Honest Doubt

Today, Dave continues our series on what it means to be resurrection people with a teaching on Thomas and his doubt. Jesus never rebukes Thomas for his doubt but uses it was a way to invite us all in to the community of faith.

Please find the slide deck for this week's teaching here.

Home Church Questions:

1. What stood out to you from this week's teaching?

2. Read John 20:24-31 (preferably in multiple translations). What stands out to you from this passage?

3. How would you describe Thomas based on this story?

4. What do you notice about how Jesus responds to Thomas?

5. Thomas says, “Unless I see… I will not believe." What do you think is underneath this statement—intellect, emotion, past disappointment, something else?

6. Thomas waited a full week before seeing Jesus. What might God be doing in seasons of waiting?

7. Have you ever had a season of doubt or uncertainty in your faith? What did that look like for you?

8. What kinds of doubts are hardest to talk about in church settings? Why?

9. How can we, as a group, create a safer space for honest faith conversations? 

10. Pray with and for one another, our church community, and our world.

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Website: theharbournewmarket.ca
Email: david@theharbournewmarket.ca

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Well, good morning, everybody. It's uh it's great to continue on our on our post-resurrection series. We have a couple of more to do. Next week we'll take a little break. We'll do a shortened uh little bit of a shortened reflection and then um Mother's Day, um, which is fast uh approaching. As we get into May, we're gonna look at one of my uh favorite passages, and that's the uh reinstatement of Peter, and that has some personal significance and uh is a great teaching for all of us. Well, today we're going to talk about doubt and what that looks like and how do we figure that out. And uh again, I love these post-resurrection stories. They're often kind of glossed over after Easter, although they're in the lectionary, um, they're on the liturgical calendar. They're sometimes uh, you know, just sometimes uh left behind as as uh other series pop up. But I think this is an important one. I think it's a relevant one for all of us, and it's um certainly been instrumental in in my life and in various areas of ministry, and it's the story of Jesus appearing to Thomas and our scriptures, John 20, 24 to 31 this morning. Now, Thomas, also known as Didymus, one of the twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, 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. A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here. See my hands, reach out your hand and put it in my side. Stop doubting and believe. Thomas said to him, My Lord and my God. Then Jesus told him, Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. And may God bless this gospel or reading this morning. Well, by the time we've reached this moment in the resurrection story, we now know that Jesus is alive. The disciples have seen him. But not everyone is celebrating this morning because one disciple is missing from the story. And of course, that's Thomas. It's about 20 years ago now that uh my mother went to be with Jesus. Uh spring day, much like today, a little bit warmer. Sherry and I were living with her in her condo to kind of caregive. And uh Sherry had gone off to work. I was in seminary and was working from home that morning. Mom came out as only she could and uh sat in her lazy boy, which was clearly hers, and the uh the windows were open, and the landscapers had shown up to the uh to the condo area, and you could hear the lawnmowers going and the weed whackers going, and that sound of gardening. And my mother was raised on a farm in King Township. So although she was in you know various stages of forgetfulness and stuff depending on the day, that was a huge mental hook, the sound of gardening and stuff like that happening. So she looked at me and I looked over at her, and um, you know, I made her her tea, and she was sitting there and listening, and she um was quite concerned that the landscapers wouldn't know what they were doing, and uh she had a few other colorful adjectives uh those landscapers don't know, you know. Okay. Anyhow, my suggestion was why don't you take a little nap and go and uh then we'll go down and talk to the landscapers, but go have a little nap and uh you know then we'll we'll see about that. Well, she did and thought that would be a good idea, and within an hour she was in cardiac arrest and and passed away. And that was uh quite a shock to me. I'd never dealt with that before. Sherry was at work, so you call 911, and some of you have been involved with that. They uh they come and they do their um whatever they do, um, and you move stuff away, and um you're then suggested that you follow in your car to the hospital in in Richmond Hill. And I can imagine how I would have felt if I had received a phone call on the way there telling me that guess what? Your mom's alive, she's awake, everything's fine. And they may have been celebrating in the ambulance, but I certainly would have been hesitant. Um, I would have loved it to be true, but uh but it would have certainly felt impossible. And in this context, it it was. And I think often of my mother still, very, very fresh, because there's always a longing for what we've had, and uh I certainly would have said I need to see that for myself, and that's Thomas. He needed to see it for himself. Well, Thomas is an interesting guy, um, a skeptic, but he carries this weight of doubt simply because he didn't get to see what the others did. And that makes him highly relatable, I think. And the bigger message is that not all of us arrive at faith the same way. Um doubt doesn't usually arrive, I don't think, as a loud rejection of faith. It can be much, much quieter than that. You know, it can come through disappointments, it can come through questions, it can come through silence. Um, some of us believe quickly. We have that aha moment. Some of us believe gradually, and and some of us struggle even when others seem certain. And uh I think we experience that in our our day-to-like day-to-day rhythm of life. Um, I often have bright ideas. Sherry is quite skeptical at times, and most of the time she's she's right. And sometimes it's the opposite. Um, she has a bright idea, and it usually involves me doing something that I may not want to do, so I'm the one who is skeptical. Well, then there's Thomas, and Jesus, of course, being a controversial rabbi because he was doing everything that the other rabbis and the church leaders weren't crazy about, um, he approaches a fellow named Thomas, who was a fisherman, and simply invites them to follow him. And Thomas wouldn't have had a position very high up in the uh in the Jewish culture hierarchy. He uh perhaps wasn't traditional disciple material. He wasn't educated, he wasn't among the elite, he was quite ordinary. Um for him, in a cultural sense, being chosen to be a disciple would have been the break of a lifetime. It would have been a big deal. So that's presumably why it might be easier for him to leave the family business and follow Jesus. Um Thomas staked out the rest of his life, literally, leaving his business to follow Christ. So when Jesus is crucified, clearly that would have been a monumental event in his life. And so Thomas misses everything. We don't know why, but he missed the moment, he missed the encounter, he missed the peace, the joy of the resurrected Jesus. And so you can understand the loss he would have felt when the others tell him, Well, we have seen the Lord. That disappointment would have been a real challenge. And Thomas digs in his heels and basically says, Well, unless I see, unless I touch, I'm not believing. And that can sound harsh, and we can kind of judge that a little bit. But the reality, he's not asking for anything that the other disciples had received. You know, so Thomas is really just saying, I want what they had. And beyond the doubt, I would say there's something deeper pain, disappointment, fear and losing again. Because we they didn't know what was gonna happen, but they were meeting in locked rooms. Um, hope can be costly, and uh to believe, and then to believe again risks being hurt, and so Thomas set some conditions. I will not believe unless. And I think if we're honest, we all do the same. God I'll trust you if you fulfill this little list I have. I will follow once I have more time, or whatever we come up with. So Thomas gives voice in a couple of lines here, what many of us often feel. Loss is difficult, and of course, change is difficult. This now would have been a huge change. Um, you know, when I think of change, I was kind of ruminating on this this week, and uh when I was working with um my men um over the past number of years, relationships were really, really important because the fellows who would come in the community didn't have any. So I was um always careful in selecting interns and placement students to come into our program, not because they couldn't do the work, um, quite the opposite. Um, you know, uh there'd be um MSWs that needed a placement or our criminology students or whatever, and they were all very eager to um to dive in and be part of our community. The challenge was it was a four-month commitment, and once that commitment ended, so did the relationship with the core member. So when you have people with a very, very limited uh scope of community, often it was us, the other core members. There were no family, there were no friends. Um to have a relationship for four months and you know, to see each other and play games and share meals and share reflection times, to have it disappear in four months was hard. And so change is challenging, and it's challenging for all for all of us. In the Psalms, one was read this morning by Will, really gives language to what Thomas was feeling. And it's not a polite faith, but I don't think Jesus calls us to a polite faith. You know, Psalm 22, it's pretty pretty stark in its contrast. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief. And then there's a transition. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. Our ancestors trusted in you and you rescued them. They cried out to you and you were and were saved. They trusted in you and were never disgraced. So the text tells us a week later, Thomas lives in this tension for eight days. Eight days of uncertainty, eight days of unanswered questions, eight days of being the only one not convinced. And there would have been interesting conversations. The text doesn't talk about that, but you can imagine there may have been a lot of persuading. Um, but Thomas remains in that space. The others are full of joy, but Thomas is hesitant. But Thomas does something I think very, very significant. He doesn't walk away, he doesn't take off. He doesn't say, well, if I see Jesus, I'll believe, see you later. He stays. And I think that's an important detail in the story, and it's a takeaway for us. He remains in community even though he has unresolved doubt. And I think our word there is, you know, you don't have to have everything figured out to belong. You don't have to resolve every issue to stay. And I would say that faith is not the absence of doubt. Sometimes it's the decision to remain, even in the middle of it, to work it out. Because we're not all in the same space on a variety of issues. So Jesus comes a week later. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them, just like before. And his first words are important. Peace. Peace be with you. But this time, rather than an address to all those gathered, he turns his attention directly to Thomas and he instructs him. Put your fingers here. See my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe. Full stop. Stop doubting and believe. And Jesus meets Thomas exactly at the point of his doubt. But more importantly, is what Jesus does not do. He doesn't shame Thomas and say, What took you so long? He doesn't rebuke him harshly. He doesn't should him. He doesn't say, Well, you should have believed already. These guys did. What's your problem? Specifically, he offers his wounds. He meets Thomas at the point of his need. And that's something profound about the heart of Jesus. He meets us in our area of need, often quite specifically, that word. And I'm grateful that Jesus doesn't crush on us doubt. He meets it with his presence. And we see that Jesus is resurrected. He's glorified, he's victorious, he's alive, and yet he still bears his wounds. The nail marks, the pierced side, resurrection did not erase it. Because the wounds are not the flaw in the story, the wounds are the story. Because the wounds reveal love that suffered, grace that endured, and mercy that didn't walk away. So for Thomas, these wounds become the doorway to faith. Not polished arguments and not abstract theology, just love. And this is how Jesus still meets us, not always through certainty, but through scars, through our pain that have been touched by the grace of God. Well, Thomas responds with one of the clearest declarations in all of the Gospels. My Lord and my God. And really, for those of you who love the Gospel of John, and I know many do, it's a favorite with many. That's the climax of the entire gospel. If you were to take a theology course on the Gospel of John, it's very much the I am, and uh the acknowledgement of Thomas there is very clear my Lord and my God. And the doubter becomes the confessor, the skeptic, Thomas becomes a worshiper. And Thomas says more than anyone else has said to this point with that acknowledgement. He doesn't call Jesus our teacher, he doesn't call him rabbi at this point. He says clearly, my Lord and my God. And our takeaway as a community is that that's who Jesus is, our Lord and our God. But we also notice that doubt doesn't disqualify us, it can deepen us. And Thomas's journey through uncertainty led to this profound confession. And it's also how faith works. I love to hear stories of faith that have been wrestled with. And it's often a stronger story than faith that's never been questioned. Not always, but sometimes. And then Jesus reaches beyond Thomas to us. Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. And church, that's us. We don't stand in that room, we don't physically touch the wounds, and yet we're invited into that very same faith. Again, never rebuked, because Thomas was never rebuked, but blessed as future disciples. And here Jesus widens the circle. And Jesus says, There are many, or there will be many who believe without seeing what you have seen, and they'll be blessed. But faith is not lesser because it is not physical, it is still real, still valid, and still alive. So, what does this mean for us? And there's lots and lots of lessons here. But here's a few. Um when I meet with couples who are getting married and who may or may not have a faith journey, but clearly no I'm a minister, but I would be there to perform a civil ceremony. And the question comes up in various contexts, but it could be asked, do I believe this whole Christianity thing because my parents were believers? Now, how that transcends into a wedding is well, my parents want me to have a prayer. My nonas, bless the Italian nonas, want who would have a Catholic brown ground, want many, want many blessings and prayers and uh whatnot. And my question always is who is Jesus to you? Um I can remember playing golf and uh many, many years ago. Go back and when I attended the the good old Baptist church, and we would smugly say, Sometimes, well, we're one up from Christians, we're Baptists. And um now I look back and I'm like, oh hopefully we never said that. Hopefully we said that in our heads. But uh the point is our faith is our own. It's not our parents, it's uh not our friends. Our journey with Jesus, um whatever that looks like or not, is ours to own and ours to carry. And God, because of that, is not afraid of the hard questions. I mean, Jesus looked up from the cross, didn't he, and asked God why he had forsaken him. I admire the person that has a real simple faith that says, the Bible said it, and I believe it, and that settles that settles it. Um I see that, I've heard that, I'm sometimes quite skeptical of that statement. Um and I've get um get it put in front of me all the time, people asking, saying, why should I believe this? Is Jesus really the only way to God? And these are fair questions. We're called to wrestle with them today. This is our context today, this is our our overall community today, and Jesus is not afraid of these questions in our conversations. And they're often a great place to start as we process our own faith. So I would uh I would say to you all that the road to committed faith often can start with doubts. And doubt is not the enemy of faith. And I would say that sometimes unexamined certainty can be more troublesome than honest questions. Doubts can be the doorway to a deeper trust if we bring it to Jesus. Stay in the room. What does that mean? Well, Thomas stayed with the disciples. Even when he didn't believe what they believed, there's something powerful about being in community, even though we wrestle with issues. That's okay. We need to be together and work through these as a community, and we don't always land in the same the same space, but we do it as community and we do it as family. Jesus wants to know us personally. Jesus knew exactly what Thomas needed, and he knows what you and I need, and he desires a personal relationship with us. And it may not be an answer that we've demanded, it certainly hasn't been in my life, but he's always known what my heart has truly needed, and I can say that with certainty. Jesus's wounds matter. We follow a wounded Savior, and often it's through our own wounds that we encounter him, not despite them, but through them. It's okay to be broken and come to Jesus. And finally, a gentle invitation. And there's times, maybe today, that you feel like Thomas. It's been a rough week, it's been a rough month, it's been a rough season, and you're not against faith, but you're not fully convinced either. You may have questions, your friends have questions, they may have doubts. We have unresolved issues. So the invitation from Jesus is not to figure it all out. Here's some books, lots of books, lots of YouTube videos that can help us figure everything out. However, Jesus invites us to figure it out with him personally. So we stay in the room, we bring our questions, and Jesus does not avoid those. And he's always moving towards us. Jesus hung out with people just like us, church. He loved people like us. So he said it pretty clearly. If you want to be part of his kingdom, you deny yourself. It's no longer about you. So we take up our cross and we follow him. And one of my biggest lessons over my earthly journey here is it's so much more. Jesus is so much more than the fire insurance prayer. It's about following him and making him Lord of your life. And if the resurrection is true, and I would submit that it is, it demands our whole life. And so the story of the early church is not built on perfect people, it's built on people like Thomas. And as we move towards the book of Acts and the early church and uh the beautiful community that it was, we're going to meet people who struggled, people who questioned, people who needed to see the touch of Jesus and to wrestle with issues, but also people who encountered Jesus. And when they did, everything changed. And Thomas moved from my will not believe to my Lord and my God. And that's that movement happens today from trust or from doubt to trust, from fear to faith, from distance to encounter, because I'm convinced more than ever that the risen Christ still comes into locker rooms, still speaks peace, and still shows his wounds and invites us to belief. So let's pray together this morning. Heavenly Father, I thank you for community. What a beautiful representation from the youngest to the oldest. May we be people who have who have heard and processed and accepted your good news. And we acknowledge that everyone is in a different space on their journey. So, Lord, give us uh give us opportunities to listen well and to continue to process and learn, but also to share your good news with others in the community in meaningful ways. We thank you for again your love and the encouragement of the kingdom to come, and ask that you would uh bless us today. In Jesus' name. Amen.