Good news for those who refuse to believe in Jesus

I’m a Christian who sometimes has a hard time believing Christianity.

Sometimes, the claims that Christianity makes seem too far out for a reasonable man like me to believe.

Sometimes, things happen that make me doubt that God even exists.

Sometimes, I believe in the existence of God, but I’m so disappointed and hurt that I would rather not have anything to do with God.

What about you?

What are we to do when we feel this way?

The Gospel of John 20:19-31 is a little gift for those times.

The episode takes place on the first Easter. In the Gospel of John, Jesus comes back to life that morning and shows himself to his friend, Mary Magdalene. This version of the story does not have Jesus showing himself to his apprentices until much later that evening.

When he does appear, it is in a house where his apprentices barricade themselves behind locked doors. They are afraid that the authorities that arrested, tried, tortured, and executed Jesus will do the same to them.

Jesus materializes among them, shows them the scars from his execution, confers peace on them (twice), commissions them to carry on his work, and breathes the Holy Breath (Spirit) on them. This is one of the most important moments in the entire story of God and God’s people.

But one of the apprentices, Thomas, is absent. He misses the moment.

When the other apprentices find Thomas, maybe the next day, they tell him that they saw Jesus…alive again!

Thomas refuses to believe.

“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,” he says. “I will not believe.”

Why is this in the Bible?

Because sooner or later, Thomas is all of us.

If you are a church lifer, you know how we sometimes call him “Doubting Thomas.” But I detect a lot more than doubt going on here.

Remember: Thomas is grieving the loss of his hopes for the future and the life he left behind to follow Jesus. He is grieving the death of a dear friend, yes, but also the cruelty and unfairness of that death. He is grieving the God he thought he knew and the world he thought he inhabited.

Have you ever grieved a loss so painful, sudden, and unfair? Let your imagination take you back to the depths of that grief.

What emotions overwhelmed you?

Those are the emotions that overwhelm Thomas.

I still haven’t recovered from my dad’s death almost two years ago. He was the best man I ever knew. He devoted his life to laboring in love for God and for God’s people. He was the purest, sweetest man most people ever met. When he retired after almost 50 years in ministry, he and Mom planned to spend their retirement years traveling the country to help small churches.

Dad got cancer a few months into retirement. A few months later he died. Nothing I ever saw in my life traumatized me more than going with him through the last few weeks of his life. I kept thinking: “This man does not deserve to die with such indignity and pain.”

I am well familiar with the stages of grief, most of all denial, anger, bargaining, and depression.

Thomas seems familiar with those things, too, don’t you think?

When my dad was dying and later after he died, I attended some grief support groups. It is common that those who are grieving a death get angry at the person who died!

Thomas is angry, bitter, and disappointed…with Jesus!

He is bold (and honest) enough to say that he will not believe unless Jesus comes to him and gives him reason to believe again.

That brings us to the good news in the Gospel of John 20:24-29. The good news is that Jesus does meet Thomas in the bitterness of his unbelief. Jesus does show Thomas his wounds.

And Jesus says to Thomas: “Do not doubt but believe.” I don’t take this as good advice or a word of warning. Rather, I take it as the same voice by which the Word that was with God in the beginning (Gospel of John 1:1-5) spoke light from darkness. In other words, Jesus says over Thomas: “Let there be belief!”

And Thomas believes like never before. As if waking from the dead himself, he says: “My Lord and my God!”

Tell Jesus the truth. If you are angry, say so. If you doubt, say so. If you hurt so bad you don’t want to trust Jesus ever again, say so.

If you don’t believe in him, say so.

It’s not like Jesus doesn’t already know.

Pray, with Thomas: Show yourself to me, Jesus! Show me!

The good news is that you can do that.

The better news is that Jesus shows himself to Thomas and Jesus will hold out his hands to you. Somehow, sometime, he will give you his peace and will speak your belief into existence.

When I don’t believe anything else, I still believe this.

May you believe it, too, and have…

…grace and peace.

Photo by Paul Yonggicho on <a href=“https://unsplash.com/photos/a-statue-of-two-people-holding-hands-in-front-of-a-cross-jWMTCG40OYU?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash”