The Doubt

John 15:12-13 - The Easter Story – The Doubt

Doug Partin – The Christian Church – 04/19/2020

Getting through the week can be difficult under normal circumstances, and going online for school, work, church, shopping, play, and just about everything else hasn’t made it any easier. In fact, a lot of people are wanting to take a break from all the screen time. You might even catch yourself daydreaming of getting someone else to sit in front of the screen, while you play hooky.

If you don’t know what “playing hooky” means, it is supposedly a transliteration of the Dutch term “hookje” that they use to refer to that game we call hide and seek. When a student skipped school, and a truant officer found out about it, the game was a foot. Like those students, we might want to hide from our new online life, but since we can’t actually go anywhere under the current quarantine laws; it’d be pretty easy for the truant officer to find us.

I was reminded this week about an old cartoon that was poking fun at the use of technology in schools. It showed a classroom, in which the “teacher” was absent, but he had recorded his lecture, and it was playing on a large tape deck that sat on his desk. In the next block of the cartoon, it showed all of the students’ desks, on which sat smaller tape decks recording the lecture, but not a student in sight.

But we’ve found out that it doesn’t really work that way. There has to be a connection, a conversation, an exchange between the two people in some way, even if technology is making it happen, but that doesn’t keep us from day dreaming about playing hooky.

Evidently, a programmer, working for Verizon, figured out how to do the unimaginable. How to play hooky at work while hiding in plain sight. He did this by outsourcing his own programing duties to a Chinese firm, whom he paid one-fifth of his six figure salary, to do. He still showed up at work, but spent his time cruising the internet instead of doing his job, because, well, he didn’t need to do it. I don’t know the rest of the story, so I don’t know what happened to him when his scheme was discovered, and it was. He may have been fired, but he may have been promoted to a managerial position.

Have you ever been told a story that seemed so outlandish, that you just couldn’t accept that it really happened? I felt that way about a story I was told while we were living in East Tennessee. We lived near Erwin, the town where it supposedly took place back in 1916. An elephant with a traveling circus managed to killed one of its handlers. The local officials determined that it was not accident, that the elephant intended to kill the man, and it was hung for its crimes. I thought that it was a little far fetched until I saw the newspaper article reporting it, which included pictures. It was true, but still unimaginable.

But believe me, when I say that you just can’t make that kind of stuff up, at least that is what Mark Twain said back in 1897, just a few years before the elephant hanging. In that year Mark released a travelogue titled “Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World,” and in the fifteenth chapter, he declared, “truth is stranger than fiction,” but he concluded, “it is so because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” In other words, those who try to convince people to believe something that is not true, will do their best to make their story sound possible. They’d never throw in something unbelievable, as they would defeat their whole purpose.

Most of Mark Twain’s travelogue was true, but he couldn’t help himself. He ended up including a few stories that were later proved to be false. Which made everyone question whether any of it was true. But those few tall tales made for more interesting reading, and he needed to sell books to get out of debt. One of the stories he included was how Cecil Rhodes made his first fortune. He was a very successful business man who, at his death, founded the “Rhodes” scholarship at Oxford University, which some of you may have heard of.

As Twain told the story, Rhodes found a London newspaper that was only 10 days old in the belly of a shark that he caught in Sydney Harbor. He acted on the news it announced that France had declared war on Germany by convincing a local businessman to corner the wool market before anyone else heard the news. Which wouldn’t happen until the next steamship arrived, and that would take another 30 days. Those armies would need uniforms, wool uniforms. So, they got to work buying up the wool. When the news broke, wool prices immediately climbed, and they made a handsome profit. We would call that insider trading today. But it didn’t happen. It wasn’t true, but there are still people on the internet saying that it might be true.

With all the information we have access to these days, and all of the ways we can communicate it. Some educators are saying that we don’t need to teach students content. We just need to teach them how to determine what is true, and what it not. And how to use it. Otherwise they are going to end up being the victims of phishing scams that come in the form of an email telling them that their account has been compromised, and they need to provide their user name and password to verify their account.

To determine whether something is true, you have to ask questions. And that is true of our faith as well. Did Jesus really die on the cross? Was He even a real person? How do we know that the gospel writers were describing what really happened? Questions like these might cause you to doubt what you’ve been told is true, but they should also inspire you to seek answers. And there are answers to all of the questions that can be raised about our faith.

Long before Jesus’ victory over the grave that we celebrated last week on Easter, Jesus spoke to His disciples about something truly unbelievable – His love. They had experienced it. His disciples were far from perfect. They were prideful at times, self-promoting at times, and they were even afraid to speak up about what they thought, like that time when Jesus asked them, “Who do you say that I am?” We’ll that wasn’t Peter’s problem, he was always speaking up, even when it would have been better for him to have kept his mouth shut. But on that occasion, his speaking up was the right thing to do. He said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” (Mt. 16:16-17)

He didn’t get the truth from man’s wisdom or personal experience, or even from something he had witnessed. It was revealed to Him by God from heaven. That’s not the kind of thing that you include in a story if you want people to believe it. But the truth is stranger than fiction.

Jesus had to confront His disciples when they were wrong, and He forgive them when they acknowledged it, which they did. He taught them, challenged them, and loved them like a shepherd loves His sheep. And since they lived with Him, they got to know whether Jesus was the real deal. You can learn a lot about a person when you live with them. You might fool those who only see you on a screen, but you can’t fool those who live with you all the time.

They were there when Jesus extended His love to others, who, like themselves, were undeserving of it. Like the time he defended the woman caught in adultery, or when He had dinner at Zacchaeus’ house. He loved on all sorts of outcasts and sinners. And the religious leaders couldn’t believe it. That’s not the sort of thing that they felt a Messiah should do, but it is what the prophets said He would do.

Love is what breaks through our doubts. People wonder if God really exists. If He cares about them. Then someone shows up, in God’s name, and loves on them. And they begin to think, maybe God heard my prayers after all.

Love has been defined as taking care of another person’s needs, not because you have a special relationship with them, but because you are able to meet the need. Love is about what you do, not about who receives it. Jesus was always loving on people, not only giving them what they sought from Him, but what they actually needed.

Like the man with the withered hand. He wanted to be healed, but Jesus forgave His sins. But to show that He could forgive sins, which you can’t see happen, He also healed the man’s hand, which showed that He was able to do the kinds of things that only God can do, like forgive sins. Which is more unbelievable?

Jesus stood up for the downtrodden, embraced the wayward, and healed those who came to Him, but He also taught them the truth. He did so because they were like sheep who had no shepherd. He didn’t just talk about love, He was compassionate, He was charitable, He was caring. And with each expression of love, the people began to believe that perhaps He really was the Messiah.

The disciples had seen Jesus express His love in unbelievable ways, even showing it to His enemies. But remembrances of His love were not what came rushing back to their minds as they huddled together after His death on the cross. They were definitely more afraid of what man could do to them, than what God might do.

When Jesus first began telling them that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised on the third day. Peter took Him aside and rebuked Him, saying, “God forbid it. Lord This shall never happen to You.” Mt. 16:21-22

And, believe it or not, it was Thomas, doubting Thomas, who proclaimed, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” (John 11:16) He had the best intentions, but they were swept aside in the shadow of the cross.

When the news came that Jesus’ grave was empty; their hearts had turned to stone. They refused to believe what they were told because they were entertaining false answers to the deep questions of their faith. Dead people don’t get back up. Well, most dead people. They had seen Lazarus come out of the grave, and they had seen the son of the widow of Nain who was being carried out to be buried brought back to life. And they had seen Jairus’ daughter brought back to life.

But Jesus was around to do it, and now it was Jesus who was dead.

This wasn’t the first time they doubted. Even while walking on the water, Peter took his eyes off Jesus and looked at the waves, and by considering that what he was doing was impossible, he was overcome with doubt and began to sink. Jesus said, “Oh, ye of little faith. (Matt. 14:31). But at least he believed for a moment before he began to doubt. That’s got to count for something, right?

One of the last things Jesus taught His disciples was the result of His going over to a fig tree on their way into Jerusalem. It only had leaves, no fruit. Jesus said to the tree, “No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you.” And Immediately the fig tree withered all at once. The disciples were amazed and asked how that could possibly happened. And Jesus told them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast in to the sea,’ it will happen.” (Matt. 21:21)

What filled the disciples’ thoughts as they huddled behind locked doors were doubts. Despite three years of seeing the unbelievable take place. They could not understand why the women would give such an unbelievable answer as to why the tomb was empty. If they had said, as the guards were paid to do, that someone had stolen his body, that they would have believed. It is the more possible answer, but it was not the truth. The truth is stranger than fiction.

It is not that the disciples couldn’t remember what Jesus had told them was going to happen. They knew that He had told them, more than once, that after three days He would rise again. It’s just that they couldn’t, at that moment, believe it had really happened.

There is a place for doubt. In fact, some educational psychologist have shown that without doubt, a person cannot grow in their faith. I had to look at a lot of these studies when I was writing a paper for a class at Texas Tech. It was a paper on the “spiritual development on incoming freshmen.” The Dean of Students, who was teaching the class, wanted to know why so many students who showed up with a strong faith, ended up letting go of it so quickly.

It ends up that when doubt is cast on one’s faith by an authority figure, like the professor of a class, serious questions arise. But rather than challenging the students to discover solid answers that would lead them through their doubts and into a stronger faith. They were being told that what they once believed was, well, simply unreasonable and unbelievable, and only fit for the uneducated. They were being told that they needed to set aside their faith like a once cherished toy. It may have been important for them when they were a child, but now that they were older and wiser, and educated, they didn’t need it anymore. They were being trapped in their doubts.

As I said earlier, we need to ask the hard questions about our faith. Was the grave really empty? If so, why was it empty? What really happened to Jesus’ body?

When we consider poor answers, like, “It is just a story, not an historical event,” we might grow disillusioned for a while. But as we continue to seek, discovering better answers, our faith will be strengthened.

It is true that some people get stuck in their doubts, rather than moving forward in their faith. But it is when our doubts are confronted by the truth that we really begin to grow.

After all, Jesus said that those who seek, will find. And what do we find? We find that the story told in the pages of the Bible are not fairytales, but really are historical accounts. Accounts which reveal how God’s love for the world resulted in the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son.

On one occasion, when Jesus told His disciples that this was going to happen in advance of it happening, he began with a different story. He spoke about a vine, its branches, it’s fruit, and a vine dresser (15:1). The vine’s purpose, He said, is to bear fruit. It grows branches, some of them produce fruit and others do not. The vine dresser cleans and prunes the vine, and He is celebrated for His care of the vine.

Using this story, Jesus taught that His Father loves Him, and He, in turn, loves His disciples. I understand the first part. Jesus is worthy of God’s love, but we are not deserving of Jesus’ love. So, this love that Jesus is talking about is not dependent on our worthiness. Yet, at the same time, love is why commands are kept. Jesus kept His Father’s commands because He loved Him, and we keep Christ’s commands because we love Him. And in doing so, we end up bearing fruit.

Just as God’s love compelled Him to send His Son. And Jesus’ love compelled Him to lay down His life (that it might be taken up again). Our love compels us to care for those around us just as Jesus had done.

John said that Jesus’ love elevated His relationship with His disciples into one of friendship. They were not slaves, forced to do as directed. As friends, Jesus brought them into His confidence, told them what was going to happen, and extended to them freedom to choose whether they would keep following Him or not.

If the choice is between being a fruitless branch destine for the fire, or a branch that bears fruit. Which would you choose? Most of them choose to bear fruit, but it did not come without growing through their doubts.

But ever since Jesus’ crucifixion, which is the only time when Nietzsche, a philosopher made famous by declaring that “God was dead” was ever right, it was doubts that flooded the disciples’ minds. How could they bear fruit if the vine was dead?

They didn’t remember the answer that Jesus had already given them. Jesus had told them, “… unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Paul would take up this same argument when he taught that the seed which you plant doesn’t come to life unless it dies.

One might argue that the seed doesn’t actually die. It simply goes through a transformation. What was once the seed becomes the roots, that produce the vine and bears the branches that produce the fruit.

And that’s exactly what happened to Jesus. He was dead. Yet, Peter said that while in this state of death he also went to a spiritual “prison” where he preached to the souls who died in the days of Noah. So, there was, in some sense, life in His dead body as it lay in the tomb.

A dead body that would be energized by God transforming it and raising it to life, but a body that was prepared for eternity. He was not a ghost, but he could pass through the locked doors. And He could vanish from their sight after showing them His hands and feet, and yet, they could touch His bones and flesh. And He could eat.

When pressed about the nature of Jesus’ body, because those who believed their story that Jesus was victorious over the grave, wanted to know what our own resurrected bodies would be like, John said, “We don’t really know, but on that day when we see Him come again, we are going to be just like Him.” They were not put off by such questions, but used them as an opportunity to affirm the truth.

But what really demonstrates that Jesus, the vine, is alive and well, is that His branches. His disciples, keep on bearing fruit. What kind of fruit? The kind that takes place when you love like He loved.

You may recall that the resurrected Lord asked Peter, “Do you love me?” Three times. And after each affirmation, Jesus told Him to go and bear fruit by feeding His lambs. Loving on them.

The first thing that those who believed and were baptized after Peter’s message about the risen Lord on the day of Pentecost was that they began taking care of one another, sharing what they had with one another. They started loving on one another.

Doubt will keep you from loving as He loved, it will trap you in your fears, and you will, spiritually speaking die. But the truth will set you free to become a person of love. And that love will produce fruit. It is a family trait. God so loved. Jesus so loved. And we do too.

I encourage you to find ways to love on one another. And yes, you can find ways to express love even when we are socially distant from one another.

Prayer: God of love, answer our prayers to supply what we need to extend your love. Amen.