Faith
Jesus said to (Thomas), “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” (John 20:29)
Late one night in a small Midwest farming community, the two-story house of a young family caught fire. Quickly everyone made their way through the smoke-filled house out into the front yard. Everyone except a five-year girl. Her father looked up to the little girl’s room and saw his daughter crying at the window, rubbing her eyes.
He knew better than to reenter the house to rescue her, so he yelled, “Sweetheart, jump! I’ll catch you.” Between sobs, the little girl responded to the voice she knew so well. “But I can’t see you!”
The father answered with assurance. “No, you can’t, but I can see you!” The little girl jumped and was soon safe in her father’s arms.
Willing to believe without proof, the little girl’s leap demonstrated faith in her father. One definition of faith we all share is “belief and trust in God.” For Paul “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Martin Luther termed it “a living and unshakable confidence.” Walt Whitman described it poetically: “steps of faith fall on the seeming void and find the rock beneath.”
Everyone, of course, doesn’t believe and trust in God because faith is a gift that can be rejected. Atheists, for example, consider faith to be wishful thinking and fantasy, while agnostics deny that any knowledge of God is possible. H.L. Mencken described it as “an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.”
According to scripture, faith can move mountains; set us free; make us whole; purify our hearts; justify and save us; but warns that by itself, unaccompanied by good works, it’s dead. At Jesus’ beckoning Peter was able to walk on water, but sank when his faith wavered.
Faith is easier for young children who have no trouble believing what they don’t understand, but tougher for older children and adults who have developed their faculty of reason, which explains why Jesus cautions the disciples: “Unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Experiencing mystery and wonder, unfortunately, become more difficult as we get older and encounter doubt.
A man hiking alone on a mountaintop slipped and fell off a high cliff. Luckily he was able to grab a branch to break his fall on the way down. Holding on for dear life, he looked down only to see a rock valley some fifteen hundred feet below. When he looked up it was twenty feet to the cliff from where he had fallen.
Panicked, he yelled, “Help! Help! Is anybody up there? Help!”
A booming voice spoke up, “I am here, and I will save you if you believe in me.”
“I believe! I believe!” yelled back the man.
If you believe, let go of the branch.”
The young man, hearing what the voice said, looked down again. Seeing the jagged rocks below, he quickly looked back up and shouted. “Is there anybody else up there?”
Like Thomas in today’s gospel from John, the lone hiker had a crisis of faith. Both wanted to believe, but, as happens with most of us from time to time, doubt interfered. Thomas believed only when his senses confirmed the physical presence of the Risen Lord, who responds with: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed,” words addressed to those of us down through the ages who would not have sensory proof of Jesus, but who would nonetheless believe in him and trust in his presence.
The gospel writer uses this dialogue to show that the faith of later generations would be more challenging than for the original disciples, who were witnesses of the historical Jesus, but could be just as strong and profound as theirs. Tradition tells us that following the incident in the locked room, Thomas became a powerful evangelist, spreading the Good News as far away as India and converting many people to the Lord, dying a martyr’s death, as did so many of the early disciples who experienced Jesus alive again.
By the power of the resurrection and by virtue of their faith in him, the original disciples, who had scattered frightened and confused after the crucifixion, became transformed. Those who had denied and deserted him just a few days earlier became bold in their faith and eager to tell his story to anyone who would listen. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit they became the vanguard of a powerful movement that changed the course of human history. Today, 2000 years later more than 1.5 billion people worldwide worship Jesus as Risen Lord and billions more who do not, at least acknowledge him as a great prophet. Such is the power of faith infused with the Holy Spirit!
On those occasions when Jesus appeared to the disciples after Easter, he had crossed over the threshold of time and space into a cosmic dimension unbounded by physical laws. Able to materialize anywhere at will even in locked rooms, soon however, he would become recognizable only through the eyes of faith. Easter is all about Jesus being present in a new way. His physical presence in the world ends when he ascends to heaven, but his spiritual presence in the world continues within the community of believers. The community, his body now, is his new way of being present in every time and place until his return in glory at the end of time.
Belief in the Risen Lord, the Jesus of Faith, therefore, is not meant to be self-centered or static, but selfless, active and oriented toward others. What we really believe, you see, is what our actions show that we believe. Faith in God equates to love for God expressed as love for neighbor. That’s why Jesus washes the disciples’ feet on the night before he dies and says: “As I have done for you, do for each other.” And why, after the resurrection, as related in today’s gospel, he reminds them: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
Every time we act in accordance with his gospel of love, Jesus lives. That core tenet of our faith is beautifully expressed in the ancient hymn we chanted during our Lenten Taize evening prayer services here at Transfiguration: Ubi caritas et amor, ubi caritas, Deus ibi est. “Where love and charity are found, God is there.”
A sage once said: “The heart knows what the head cannot understand.” To those with faith no explanation is necessary. To those without faith, no explanation is possible.
Anthony J. Sciolino
Acts 4:32-35
John 5:1-6
John 20:19-31
2nd Sunday of Easter
April 23, 2006. (Cycle B)