"Doubting Thomas" (John 20:19-31)

Easter 2  (11^th April 2010)

Text: John 20:19-31

 

I am sure that most of us are familiar with the term “Doubting Thomas”.  Tradition has singled him out as having an inferior faith because he spoke about his doubt in the resurrection.  And because of that his name became synonymous with doubt. But was he the only person in the Bible who has doubt?   If you are to read through your Bible you will be surprise to find how many of the main biblical characters have their doubts.  We shall only look at a few of them. 

In Exodus 3, when God called Moses to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, he replied, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”  Then God told Moses that he would be with him, and even showed how he would be able to perform miracles.   Then he told God that he was not a good speaker.   And God promised that he would help him to speak and teach him what to say.  But in Exodus 4: 13 he told God, “Lord, please send someone else to do it.”  

Likewise when God called Jeremiah to be his prophet, he objected that he did not know how to speak and that he was only a young boy.  Isaiah called himself a man of unclean lips.  The excuses of Moses, Jeremiah and Isaiah have continued to be used by various people until today.  There are always people who have doubt about themselves when God call them to do his work.

 But doubt sometimes, come to us even there is already a proof that God is working in our favour.  There is that guy in the Book of Judges by the name of Gideon.  When God came to Gideon and called him to save Israel, he replied, “But Lord, how can I save Israel?  My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in the family” (Judges 6: 15).  Then God revealed to him a sign and he was inspired that he led 10 of his servants to demolish the altar of Baal.  That action angered the worshippers of Baal, so the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces to fight the Israelites.   In verse 34 we are told that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and he summoned his people to join him to fight the enemy.

But take note of verses 36-40:  Gideon said to God, "If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised- ³⁷ look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said." ³⁸ And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew - a bowlful of water.
³⁹ Then Gideon said to God, "Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew." ⁴⁰ That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.

     In spite of the obvious favour of God upon him, Gideon still has his doubt.  Another example, was Elijah in 1 Kings 18.  Elijah won a great victory when he challenged the 450 prophets of Baal to a contest, and ended having all of them killed.  Then after he heard that his action had angered Queen Jezebel, Elijah became frightened (1 Kings 19: 3) and ran for his life, went to the desert and prayed that he might die.   Here was a man who had defeated 450 prophets who suddenly became doubtful about God’s power when challenged by a woman.

In Matthew 14: 22-33 we have that incident where the disciples encountered Jesus walking on water.  Then Peter asked Jesus if he could come to Jesus on the water.  Jesus said come, “Come.”  Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on water and came toward Jesus.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and began to sink and called for Jesus to save him.   Jesus caught him and said, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”    

Doubt can even come to a man of God or to the person who seems so sure of things.   One example is John the Baptist, who according to Jesus, was the greatest person ever to live.  Matthew 11 told us that while he was in prison he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask whether Jesus was the One who was to come or should he expect someone else. 

This morning we have Thomas.  Why do you suppose Thomas had such strong doubts?  In verse 24, it says, “Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.”  Imagine what it must have been like for Thomas to listen to the other disciples telling him about their encounters with the risen Christ.  It must be hard to believe and too good to be true.  

 This morning I want to talk about doubt: how it can be destructive and in what way it can be useful to us.  First, we want to look at how doubt can come to us.  Doubt comes to us under many circumstances, especially when we are alone in our struggle.  For some reason Thomas had been absent on the first Easter Sunday morning when Jesus appeared to the disciples as a group.  We have no indication where he might have been, and no clue to what he might have been doing.  We can only guess why he wasn’t present.   It could have been because he was so sad and he just wanted to be left alone and grieve.   Some of us may be like Thomas: we prefer to be left alone whenever we have problems. 

Was that the right thing to do or not?   In the case of this story, staying away even for a short time was a mistake.  But even while it was a mistake, it still produced something good.   When Thomas decided to be absent he missed the chance to meet with the risen Jesus on the first day.   But Thomas did not keep away from the fellowship.  Thus, when Jesus appeared on the second week when he was with the other disciples, he not only believed but declared that Jesus was his Lord and his God! 

There are Christians who regard doubt as sin.  But doubting is a common experience among all believers.  The great men of the Bible had their doubts either about themselves or the power of God.   If you have never doubted anything, it may mean that you have never thought seriously about anything.   So, if you are a Christian and still have some doubts, it is OK because faith in God is matter of choice.  And whenever there are choices, you are given the opportunity to doubt.

Doubting does not mean that your faith stops: it means you are trying to understand your faith at a deeper level.  Rather than being afraid of doubts, we should allow them to take us to deeper experiences of faith and understanding.   However, as Christians we must never depend only on our minds to question and try to figure anything out.  It means if we have doubt, we need to be in consultation with others; and we need to pray about it.

So the first thing we need to understand is that: there is more than one kind of doubts.   There is honest doubt, which can lead to faith.   Honest doubt means that we are thinking and seeking to understand.  The simple answers do not satisfy us any longer and we want to understand at a new and deeper level.   Honest doubt wants to know more about God and experience him in new ways. 

There is another sort of doubt that Jesus discourages among his disciples.  It is to have doubt about what is obviously true.  Peter walked on water after he had the permission from Jesus.  But when he saw the big waves he started to be afraid and then began to sink.  In the case of Thomas, Jesus had given all the necessary clues about what would happen to him.  He said he would die and then rose again on the third day.  But when the other 10 disciples claimed to have seen him, he could not believe.  To have doubt on something which is obviously true is wrong.  It is wrong for Christians to have doubt in the power of prayers.  It is wrong for Christians to doubt the divinity of Jesus or his resurrection. 

However, there is another kind of doubt that is dishonest and deadly.  It is cynicism.  The cynic is pleased with doubt; looks for ways to doubt; delights in things which can be questioned and cannot be answered.  Cynicism seeks to find excuses for not trusting God and excluding him from one’s life.  Cynics look at other people’s shortcomings rather than looking what is not right in their own spiritual lives. So if you are always looking for inconsistencies and contradictions; if you are always looking for errors rather than answers, you are a cynic.   John describes them like this: “Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him” (John 12:37). Cynicism is fatal to spiritual life because it is both wrong and sinful. 

I don’t deny that we all struggle with our faith in one way or the other, but I also believe that God understands our struggles.  So if we have questions to ask him, then we go and ask him.   However, if we know that something is not right with ourselves, we seek to put it right, and must stop blaming other people for it.  Part of our spiritual struggles is not just to fight evil we see outside, but also to combat evil that is in our own hearts. 

Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it” (Matthew 11:12). The kingdom of heaven is for those who will struggle with God.  It is for those who ask, seek and knock.  It is for those who struggle in order to understand. They question so that they might know.  They think; they read; they study; they talk to others; they pray.  But when they know they are wrong, they are also humble enough to admit it; and make a point to something about it.   Their relationship with God is too important not to struggle, because they know that doubt leads to faith.

We also need to understand that we will never have all the answers.  It is important to struggle with God and seek the answers to your questions.   But if you are waiting until you have everything figured out before you believe and accept Jesus, then you will be waiting forever.  Our God is a great God, and that means there will be many things we can never know about him.  If we can absorb God in our little minds, he is not God: he could be a figment of our own imagination.  That is why I don’t wait until I understand everything about God before I agree to preach his word.  This is what it means to have faith.  Our belief in God may involve intelligent reasoning, but in the end, it is all about faith.

God wants us to exercise our faith.  Hebrews 11:6 says, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him”.  Faith involves risk. You take a risk when you place your faith in God and his Word.  People who want to have all the answers and have God all figured out do not dare to take risk, and they will never know the experience of faith.  

Faith and Doubt paradoxically live together.   As long as we are in this world we will always live in the tension between faith and despair, but it is our love for God which helps us to overcome our doubts.  Faith is a daily, ongoing exercise.  It is like a spring which loops up and down.  There are times when we feel that we are walking with God.  There are times when we feel that we are struggling against him or going away from him.   Even when we do not have all the answers and that life doesn’t make sense, we shall triumph because our faith is grounded in the goodness of God.

We have seen that the best Christians in the world have had serious doubts. Abraham didn’t know if he could trust God (Genesis 15:8).  Gideon did not know whether God would live up to his promise.  John the Baptist questioned whether Jesus was the Messiah after all.  Some of the disciples doubted whether God really did raise Jesus from the dead (Matthew 28:17).  Thomas doubted and demanded that he be able to touch Christ’s wounds before he would believe.  But, ultimately, in spite of their doubts, all of them put their trust in God.

So there are four things that we need to be cautious about when we are in doubt: 

that we must not entertain doubt on what has been proven true

that our doubt does not lead us to be cynical about faith

that we must not be lazy to seek and learn the truth 

that we don’t try to go all alone (staying away from church) for too long.