DESERT PALMS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Sun City West, Arizona

What About Doubt?

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Stanford L. Burtless

April 11, 2010

Psalm 118:14, 21-28

14 The LORD is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.

21 I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. 22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. 23 This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. 24 This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. 25 Save us, we beseech you, O LORD! O LORD, we beseech you, give us success! 26 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD. We bless you from the house of the LORD. 27 The LORD is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar.

28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God, I will extol you.

John 20:19-29

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his

hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.

25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” 26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

            The true story is told about a rather unlikely speaker who was invited to address the student body of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. As some of you may know, Bob Jones is a stronghold of theological and Biblical conservatism. According to the story, the speaker told the young people this: You are naïve. You cannot continue to take the Bible and apply literalism to it. For example, he said, take the Old Testament. The Hebrew word for reed and red is the same word. When the scripture talks about Moses leading the children of Israel through the Red Sea with the Egyptian army in hot pursuit, it really means that it was a reed sea. There was no great miracle. There were only about two inches of water in that reed sea; it was more like a marsh. Then, the wind came up, blew the water aside and the Israelites were able to slip through.

            As the speaker told them that, a student in the back of the room jumped up suddenly and shouted, “Hallelujah! Another miracle.” Needless to say, the speaker’s composure was shot and he asked, “What did you say?” The student shouted again, “Hallelujah! Another miracle. Imagine, God drowned all those Egyptian soldiers in just two inches of water!”

            Well, whatever, but it is true that some people have trouble dealing with the miraculous and so today, I believe a good place to begin our thinking is about a disciple who had a very hard time accepting Christ’s resurrection from the dead. We all know his name—doubting Thomas. Actually, though, he was not known by that name by his friends. He was known as Thomas the Twin, and he was not the skeptic many have made him out to be. It was simply that Thomas was not with the other disciples when the risen Jesus appeared to them.  

I think this is a good place for us to begin our thinking this morning by saying, first of all, Thomas was missing from the fellowship, and because of that his doubt came about more easily. Friends, this happens in the life of the church, doesn’t it? People miss a Sunday or two, then worship becomes the exception and not the rule and after a point in time, those people are lost to the fellowship altogether. That had not yet happened to Thomas. He was not yet lost; it was simply that he was missing on a significant occasion in the life of the Christian community. After all, he was one of the twelve selected by Jesus to be his disciple, so a good guess probably would be that Thomas’s heavy heart was responsible for his absence. 

We know that when, sometimes, people go through seasons of grief, there is such deep despair and sorrow that rather than wanting to be with other people, they want to be left alone for a while. I think this is probably what Thomas was dealing with. He didn’t want to be with anyone at that point, he needed some space. I think we need to be careful that we don’t blame Thomas, because he was going through a time of crisis, as were all of the disciples. After all, they believed Jesus to be the Messiah; they were waiting for the establishment of the kingdom, and then, their Lord was gone, crucified like a criminal. Thomas, though, was missing when Jesus made his first dramatic appearance to the disciples, because he was still full of doubt and despair.

I think there is a warning here for us, and this is it: when we are experiencing a time of difficulty in our lives, a time of grief and sorrow, instead of trying to tough it out by ourselves, we really need to come together as a group; to surround ourselves with a loving group of people. We know only too well that group support is powerful in its effect. It is a valuable resource. Many can attest to the fact that group support is what the church is all about. One of the greatest of New Testament scholars, Dr. C. H. Dodd, said that as the years came and went he found a much greater need within the church to be comforted in the midst of life’s sorrows and sobs.

D. T. Niles told of a member of his congregation whom he met on the street one day. She had been active in the church once upon a time and in recent months had drifted away, the reason being, she told Niles, that after suffering numerous personal and family problems, God had become distant to her. She felt she had lost contact with God. This is how Niles answered her: Not only now, but even in the future there will always be times when God does seem distant, when it looks as though God has forgotten and does not care, when prayers go unanswered and life is difficult. At such times you must learn to hold on to your fellow Christians. Your difficulty is that you tried to hold on to God alone, and humankind was never intended to hold on to God alone. 

I don’t know whether that was what Thomas was trying to do—hold on to God alone and not avail himself of fellowship with his fellow believers—but whatever the reason, Thomas was missing from the group when Jesus appeared to them. It is very true and we can all attest to this, that we know people who miss a very special event in the life of the church and they are never quite able to understand the significance that particular event has to others in the fellowship. It might be a choir cantata, a Lenten service, a regular Sunday morning worship service that somehow God uses to touch our lives. Because they weren’t there, it’s very difficult for you and me who were there to describe to them the wonder and inspiration of it all. I think that’s a reminder for those who “tend to attend” church infrequently, that they miss out on so much. Thomas was fortunate. Why? Because he got a second chance, which brings us to a second thing we need to say about Thomas. After all was said and done, Thomas wanted very much to believe.

There are some people who are quick to tell us they pride themselves on identifying with Thomas. I’m a skeptic, they say proudly. I’m from Missouri; you’re going to have to show me. Some of you from Missouri—I’m not singling you out—you can refute that if you will. Actually, as has been suggested by some, there are three approaches to doubt. Let’s see where we fall in these categories. 

One person is a skeptic who says that he or she is a doubter, and they are very proud of it. That’s a very convenient approach to life. In the name of skepticism a person can avoid making any kind of commitment whatsoever.  The second approach is that of a person afraid to doubt at all. A voice inside that person’s head suggests that he/she is going to wind up in that place we don’t want to talk about, if you entertain even the slightest doubt that everything you have been taught is not absolutely true. That voice usually sounds something like a parent, or some preachers. The third group is made up of people like Thomas, and, I suspect, like most of you and of me. This is the group of people who say with the man who encountered Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief.”

Thomas was no agnostic. He knew that his Lord was the Messiah; he knew Jesus had been pronounced dead, that he had been laid in a borrowed tomb, but it was just too much for him to believe, at least at that point, that his Lord was now alive and well, and appearing to the disciples and to other friends. It was going to take more than their wishful assurances to heal Thomas’s broken heart. “Unless I see for myself the marks in his hands and place my fingers in his side, I will not believe.” I have to ask, who among us here would have the heart to condemn Thomas, given the scenario that we know. 

Woody Allen once asked, “If God does exist why doesn’t he give me some sign, like depositing a million dollars in my name in a Swiss bank?” Seriously, in spite of the humorous twist Woody Allen gives things, I really suspect that was a serious question. Some people would ask, why doesn’t God give us a little more evidence of his existence, or why doesn’t he answer just a few more of our prayers? Why does God keep himself just a little beyond our reach? These are all legitimate questions asked by many people. Many of us have probably had the same wish; I don’t know. Why doesn’t God reveal himself to us in such a way that never again would we have to live in doubt and despair? 

Could it be that God hides himself from us on purpose in order to bring us a spiritual maturity? It is necessary for God to make faith a challenge. Or consider prayer. What if God answered every prayer we prayed? Would we not become dependent children? Would we not be in danger of reducing God to a mere servant, or at least to an indulgent father? There is a danger that we would develop such an unhealthy reliance on God that we wouldn’t be able to exercise whatever abilities or initiatives God has given us. Very much like a child who is never allowed to fall, we would never learn to walk, we would never learn to cope with the issues, challenges and problems of life, and we would not have the skills then to conquer those obstacles, those fears and those challenges. Besides, it’s been said that faith that comes too easily is not faith for the long haul of life. So, even if we have doubt during times of stress, that does not mean we are not seeking faith. Let me be clear about that. That does not mean we are not seeking faith, because we were made for fellowship with God and our hearts are never at rest until we find our rest in God. 

This brings us to a final thing to be said: if we seek God we will find God. That is the promise of the scriptures, that God does not forever hide himself from us. Jeremiah 29:13 says it plainly, “If with all your heart ye truly seek me, ye shall surely find me.” And so, Thomas did, didn’t he? Eight days later he’s with the disciples in the Upper Room. The door is shut and yet Jesus appears to them, saying, “Peace be with you.” Then he turns to Thomas and says, “Thomas, put your fingers here; see my hands. Put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not be faithless, Thomas, but believing.” Thomas answered, “My Lord and my God.” 

You see, Thomas had some great virtues. He absolutely refused to say he understood what he did not understand, or that he believed what he did not believe. Someone has said there is an uncompromising honesty about Thomas. He was not the kind of person who would rattle off a creed without understanding what that creed was all about. Thomas had to be sure—he had to be sure. I think Tennyson was on to something when he wrote: “There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds. There is more ultimate faith in the person who insists on being sure, than the person who glibly repeats things which he or she has never thought out and which he or she may not really believe. It is doubt like that which, in the end, arrives at certainty.”

Yes, there may be times in our lives when we go through seasons of doubt, despair and feelings of spiritual defeat and anyone whose Christian faith is worth anything at all has, or will, experience those seasons. But God’s promises are sure and in our hour of need, God will reveal himself. It may be through a sermon, a passage of scripture, the encouragement of a friend, the singing of a favorite hymn, but God will give us comfort and peace when we need it. God will never fail us. 

We’ve about come full circle. I have no idea what you might think about this—but that’s all a part of it, because we are always being challenged in our faith; that’s how we grow—but given the perspective as we have looked at Thomas, I don’t think it is a sin to doubt if we do it in the right spirit. It is within the will of God that we should struggle with our faith because that is how we mature. If we seek God, he will surely find us and we will find him. It is so important here at Desert Palms Presbyterian Church that we continue to support one another in God’s fellowship, trusting that when we really need God, God will reveal himself to us. He did that for Thomas, and he will for us as well. And God’s people said together, Amen.