recognize. He
is a very popular comedian who stirred a bit of controversy recently when he
declared that he was not an atheist, as many of his fans had assumed. It wasn’t, though, an overly positive
declaration, because he said that while he believes in God, he just doesn’t
care.
There are some things
that, if true, make it impossible to say I
don’t care. The existence of
suffering in the world, I believe, makes it impossible to say I don’t care. That people suffer should mean something to us. If a person can be indifferent to the
suffering of so many millions they should check to make sure their heart is
still beating. The fact that millions
of people are starving makes it impossible to say I don’t care. That
people are starving should mean something to us. The existence of God makes it impossible to say I don’t care. The existence of God should mean something to each of us.
Today is Easter
Sunday, and we are celebrating The Power
of Faith. We’ve journeyed
through a series of messages leading us to today. Those messages were built around the theme The Way of the Cross. Today, we come to the empty tomb and as
we do, we consider the incredible power of faith. After Easter, in the coming Sundays, we will move into a
study of the book of Job, and we’ll talk about suffering, faith, and doubt. The book of Job is a powerful story of
faith thriving in the midst of the most difficult of circumstances.
This morning, we
consider faith through two lenses – that of the disciple Thomas and the empty
tomb. Thomas is known,
unfortunately, as doubting Thomas. It’s unfair to remember anyone based on
a single moment of life, don’t you think?
Pick a moment from your past, preferably a negative one, and imagine
being forever remembered because of your words or actions in that one moment. How
about Disloyal… Failure… Mean… Discouraging…
Sleepy…
The passage about Thomas’
doubt is representative of the skepticism that we find in our world today. In recent years there appears to be a
rising tide of skepticism about the existence of God. To be clear, this is not what Thomas was questioning. Thomas was not expressing doubt about
God’s existence, but doubt about the claim that Jesus had been
resurrected. His moment of doubt
reminds us that many express in our day and age have doubts, and those doubts
reach to the question of whether or not God exists as well as to the hope of
the resurrection.
I want to say a few things about faith and
doubt this morning, because I think the intersection of faith and doubt is one
that is important to address on Easter.
First,
some people claim we live in an age known more for its skepticism than for its
faith, but that is not true.
Have you heard this? Let me assure you, faith is not dying. Worldwide, faith is growing. There are places in the world where
faith is changing, certainly, such as Western Europe and parts of North
American, but faith is blossoming in much of the world, and it is growing
rapidly in areas that once, or still, adopted official policies of unbelief and
atheism. In China, faith is
growing at a rapid rate. In fact,
a recent study proclaims the news that China is on track to become the nation
with the largest number of Christians by the year 2030.
In the countries
that made up the former Soviet Union, faith is found among he majority of
people, in spite of the decades of an officially atheist stance on the part of
the Soviet government.
There are certainly skeptics, but most people
continue to make their commitment on the side of faith because of a sense that
something greater than this world and this life must exist.
Thomas insisted
upon evidence to back up the claim that Jesus had risen. Unless
I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and
put my hand into his side, I will not believe it (John 20:25). Skeptics love
to talk about reason and their belief that faith is unreasonable. To them, faith is unreasonable and does
not pass the test of evidence.
What they fail to understand is that when they expect us to
believe on evidence they reveal a fundamental misunderstanding about
faith. Faith is not about
evidence. What constitutes
evidence, anyway? It’s not that
faith is unthinking or accepts anything, but faith does not rest upon any proof
that removes every element of doubt or convinces beyond any reasonable doubt.
That is why I don’t put a lot of faith, so to
speak, in evidence. It’s not that
I don’t use logic or my brain when considering faith; it’s that when we come to
faith and unbelief I believe evidence is an expression of what we already
believe.
I have said before that the saying seeing is believing is backwards; believing is seeing. We see according to what we believe,
and that is true of the most devout believer and the most ardent unbeliever. Evidence will most often confirm what
we already believe or disbelief.
Second,
there are people who will think we are silly because we are here today.
There are people who will think we are foolish
because we have faith. There are
skeptics who have shaken their heads this week as we’ve observed the events of
Holy Week. To them, what we
believe and what we do is foolishness.
As Paul writes in I Corinthians 1:18 there are those for whom the message of the cross is foolishness.
That’s okay.
I believe we worry far too much about what
others think. I used to need
others to validate my faith. When
I was a teenager I used to think of how great it would be if one of my musical
heroes had become a Christian. It
wasn’t just because their decision might influence others, but because I needed
someone else’s faith to validate my own.
I believe some people adopt doubt and
skepticism because they hear the voices of skeptics and don’t know how to
counter their arguments. They
raise some points worth considering, but I find their arguments to not be
convincing and that their logic has some very large holes.
Third, life has a spiritual dimension that
cannot be denied, and the willingness to live life according to that belief is
the power of faith.
I have witnessed
enough people in their final moments of life to know that something happens
that is more than just a biological process of the body shutting down. I have seen too much of what happens at
the beginning of life, during the course of life, and at the end of life to
believe anything other than the fact that there is more to this life than just
life and death.
I believe we are created by God, given a life
of purpose and meaning by God, and after the conclusion of life on this earth,
welcomed into eternity by God.
We’ve traveled different roads in
relation to faith. Some here have
always believed and some here are much newer to faith. Some are, perhaps, struggling with the
very idea of faith.
The reality is
this – whatever is true, is true. It’s hard to reason people to faith. It’s hard to use logic to bring people
to faith. Debates don’t often
bring people to faith. There’s
always someone who makes better use of reason, someone who is more logical, and
someone who a more skilled debater.
It terms of the great
truths of this universe, of life and death, it doesn’t matter what I believe or
what you believe or what the most staunch skeptic believes; whatever is true,
is true. Our belief does not make
something true. Truth is what it
is, and our beliefs cannot change the ultimate truths of life. Whatever is true about God does not rest
upon our beliefs. Whatever is true
about God is true because it is true.
I used to do my exercising in a cemetery. It was located near where we lived and
it seemed that walking in a cemetery was a good motivation. At times, though, it was a bit
awkward. Sometimes I would alter
my course because I didn’t feel comfortable walking by people who were visiting
the graves of friends and loved ones.
People were often in the cemetery, and I could often hear them talking
to their loved one, sometimes they would sing, and often, they would weep.
Cemeteries are different places because of
Easter. They are different places
because of the resurrection of Jesus.
This is the power of faith – that we accept there is something beyond
this life. When we draw our final
breath in this life we open our eyes in eternity to take in eternal life, and
Easter makes it all possible.
Christ is risen – he is risen indeed!
No comments:
Post a Comment