Doubt that. It’s ok.
Matthew 28:16-20
Acts 5:12-20
John 20:19-31
Christ is Risen!
In a more traditionalist sort of parish (the kind that tries to emulate monastic life in a way that many Monks no longer do) we would have spent the afternoon, prior to our Pascha service Saturday night, reading the book of Acts aloud here in Church. This used to confuse me, to be honest: I mean, shouldn’t we be reading about the passion or, at least, some pious texts about the Harrowing of Hell? Instead we get Acts. This same practice is happening liturgically: for indeed, everything we do in the season of Pascha comes with a paired Gospel reading and a passage from Acts. What I’ve noticed this week, listening to the daily readings, is that we don’t get excused from anything because of the Resurrection: we have to do stuff for this to mean anything, for it to work. We read the Acts of the Apostles to set ourselves up for our own acts. What are our acts this Pascha?
Today we get the story of Thomas and his cry out to the Lord for contact, for communion. Let me see him. Let me touch him!
Today we also get the first in the cycle of eleven Matins Gospels. As this cycle starts on Thomas Sunday, we can assume the liturgical Fathers intended for us to hear these two Gospels together: that of “Doubting Thomas” and this Resurrection story. Why? Let’s come back to that in a minute.
Last week when I was in San Francisco I had a chat with a clergyman of another Tradition about the Resurrection of our Lord. This was at a Pascha service. What neither he nor I could understand was what I refer to as the “Zombie Rabbi of Palestine” phenomena. This school of thought – most prevalent among those who were or are American Protestants (although they may now be Orthodox, Roman Catholics or even non-Americans trained in America churches) – seems to see the Paschal Event as a sort of stand-alone moment of merely physical resuscitation. In their images – Sunday School books, felt boards, etc – we mostly get to see Jesus walking out of the tomb leaving the graveclothes behind.
This leads some Protestants and former Protestants to ask trick questions like Terry Mattingly’s Are biblical accounts of the resurrection of Jesus accurate? Did this event really happen? The trick part of the questions being there are no biblical accounts of the resurrection of Jesus. What we have, over and over, are accounts of an empty tomb and repeated stories of Jesus showing up after the Passion with no one recognising him. Yes, This is clearly a different Jesus while being the Same Jesus. But what has happened to him is not merely the resuscitation of his body: something else has happened.
The hymns of Orthodoxy are clear too: this is not what our impious and anti-Christian friends refer to as “Zombie Jesus” who eats our brains. The hymns make it clear that no one present witnessed the Miracle – not the soldiers, not the Jewish clergy. But that we, the faithful, are all witnesses, even today.
How is this?
Let’s get back to the Matins Gospel, zooming in on Matthew 28:17. Listen to this: “They worshipped him, but some doubted.” This is the apostles – worshipping him, and some are doubting him.
We usually want to hear “doubt” as something that might disqualify us from the “Faithful”. We want to point out “we do not doubt, for we are believers.” Earlier today… I heard Bishop Alexander of the Antiochian Archdiocese remind us that “Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Fear is the opposite of faith.” To me this is the highlight of Pascha! As in Egypt during the Passover: even when the Jews were whinging and crying to Moses, God still did his miracles so in Pascha. When God was rejected by his own people, he still performed his miracles. Likewise, God can deal with our doubt. Doubt is – as +Alexander noted – part of our faith journey. It is, rather, fear that destroys us – leaves us stranded in the upper room “for fear” after the greatest even in human history.
What I want to know is: why was “Doubting Thomas” not trapped in the upper room in his fear? How bold is he to ask God for a physical relationship?
How bold are we?
Now – back to Acts, to actions. Back to Matthew 28. Throughout this season we are clearly reading about the Apostles as the Church Story shifts from the personal events in the Life of Christ to the response of the Church to those events. At the end of Pascha will be Pentecost and then we will begin the Apostle’s Fast – the one fast that is a prayer for the Church’s mission. This is the season of our response!
But what about the doubters among us? As +Alexander pointed out today, Jesus doesn’t upbraid Thomas for his doubt. Jesus doesn’t kick the doubters out nor does he challenge them for their lack of Doctrine. In fact: he goes right ahead with his teaching. He commissions them all – doubters and worshippers alike – Go make disciples.
Can you imagine a church with room for honest doubt? Can you imagine a church with questions included as a part of serious, adult faith in the Risen Christ? Can you see this as Orthodox? I suggest that this is why the Gospels of Thomas Sunday are combined as they are. The doubters – no less than the worshippers – are part of God’s plan of salvation. This quest to purge the churches of “doubt” and make sure each of us are standing next to only “real” Christians is the legalism of our day.
There is another part here: the traditional statement of “lex orandi lex credendi”. The Law of prayer is the law of faith. Outside of Orthodoxy, much of the Christian world is trying to accommodate people by eliminating things that make people doubt. Virgin births and Resurrections, creeds and claims of salvation – all of these sound just a little odd to modern ears and so we must eliminate them from the Church’s worship. in fact, it is saying this stuff, over and over again, that brings us into the faith. Going into the world as doubting evangelists is part of what makes us believers: remember, doubt is not the opposite of faith. Faith – trust – is action, not just sitting there assenting to stuff.
Get up. Doubters and worshippers alike. Go. ACT. This is not about Zombie Rabbis of Palestine: this is about the arrival of the Kingdom of God on Earth – and and the arrival of life in your heart.
Christ is Risen!
