READNG: JOHN 20:19-31
FROM HERE TO UNCERTAINTY
Spelling and grammar have never been my strong point. If it weren’t for the spell-checker tool in Microsoft Office or the autocorrect function in my text messages, I’d be a mess. But even with those things, I still get it wrong. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve text Steph to say that I’m stuck in a ‘cue’ of traffic. And it’s best not to discuss the epic failure below:
Thankfully though, I do remember some of the spelling rules I learnt at school, in particular: “i before e, except after c”.
That rule was drummed into my head at primary school. It was what I was taught by the teacher, and so I followed it to the letter. Well, I did, up until it got me into trouble when I handed in some work, and the same teacher who taught me this golden rule of spelling marked my spelling as wrong! So, naturally, I challenged the teacher; ‘that’s not what you taught me. That breaks the rule!’ I then had the shock of discovering that what I was taught wasn’t always true.
Sometimes, it’s insufficient. Especially when your foreign neighbour Keith is given eight, counterfeit, beige sleighs from some feisty, caffeinated weightlifters! Weird![I]
When this happened, I felt cheated. What else had my teacher lied about?
But it’s not that my teacher lied. It’s not that she taught us wrong. We just weren’t given the full story. The world of spelling was a huge, daunting place—too much for my little brain to grab all at once. But you have to start somewhere, and so the teacher gave us a small, imperfect detail to begin with.
It’s a process that’s often referred to as ‘lies to children’. We’re given something that helps us to step onto the ladder of understanding: a picture, a rule, or an analogy that helps us begin exploring. Of course, the higher you move up that ladder of understanding, the more you see and the more you realise that the picture that started this journey was incomplete. Which, in turn, causes us to revisit what we think we know and think it all through again.
No one is born knowing everything. We have to explore. We begin with a view of the world and as we journey through life that original view gets consistently challenged: it needs to be realigned with the newly discovered. It’s called growing up.
The thing is, growing up doesn’t always move in the direction we think it should. When I was young I believed that growing up would mean moving from uncertainty to certainty, but this isn’t true. I have more questions than ever. Really, the biggest thing I’ve learnt is how ignorant I am.
Maturity isn’t about knowing everything; it’s about acknowledging that you have much to learn. Which means—and I’m going to sound controversial here—that doubt and uncertainty are essential ingredients to growth.
And that’s also true in the context of our relationship with God.
We all come with our preconceived ideas about who God is, how God works, what God is up to. But, I’ve found, as we journey with God, we begin to encounter a Jesus who challenges the original ideas that we brought with us. Not just in the sense that Jesus is more than we originally thought, but also in the sense that he is different from what we originally thought.
So our journey of faith doesn’t often take the form of affirming our beliefs, even though we may have had some strong experiences that led us to adopt those beliefs in the first place. But what we actually discover is that some of our beliefs clash.
We can find our preconceived picture of God being smashed up, taken to pieces and being totally rearranged. Not only because of further religious experiences, but it also happens as we encounter realities and theories that don’t neatly fit into our beliefs. Or, maybe, it happens as we face hardships, or even as we come to terms with our own fragility and weakness.
When that happens—when our beliefs are challenged, or when God doesn’t behave or ‘perform’ like we expected God too—we are often left confused. We begin to have questions. We doubt. We sense this choice between holding tightly onto our self-assured, sacred ideas, on the one side, and this pull towards entering into this hazy, uncertain stage of exploring what we are now presented with, on the other side.
If we don’t handle this tension correctly, we can reach a point where we feel disillusioned with God. And, in the extreme cases—like when we realise that our original thinking was way off the mark—then instead of rethinking and exploring, because it’s difficult to change our views and see them smashed to pieces, we can often find it tempting to abandon our faith altogether. Because this sense of something being wrong with our beliefs is so great, we assume that everything is wrong, and we walk away believing that we were just following a lie.
However, if we embrace doubt positively and continue to explore—in other words, if we choose not to throw out all the pieces of our smashed-up ideas, and if we draw close to God and allow God to work with the pieces—then we will come to a place where our original thinking is developed and expanded. Clarity will come. Revelation will take place. And we will catch a glimpse of how some of those old pieces, in addition to our new experience, fit together in a new way.
I’ve discovered that learning about God, ‘growing up in Christ’, understanding the scriptures etc., continually moves through this cycle: I have ideas which clash with something, which causes confusion and doubt, which generates a call to pursue the questions that have arisen, that leads to a fresher understanding.
To put that another way: Doubt leads to questions. Questions prompt learning. Learning calls to intimacy. And Intimacy morphs into fresh discovery, which eventually sparks new doubts and new questions…
It’s a perpetual loop. I find Jesus. I “lose” Jesus. I rediscover Jesus.
And, dare I say it, that’s the way it should be.
The problem though—what contributes to so much of our mishandling of this process—is that we have often been taught that to doubt is evil: that doubt is the opposite of faith. But, as the author Anne Lamott once wrote, “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.”[ii]
God wants us to learn, and it’s difficult to teach those who are certain. But doubters make great students.
‘DOUBTING’ (OUR IDEA OF) THOMAS
All of which brings us to Thomas and what we’ve just read together. Because doubt has been treated as a negative, Thomas has also been seen in a negative light.
Sadly, Thomas has been treated as a specimen of what not to do; the stereotypical example of how a follower shouldn’t look or behave.
But I like Thomas. He’s an explorer. He’s not one who’s easily pulled in and persuaded by popular opinion or the euphoria of someone else’s experiences. And actually, I believe that something of Thomas’ journey is a shining example of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Throughout the Gospel of John, Thomas travels through the journey I’ve just described: Thomas finds Jesus, loses Jesus, and rediscovers Jesus.
The first time we meet Thomas in John’s Gospel is chapter 11, as Jesus and the disciples hear about the death of Jesus’ friend Lazarus. Lazarus lived in Bethany, which was close to Jerusalem, and because the disciples knew that the authorities there wanted to kill Jesus, they try to put Jesus off from returning to Jerusalem. But Jesus won’t be put off—he’s going, full stop. In response to Jesus’ determination, Thomas blurts out, rather heroically, ‘Let’s go too—and die with Jesus’ (v16)
This sounds like a strong declaration of faith; it doesn’t sound like a doubter. But you need to understand that Thomas has this pre-conceived idea of Jesus as a military revolutionary; a Messiah who is going to kick the Roman occupation and their sponsors out of Israel. Therefore, he’s happy to fight alongside Jesus and die for that cause. So although ‘Let’s die with Jesus’ sounds impressive, they’re not words that reflect his allegiance to Jesus; they are words that express Thomas’ confidence in his own ideas of what he thinks Jesus is up to.
I’m saying that, because the next time we have some words from Thomas is in John 14; at the last supper, as Jesus is talking about his Father’s house. Jesus tells them that he’s going to prepare a place for them, and when it’s ready, he’ll come and get them and that they, the disciples, know where he is going and how to get there (John 14:1-4).
Jesus is speaking about his death and resurrection. But a dying Messiah doesn’t fit with Thomas’ beliefs; it clashes. And so instead of meeting the confident Thomas we met earlier, who was willing to die with Jesus, we now meet a Thomas who’s very confused. A Thomas who says, in response to Jesus’ ‘you know where I am going and how to get there’, ‘Master, we have no idea where you are going. How can you expect us to know the road?’ (v5, The Message)
Something has now changed in Thomas.
Thomas was once willing to die with Jesus (if it was a fight), but now, when Jesus is talking about sacrificially laying down his life, he’s puzzled. Thomas has moved away from certainty towards uncertainty as he discovers that Jesus isn’t gelling with his expectations of who Jesus should be.
Which brings us to Thomas’ third appearance in John’s Gospel, which we read earlier from chapter 20; when, within a locked room, on the Sunday evening following the crucifixion, the resurrected Jesus appears before the disciples. But tellingly, Thomas is nowhere to be seen.
Jesus’ death would have come as a huge blow to him and his “faith” (as it did to all the disciples). But for Thomas, he’s gone from certainty to confusion, and now he’s totally disillusioned—he’s gone. It’s not just that Jesus has died, but Thomas’ expectations, his hopes, his ideas about who Jesus was and what Jesus would do, have all died as well.
Maybe for some of us, we have shared in something of Thomas’ experience with God? We feel that God hasn’t performed as we hoped God would do: we have discovered that God is ‘other’ than that which we initially thought, and we’re now not sure about what to the think.
We find ourselves left with serious questions. We’re puzzled about some of the things that God does and we’re in despair about the things that God doesn’t do. And then, whilst we’re in the midst of wrestling with all these doubts—whilst we’re struggling to get God to match up to our expectations—something happens; some critical junction in our lives when we find ourselves desperate for God to prove that he is still what we believe God to be like. But the opposite appears to take place, and death enters our experience. Maybe not in the literal sense like the death of a loved one or the ending of some part of our lives; but at the very least, there’s a death to our hopes and trust in our Creator.
Like Thomas, we go from a kind of confidence… to a confused state… to a state of disillusionment.
Maybe, some of us are finding ourselves on the brink of losing ‘faith’ altogether? Then hopefully Thomas’ experience will encourage us because the story doesn’t end with Thomas’ absence.
REVELATION
The disciples go and find Thomas and tell him what happened—they can’t explain how it’s possible, but the Jesus they saw die is now alive! Thomas though, is naturally sceptical; he’s being asked to believe something totally outside of his experience. Nothing had ever happened like this before, and no one was expecting this to happen, either (despite how often Jesus told them about it).
They’re claiming that Jesus has a body, that they’ve seen his scars and felt the warmth of his breath upon their face. This is a lot for Thomas to take in. So, understandably, Thomas retorts, ‘I don’t believe it!’ (v25)[iii]
At first glance, this looks like Thomas is rejecting everything. But look what Thomas does in response to that statement—he doesn’t abandon everything. Instead, he positions himself to pursue and explore the confusion: eight days later, Thomas is with the other disciples (v26).
I like this about Thomas: he has questions; massive questions! But they don’t push him away, they pull him in. And by leaning into his doubts, not away from them, he is lead into a deeper experience of Jesus. The risen Jesus reveals himself to him, leading Thomas to declare, ‘My Lord and My God!’ (v28)
This is an amazing statement. John opens his gospel by telling us how God comes in the flesh and dwells with us, and how no one recognises him; not even his own people (John 1:10). And yet, in the conclusions to John’s Gospel, it’s Thomas—the ‘doubter’—who is the first person to recognise and declare the truth of who Jesus is. It’s the doubter who sees the glory of Christ!
The thing is, if Thomas had clung to his original ideas of Jesus and not allowed them to be challenged and expanded—if he had never doubted himself and had chosen to walk away from Jesus the moment Jesus didn’t fit into his own expectations—he would never have come to this position.
“CONCLUSION”
You see, doubt is not a bad thing; it’s an essential ingredient of discipleship. To say we have faith in Jesus is not only a claim of discovery, but also a confession that we are still unearthing what that discovery is.[iv]
If you have questions about Jesus, then I think your relationship is going in the right direction. However, if you’re not pursuing those questions, if you’re resisting the pull of those questions into a deeper exploration of Jesus, if they are not causing us to ‘rethink’, ‘reframe’ or ‘relook’ at him, then you’re taking a gift of the Spirit—the Spirit who desires to lead us into truth—and using it as an excuse. How you respond to your questions will either allow your faith to flourish or to fester.
For those on the brink of losing faith altogether; don’t give up. You may feel that you’re the only with doubts, but I assure you, you’re not. I’m with you. And I’m inspired by Thomas’ fantastic example. An example that demonstrates that it’s not a bad thing that our preconceptions die, as allowing them to do so places us in a prime position to receive a clearer picture of who Jesus really is.
Note: Header image is Jesus With His Apostles, by Edward Longo
ENDNOTES
[i] I saw this on the side of a coffee mug, so I can’t take credit for how great this sentence is.
[ii] Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith (Riverhead Books, 2006).
[iii] Thomas wasn’t alone in his doubts, by the way. When Luke tells this story, he writes that when the resurrected Jesus first appeared, ‘They all stood there doubting, filled with joy and wonder’ (Luke 24:41). Matthew, on the other hand, adds in the conclusion to his Gospel, at the Great Commission, that when the disciples saw Jesus they worshipped him, although some of them still doubted (Matthew 28: 17).
As an aside; I love these verses. For me it captures the heart of what I’m trying to say here: that faith and doubt are not opponents; doubt can exist alongside wonder and joy within those that call themselves followers of Christ. Dare I say it, but maybe doubt is the seedbed of wonder?
[iv] Please don’t misunderstand me: it’s not that I believe God changes. I firmly believe that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. But I do acknowledge that God is larger than my perceptions, and I also acknowledge that my preconceptions of God can be totally off the mark.
I found faith in a tradition that believes God can be known: that God has and does reveal the Divine nature to us – I stand by that. But that doesn’t mean I demean the important role that questions have. It’s not that I need to ask, in order to get an answer, in order to believe. The opposite is true: my belief leads me to the conviction that there is something to be discovered, and so I ask.
TRISTAN SHERWIN 
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