The gospel for the second week of Easter is always the story of Thomas’ encounter with Jesus after the resurrection. It’s a chance for us after the glorious celebration of the resurrection, to honestly deal any doubting we might have surrounding the fantastic news that we just heard last week—“Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!” It’s almost too good to be true, and so what do we do with that. This week affords us an opportunity to honestly deal with any of these nagging thoughts and feelings we might have about the resurrection. And so as we go forward, allow yourself to embrace your questions for what they are, nothing more and nothing less, and see how God can speak to you through that.
Let us pray. May the words of my heart and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
In the Gospel of John, which we heard from today, “believing” is intimately linked with experiencing eternal and abundant life through a deep relationship with Jesus Christ. Believing entails embracing the mercy, grace, and love of God manifested in Jesus and consciously living our lives in alignment with God in Jesus, reflecting and conforming to him—in relationship with God through him. Believing is about freedom, joy, and peace in surrendering to God’s will and experiencing the transformative power of his love.
Conversely, “doubting” in John’s gospel leads to condemnation and sorrow. It reflects a lack of trust in God’s promises and a reluctance to fully embrace his love and grace. It’s not punishment, per se, but the natural result of life out of step with the way God designed things to be. Doubting is characterized by fixating on fear, uncertainties, and human limitations that hinder us from experiencing the fullness of life that God offers through Jesus.
Faith and doubt aren’t something we have—that we have faith, that we have doubt. Faith and doubt are something we do, how we respond to God’s grace, how we live. Believing leads us to enjoy eternal and abundant life, even now, while doubting leads to condemnation and sorrow. Faith isn’t merely intellectual assent, but a lived reality that shapes every aspect of our lives.
Take for example our gospel today. People often view Thomas as the quintessential doubter. He’s known for his skepticism in the face of the resurrection. His insistence on tangible evidence before believing is often highlighted as a cautionary tale against doubting. But doubting is a natural human experience. We all doubt. I don’t know about you, but if someone told me that that a friend of mine who’d died a terrible death was somehow alive again, I too would probably be a bit skeptical, a bit of a doubter.
Nevertheless, in contrast to our common perception, our common misunderstanding of Thomas, Jesus reaches out to him in mercy. Jesus invites him to touch his wounds and see for himself. This act of compassion demonstrates Jesus’ understanding and empathy towards Thomas’ doubting. And it demonstrates Jesus’ understanding and empathy toward our own doubting…
Jesus meets us in our doubting with mercy. “For us and for salvation he came down from heaven and became incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became truly human”—we confess that, something we believe to be true. When we confess that, we say we believe Jesus understands the fullness of human frailty, of our frailty. He understands the struggles we face, both in faith and in our day-to-day lives. When we find ourselves doubting, the only thing we can do is throw ourselves at the mercy of God, recognizing our need for his grace. Doubting is a real part of our humanity, something that God intimately understands through the enfleshment of Jesus.
Ultimately, the real concern isn’t doubting itself, but instead how we respond to it. Will we allow our doubting to separate us from God, or will we, like Thomas, lean into Jesus’ mercy and seek deeper understanding?
And what better way to tackle our doubting that looking at the word “mercy” itself. Each letter in “mercy” directs us how to harness faithfully doubting and come to believing more meaningfully.
M – Mindfulness: Doubting is normal, and it arises out of situations that we take the chance to actually look at thoughtfully. Embrace doubt by being mindful of your thoughts and feelings. When we acknowledge things without judgment, we engage in thoughtfulness.
E – Exploration: Doubting offers us an opportunity to ask questions of our lives—both our lives of faith and our day-to-day lives. Again, honesty here is critical. Judgement kills any chance of doubting producing any kind of fruit. Exploring the causes of our doubting with curiosity and openness, seeking to understand their origins and implications, this will lead us to a deeper appreciation for God’s mercy, and ultimately his love. In this, Scripture is our surest guide. “Your Word,” sings King David in the psalms, “is a light to my path and a lantern to my footsteps.”
R – Reflection: Reflect on your doubts in the context of your beliefs and experiences, discerning what resonates with what you’ve been taught and what you know to be true. Doubting often arises because popular wisdom conflicts with the wisdom of God. We Christians hold ourselves to a countercultural standard marked by behavior that isn’t what the wider world peddles as “success”—a standard marked by love for others, zest for life, inner peace found in giving of ourselves, not taking for ourselves. We embrace perseverance and compassion, and recognize the holiness that fills everything and everyone that God has made. We believe, we know that living like this avoids the selfish rat race of popular wisdom, yet surrounded by it, bombarded by it at every angle, it’s hard not to waver, isn’t it? Empty materialism and consumerism often promise happiness through the accumulation of “stuff.” Buy this, have this, get this, and you’ll finally be happy—or at least that much closer to it. However, the pursuit of “stuff” can lead to a never-ending cycle of all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants, where we constantly seek more to fill an inner void. Things alone can’t provide lasting happiness or meaning. Similarly, unrealistic standards of perfection promise happiness through the attainment of flawlessness in various aspects of life, such as appearance, achievement, or relationships. Yet the chasing of perfection leads to feeling inadequate, anxious, and unworthy, as we constantly strive to meet unattainable standards. Chasing after perfection results in burnout, disillusionment, and a sense of failure, which ultimately themselves lead to deep despair and dark dissatisfaction. When we get caught up in messaging that comes at us, just as often covertly as overtly, from popular wisdom, we easily can find ourselves doubting. It’s in these moments that we hold fast to the truth from St. Paul, who reminds us of God’s very own words, “My grace is sufficient for you.” For those of us who live our lives with God in the sure knowledge of his love for us, made most clear in the sacrifice of Jesus, there is no condemnation; we don’t owe an explanation for our joy to anyone for not adhering to popular wisdom. We owe it to them to give an account for the hope within us, but not to justify ourselves before them.
C – Community: Life as disciples of Jesus isn’t one lived in isolation. In baptism, either our baptismal sponsors or we make a commitment to live our lives together among God’s faithful people. That’s the church. Each week, we confess that we believe in the holy catholic church—the community of believers across all places and in all times whom God sanctifies. We’re not the church for ourselves, but for the sake of each others. “Two are better than one,” the Jewish wisdom of the Old Testament reminds us, “because those two have a good return for their labor. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.” Likewise, “Carry each other’s burdens,” Paul reminds the Galatians, “and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Our life together as God’s faithful, united with God and one another through the death and resurrection of Jesus, is meant for our mutual support—especially in times of doubting. You don’t always come to worship because of what you need to get out of it; sometimes, you come to worship because of the person who needs to see you there, to hear you praying the liturgy and singing the hymns, to be with you as you live into your conviction when they’re struggling with theirs. Your example gives them strength and hope in the face of their own doubting. Church—praying together, worshipping together, serving, giving, studying together—all that is less about what it does for you and much more about what it does for others. Church isn’t something we consume but something we contribute to. Church is what we make it—not for ourselves, but for everyone else. Working, playing, living with a supportive community of believers offers perspective, encouragement, and guidance when we’re doubting. Every challenge you face is something others have dealt with too. God is reliable, and he won’t let you face more than you can handle. In fact, he always provides a way out, so you can bear it. One of those ways is the support of fellow Christians, who walk with you through tough times.
Y – Yearning: Perhaps the greatest marker of faithful doubting is the yearning for peace. The very fact that doubt unsettles you is because you want something more, you yearn for more. Doubting, in some regards, is our very human response when we recognize that we, of our own understanding and strength, can’t fulfil the first commandment—to love and worship the Lord our God above all things. “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you,” the prophet Isaiah declares, giving words to his own longing and our own. “I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you.” We want that relationship with God, and it’s this yearning that drives us to go forward in the face of our doubting. Yearning for deeper understanding and connection with God is part and parcel to faithful, meaningful, and healthful doubting because in yearning for something more, we recognize that doubting is a natural and necessary part of our relationship with God—who wants us to continue growing and wrestling with him, and taking life with him seriously, like it makes a difference to us.
In the face of life’s uncertainties—and to be sure, there are plenty of those—doubting is as naturally human as touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing, or more broadly, joy, sadness, loneliness, friendship, anger, and forgiveness. Doubting is a testament to our quest for understanding. Yet, in our doubting, we’re not abandoned, for we can and should throw ourselves at the mercy of God. As we grapple with life’s uncertainties, in our lives of faith and our everyday lives out and about, it’s right and salutary for us to cling to the pillars of mercy—mindfulness, exploration, reflection, community, and above all, yearning. Doubting doesn’t diminish our resolve; rather it ignites the embers of our faith and feeds the flames. When we respond to our doubting, we emerge stronger, more steadfast, and ever more confident because we’ve taken hold of the mercy of God shown us in Jesus Christ, who reaches out to us with his own hands that bear in the creases of their palms the indelible nailmarks of God’s mercy for us, for you.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Rev'd Daniel W. Spigelmyer, Jr. 