Resurrecting Faith
Listen: “Doubting Thomas” by Nickel Creek
A careful reading of Holy Week in the gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John reveals that Holy Week is filled with disbelief. Holy Week is not “Perfect Faith Week;” it’s “Failure/Slow Progress/Not Perfection Week.” Holy Week, as it relates to faith, is full of questions, doubts, disbelief, denials, betrayals, anguish, disillusionment, suffering, shattered dreams, and death. Even Jesus wrestled with faith and felt forsaken by God.
Faith doesn’t always come easy. We have to have faith in some things or people just to navigate our way through life—faith in certain people and certain institutions just to get an education, find a job, make a living, pay our bills, and engage with family. We have blind faith in certain physical laws like gravity, electromagnetism, and weak/strong nuclear forces. But faith in God or a Higher Power or Jesus is not easy for many people. On the one hand, evil and suffering in the world or in our personal lives does not inspire easy belief in the concept of an all-loving, all-powerful God (not the only viable concept of God but the most common); on the other hand, the evolutionary nature of our 15 billion year old universe is another formidable challenge to faith in ancient concepts of God.
If faith doesn’t come easy for you, you are not alone. My new mantra is: questions, doubts, and disbelief are a normal, even valuable, part of an authentic faith journey. I have spent my entire late teen and adult life studying, teaching, and earning advanced degrees in theology and the Bible, and I may have more questions now than I have ever had. I am less certain and more open than I have ever been, and I am comfortable with this perspective. In fact, I don’t think we learn and grow spiritually without doubt and good questions. Doubt is necessary for growth. (For an excellent discussion, read Faith After Doubt: Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What to Do About It by Brian McLaren.)
For those of you who value the Bible, this should not be surprising. Most all of the characters mentioned in the Bible wrestled with doubts, questions, and disbelief—Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, Job, Ruth, Esther, The Twelve Disciples, and even Jesus.
Even after the resurrection appearances of Jesus, the disciples still had doubts, confusion, and disbelief. Think about that. Those who were present during the crucifixion and resurrection appearances of Jesus still wrestled with faith. Matthew’s gospel reports concerning the eleven disciples (minus Judas) who witnessed the resurrection appearance in Galilee: “…but some of them still doubted” (Matthew 28:17). In Luke’s gospel when Jesus appeared to the disciples, it states that the disciples were “startled, frightened, and still filled with doubts and disbelief” (Luke 24:37-38, 41). John’s gospel tells the story of doubting Thomas with no condemnation of his doubt (John 20:26-29).
There’s a resurrection appearance mentioned in Luke’s gospel in which two men were walking on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus on Easter Sunday—Cleopas and an unnamed man. Jesus appeared to them as they were walking, but they don’t recognize him. Jesus taught from scripture as they walked, and when they arrived at their evening destination they “broke bread” together. The way in which the sharing of bread was described was reminiscent of the Last Supper: Jesus took the bread, blessed, broke, and gave it to the two men. It’s symbolic of Jesus’ own life being “broken open” in vulnerability on the cross. It’s at this moment that the men recognized Jesus and then Jesus vanished. Perhaps our failing faith awakens when we break bread together in honesty, weakness, powerlessness, and vulnerability.
Through my own struggles with doubts and disbelief, I have found my own faith renewed and resurrected through rigorous honesty, vulnerability, and community. As I have sat in recovery groups of addicts and alcoholics, and people allowed themselves to be “broken open” through honesty and vulnerability, something beautiful happens. Call it what you want, but the “spirit” moves. God moves through authentic human vulnerability. In human weakness. In tender doubt. In confession of powerlessness. In utter brokenness. God moves. Fragile faith, with wobbly legs, begins to emerge. Maybe in these moments of loving vulnerability and community, we experience a deeper love, a bigger magic. Perhaps, if we allow ourselves to be “broken open” in loving community, our feeble faith may find some resurrection hope and fall into a Big Love.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023
