LIFE ON THE “D” LIST”: DOUBT

John 20: 19-31

Although we call them conspiracy theorists, or radically minded persons, there are those who do not believe we have yet been to the moon. Convinced that the technology was not developed enough to get someone there from the dream in May of 1961 to a landing in July of 1969, they think the whole moon landing video was filmed on a secret sound stage. Go to the Kennedy Space Center and find evidence and personal testimony to the contrary. There most visitors become believers as they hear the story and see the launch pad started our journey from the earth to the moon. There are also people who do not believe that the Holocaust ever happened. They think that people sympathetic to Jewish persons have made up the whole story of thousands upon thousands of persons in box cars being off loaded into Dachau and other concentration camps where they were said to have been gassed and then burned in great ovens or buried in mass graves. They say that didn’t happen. Ask the Spruce Creek High School Band Students who visited Dachau last summer and see what they believe. When I saw Dachau concentration camp last July during our Oberamergau Passion Play trip, it silenced my heart and chilled my blood. Go to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem or the one in St. Petersburg here in Florida, or the one in Washington D.C. Have such moving and wrenching memorials been continued all these years to perpetuate a hoax?And yet there are still conspiracy theorists who say “yes.” Should we call then extreme doubters? And what should we call people who believe that the moon is made of cheese? Foolish? Ridiculous? Or just extreme believers? With extreme believers we can be in the company of such gullible people that they have lost their ability for discernment. With extreme doubters we have a world filled with skeptics, ones who would even doubt evidence submitted in courts of law, or even doubt the laws of physics. Neither extreme serves the human race very well. How much doubt and how much faith is a good balance?

The very night that the tomb of Jesus was discovered to be empty, Jesus himself appeared to a gathered group of disciples, according to John (who was an eyewitness to it.) John included details to help the skeptic: the doors were all shut, which means no one could enter without them noticing. Still, Jesus appeared to those who were in that place and said to them “Shalom.” He knew first they would be amazed to see him, so he appeared to many of them. Second, he knew they would wonder if he could be real or if he was just an image, so showed them his hands and side. After he was with them awhile, he went away. Thomas was not with them. When he returned the disciples told them they had seen the risen Lord. And he wouldn’t take their word for it. Do we really blame him? Perhaps instead of putting in Thomas’s name, we should put in our own, for aren’t we among those who want to see what is unbelievable with our own eyes too? The power of YouTube attests to the fact that most people want to see something wonderful, strange, or amazing, not just hear a description from another person. We too want to see what others have described. Yet the media also can capture on tape a small gaff, a major embarrassment, or a verbal stumble and let it play over and over so no one will forget when President Ford tripped, President Clinton was impeached, or President Bush mixed up his words.  Poor Thomas has become known as “Doubting Thomas” as the name has gone viral. It now sounds pejorative and negative. Today I wonder if we can elevate doubting to a healthy state of scrutiny, rather than unhealthy conspiracy theory or naïve Pollyanna acceptance.

 What do you think of when you hear the word “doubt?” Is a person who doubts a questioner and someone who doubts everything a radical questioner? Or is such a person just low on faith?  Do you see doubt as a virtue or a vice? William Shakespeare saw it as a virtue as he said: “Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.” Could modest doubt be the mind’s discernment on issues as important as our faith?  Could modest doubt be seen as the sharpening tool of faith rather than the cancer that destroys faith? Certainly there are some for whom doubt has been their slippery slope, causing them to slide from the mountaintop of faith—in the Bible, or faith in God, or faith in Heaven—into  the valley of deep doubt where belief gets buried under the avalanche of doubt. Such doubt can be crippling. Perhaps you’ve had crippling doubt at some time, or perhaps you have it today? Do you doubt the resurrection of Jesus or the miracles in the Bible? Do you doubt that accounts written 2000 years ago could have been accurately kept until today? Do you doubt that God exists?  Listen to me as I assign a different word to the sentence instead of doubting:  Do youwonder how Jesus rose from the dead; wonder how the miracles were done; wonder how the Bible could still be accurate; do you wonder about God?  Teachers encourage children to wonder; even Jesus Christ thought we should enter the Kingdom of Heaven as children; was he encouraging wonder? Instead of letting doubt crush you, could let wonder lift you, and could faith carry you?

Let us come to the mysteries of the Lord’s Table today, praying for our doubts, thankful for our faith, and encouraging wonder. Thanks be to God.

Jeffrey A. Sumner                                                         May 1, 2011