My May, 2015, column for The Bellringer, my internship congregation’s monthly newsletter. This column is inspired by my sermon on Doubting Thomas.
Easter Doubts and Promises
If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins… But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead! -1 Corinthians 15:17, 20
In these weeks after Easter Sunday, we’ve heard several stories about people struggling to believe.
Doubting Thomas heard about Jesus’ resurrection from the other disciples, but he didn’t believe it. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus heard from the women who’d been to the tomb that Jesus was alive, but they didn’t believe it. After Jesus’ ascension, Peter and John declared the truth about Jesus to the high priest and a crowd of people, but they didn’t believe either.
The truth of the resurrection story can be hard to grasp. It seems to go against our reason to believe someone rose from the dead. And it seems to go against logic to believe the all-powerful God who created everything would become a person and suffer and die for sinful, rebellious people, for you and me.
But that’s exactly what we believe as the church. We declare it together every week: “On the third day, he rose again.” Jesus’ death and resurrection was “for us and for our salvation.”
When we have doubts or trouble believing, we’re in good company. The Bible is filled with stories of people doubting God, and I think it’s appropriate to hear some of those in these weeks after Easter. But doubt is not the end of any of those stories. When we keep reading, we see God at work, alive and active.
Our faith is often paradoxical, filled with mysteries difficult to logically grasp. But as the church, children of God claimed and gathered by the Holy Spirit, we live in these mysteries together, and we look together for how God is working.
Hear the words the risen Jesus says to Thomas in his doubts and to us in our doubts. “Do not doubt, but believe.” (John 20:27) In fact, Christ has been raised from the dead!
In celebration of the resurrection,
Daniel Flucke, Pastoral Intern