Easter 2

So he (Thomas) said to them (the disciples) "Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe."

    One may wonder why the church included the above Gospel reading for the second Sunday of Easter.  We have just celebrated the high point of our Christian faith, the axle around which our faith revolves; the Resurrection - Christ is risen!  Christ is alive now and forever more.  Hallelujah!

And now the Sunday after Easter, the Gospel lesson centers in on doubt.

    And as we have it in the above selected verse, the disciple Thomas, who followed Jesus as one of His faithful ones for three years is remembered as the 'doubter' and his legacy lives on.

    Surely the church is telling us that doubt is part of the faith journey.  Just as Thomas doubted in Jesus' resurrection until he could put his finger into the wounds of Jesus (that is he could actually see the risen Jesus) and then was able to believe, many a Christian goes through life with his or her doubts along the way.

    This doubt has never manifested itself so widely as it does now during this COVID-19 recess from our normal rhythm of daily living.

    Both from the media and from phone calls I have made to the congregation, two dominant questions surface either directly or in couched language - why does God allow the coronavirus and why doesn't God intervene? - indeed questions reflecting doubt.

    Firstly, God the Creator has not allowed the coronavirus to happen!  God in Genesis 1:31 saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.  Yes, we are part of God's creation (the creature) and as such we are subject to all the vulnerabilities of being 'the creature' (as were Adam and Eve after the fall)  - that is to say we are not the Creator.

    Secondly, God is not a graduate of the Faculty of Magic.  God is God, not a Magician!  Floods, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, and coronavirus are part of the natural order and God in the freedom He gives to this order does not and will not snap His fingers to magically turn things around.  Such was the suffering His Son endured on Good Friday without the Father's intervention, and such are the sufferings of both the human creation and the natural order to which they are subject.

    The antidote to doubt as related to the above two questions is Faith, that God is in control and that we can believe this without having to put our fingers into Jesus' wounds in order to believe.

    How might you fill in the blank of the above title and better yet what title might you replace it with?

                           Doubt/Faith

Doubt sees the obstacles;

Faith sees the way.

Doubt sees the darkest night,

Faith sees the day!

Doubt dreads to take a step;

Faith soars on high,

Doubt questions, "Who believes?"

Faith answers, "I!"

             - The Good News

Forward together in Faith,

Rev. Wayne