"And Jesus said to them, 'Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?'" Matthew 8:26a
Over the next few posts, I'm going to ponder a bit about just how difficult this thing called faith really is. For many of us who grew up in faith-filled households, we may never really have considered how difficult it really is to believe in something.Or, we fail to fully appreciate the challenge that others may face when they critically examine our faith and want to know how we can believe such things.
At the heart of this, since I am a Christian, I truly believe that there are some things about Jesus that those of us who have "always" been Christians simply take for granted that are actually really challenging to believe when we think about it. I'll be including some of those in these posts, not to cause any reason to doubt, but rather, to simply give us pause to think about how the things we believe may sound to someone who doesn't share the same background as we have.
So, to kick things off, let's look at the central action of the Christian faith. Jesus rose from the dead. Now, right from the start, this really is a challenge. Who of us has ever seen someone who was dead come back to life? Even more, who of us has witnessed someone who was beaten, whipped, nailed to a cross, and died in that horrific manner come back to life about 36 hours later? There have been many times when I have been at a viewing of someone who has passed from this life, and as I look at the shell of the person who has left, there have been times when I truly believed that this person could live again. At the same time, there have been many times when I have this same view, but instead am challenged to think just how incredibly difficult it is to believe that what I see can and will come back to life some day.
The resurrection of Jesus is the center of the Christian faith, but that is not something that is easily believed. Why do you think there are so many who try to find the "historical Jesus", or to come up with reasons that He didn't really die, but was only unconscious and became aware once in the cool of the tomb? It's because we live with the hard, cold fact that death is the end of this life. No one comes back from death. It's permanent, at least from what we can see. The graveyards are filled, and continue to get more full, not less so.
When I think about that first Easter morning, I have come to really relate to the disciples and appreciate them. Jesus had prepared them for this day, but it was still so incredible to think that He had come back to life that Jesus Himself had to come and literally breathe His Spirit on them to bring that belief. And then, Jesus would say that those of us who haven't seen and yet believe are, in some ways, even more blessed than they. That's because we put our faith, our belief, in something that we will not see in this lifetime.
Perhaps you have never really considered the challenge of believing that a dead person can come back to life. Or, perhaps you are reading this and that is the thing that you are struggling with when it comes to the Christian faith. When I think about the resurrection of Jesus, that is when I really come to realize the truth of what Martin Luther wrote about the Holy Spirit in his explanation of the third portion of the Apostles Creed. "I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel..." I cannot believe something that my senses and reason tell me is unbelievable. In the end, it has to be God who brings such faith to me.
As a final note for this long entry, let me just say that I have also come to have a lot more lenient view of the disciples overall as I study the Scriptures. They were very much just like us, and being there with Jesus didn't really change the difficulty of believing in Him all that much. For example, just read the expanded context of the verse at the beginning and tell me if you would have little faith, just like them. If we're honest, we have to admit that believing Jesus and what He does and says is indeed rather difficult.
