Pastor's Blog: From Shameful Doubt to Wondrous Confession
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“There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.” So wrote Tennyson in his epic poem, In Memoriam, which recounts the poet’s struggles over the untimely death of a beloved friend.
We all have our questions about some of the turns life sometimes take, but not always do the answers come. Or at least they don’t come as quickly as we might like, which if we’re not careful only causes us to be mired down even more in our doubt.
For many who find themselves in such a frame of mind, the disciple Thomas is a patron saint. They find in Thomas a kindred spirit, someone who understands the world in which we live requires us to develop a certain measure of skepticism in order to survive. Little wonder John’s Gospel refers to Thomas as a “twin.” We see a mirror image of ourselves in him.
But actually, we’ve been unfair to Thomas. For one thing, earlier references to Thomas show him to be a person of courageous commitment. And for another thing, it very well may be that Thomas’ greatest doubts were over his own ability to grasp the reality of Jesus’ resurrection more than any pause over the fact of it. However, when Jesus met Thomas at his point of greatest need, Thomas overcame whatever doubts may have been standing in his way of knowing the implications of the Empty Tomb and made the one of the greatest confessions recorded of Jesus in the New Testament: “My Lord and my God.”
Join us this Sunday after Easter to revisit the story of Jesus’ resurrection. Step up to the higher plane of life to which the Risen Christ invites us. He’ll help you to do so as he meets you where you are, so that when you leave, you too will offer your heartfelt confession of who he is and the difference your believing it makes in your everyday life.