Church this morning was about Doubting Thomas. The pastor was
talking about the problem of Jesus not being present with his disciples
or anyone else on earth between the times of his crucifixion and his
resurrection. Jesus was not healing people. Jesus was not
communicating to his disciples God's way of looking at situations,
thereby leaving them to their own devices. The pastor called this time
"Saturday", for it was the time between the Friday of Jesus' crucifixion
and the Sunday of his resurrection.
The pastor then said
that, in a sense, today seems like Saturday. Christians might believe
in Jesus, but where is the proof that Jesus is alive? The pastor
replied to this by saying that Jesus is by each one of us, and those who
don't see that don't see it because they don't want to see it.
That
may look rather insensitive, especially to people who sincerely doubt
Christianity or theism in general, and who struggle to have faith. I'd
say that, ordinarily, my pastor is sensitive to the issue of doubt.
I've expressed my problems with the Bible more than once in our Bible
study group (not that I do this every week, but I have every now and
then), and my pastor has said that he can understand why people have
doubts, since the Bible is difficult. I'd even say that, in his sermon
today, he appeared to be sympathetic to doubters. There is so much in
the world that doubters or skeptics can point to in calling into
question the existence of a benevolent God. Is doubt or skepticism
really that ridiculous?
But is God's
existence truly evident to those who seek it? Some testify yes, and
some testify no. But there is a part of me that would like for the
Jesus story to be true----for the healing presence that supposedly
inhabited Israel two millennia ago to impact the entire earth in a
concrete way.