Help My Unbelief

(The text of this week's reflection is below the video.)

In this week’s reading from the gospel of John, we see Thomas’ refusal to believe until he saw and touched the risen Jesus. Some of us may identify a lot with Thomas. Sometimes it’s difficult to believe what we haven’t seen; sometimes we refuse to believe unless we can see. And so we stumble along with questions and uncertainties even as we hang on to Jesus in faith. We understand the words of the man in Mark’s Gospel who said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

But I think we can can take up Thomas’ experience and make it our own: he, the skeptic, saw and touched Jesus, touched his wounds, confirmed that Jesus wasn’t a ghost or an impostor; he, the skeptic, was the first disciple to directly refer to Jesus as God. We could see Thomas as seeing and touching Jesus on our behalf. 

For others of us faith comes relatively easily: we fall among those who have not seen and yet believe. The truth of Jesus just seems clear to us. We are God-blessed and fortunate for it.

Yet in some sense we are all in the same boat, skeptics and non-skeptics alike. We are all post-ascension believers who have not seen the risen Christ with our own eyes. At the same time, our belief is dependent on the Holy Spirit’s work in us through the eye-witness of God’s word in the Gospels.

We believe and yet we need God’s help with our unbelief. We all need God’s gift of faith.