Reflection – The Beginning of Belief

By Rev Dr Clive W Ayre

It was Sunday night, and the disciples had gathered in a house, with the doors locked through fear. Jerusalem was a dangerous place for followers of the Galilean. Suddenly, Jesus was in their midst. In John 20:19-31, John wants us to understand that Jesus could appear anywhere at will, that doors and walls were no barrier. ‘Peace be with you’, Jesus said. Then he showed them his hands and his side.

‘Peace be with you’ is essentially a call to worship, and the risen Christ is in the midst. Many of the elements of Christian worship are represented in John’s account. From the call to worship we move to the eucharist, represented by Jesus showing his hands and side. ‘So I send you’ is a commissioning. The Holy Spirit is both an empowering, and the grace of baptism. The reference to forgiveness reflects the discipline of the church, and the offering of divine pardon. In short, here in microcosm, is the church, with the risen Christ in the midst of it. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord’, John says. This was their turn to believe, with Christ in the midst of their church.

Thomas was different. His problem began when, for whatever reason, he decided to skip worship when the risen Christ appeared in the midst of his church. The others told him what he had missed, but he wasn’t having any of it.  He wanted proof, or at least strong evidence.

But it was a week before anything happened. Thomas, forever, even if unfairly, is the doubter in the midst of the believers! But he was not alone. Luke records that after the women reported to the disciples the news of the resurrection, : ‘… these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.’

It was a week after Thomas had expressed his sceptical point of view, and the disciples had again gathered in the house.  It was Sunday again, and Thomas was present this time.  Suddenly Jesus was in their midst again. ‘Peace be with you’. The service is just beginning, but this time it was more personal. Thomas, you wanted to see and to touch. Here I am.  Touch me.  Satisfy yourself that I am real.’ If there is any rebuke implied in Jesus’ response, it is a very gentle one. But for this disciple, if belief was to have any integrity, it had to be worked through. Thomas has many friends in this modern age! There are those who know well the struggle for belief, and to those in particular I want to say a word of encouragement.

Without an element of doubt at some point of the journey, belief borders on superstition. It was because Jesus was prepared to doubt some of the religious ideas of his time that he was able to project the real truth, and indeed to embody that truth. Or, as Gerhard Ebeling said, ‘The faith that is afraid to think is unbelief in the mask of piety.’

As we look around Christ’s church today, it is quite plain that we are not all the same.  The beginning of belief has been different for each of us.  It is instructive to think what that has meant in our own faith journey. It is important to ask if we have really moved decisively from the point of beginning to the joy of belief. As we celebrate the resurrection, and the resurrection community, that, after all, is what it is all about.  As John said, '‘But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.’