Quest for believing and understanding

(A reflection by my best friend Pastor Bendangsashi Walling)

Introduction

There are many questions, which we raise in our lives in order to know. We even question our life sometimes, and question our very existence? In such times, some questions which we often start asking are: Who is God? Does God really exist? Is there any possibility that we know and experience God? Sometimes in life there comes a point, where these questions become as urgent and important like never before.

 “Quest for believing and understanding”.

Background

The purpose of the Gospel of John is quite clear in John 20: 31 which reads “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.” There are two possible interpretation of the clause “that you may come to believe”, “you may begin to believe” or “you may continue to believe”. Therefore, one thing we can understand here is that, the fourth Gospel John was written for the people who don’t believe, and for people who are in doubt, and for the believers to continue in their faith in Jesus.

When we read these verses, we can find out the pessimist nature of Thomas. When he had witnessed the whole act of crucifixion, he came to a conclusion that the cross was the end of the history of Jesus. In John 11:16, when Jesus had proposed going to Bethany after the news of Lazarus illness had come, Thomas reaction had been: Let us also go, that we may die with him. Therefore, we can see that Thomas was heartbroken when Jesus was crucified, he never expected to see Him alive, naturally being pessimist he isolated from the rest of the disciples. The rest of the incidents we can see in the following verses which I have divided into three different subpoints.

1.        Thomas- Detachment from Community (V.24)

 In this verse we see that Thomas was not there when Jesus first came, and this is the main problem here with Thomas. There are different types of people, some, when in grieve and sorrow would go out and share their problems, and tries to console themselves, and some would isolate and suffer themselves without sharing to anyone. I think Thomas falls in the second category, he isolated from the rest of the disciples, and therefore he missed the first coming of Jesus. When we isolate our self from the believing community, we miss God’s doing, and also as we are called for public witness one must not isolate from the believing community.

2.      Thomas - From Skepticism to utmost Devotion (V.25-28)

We can see, When Thomas returned, the joyful disciples told him “we have seen the Lord”. But Thomas did not rest his faith in the words of the disciples, because that news was too good to be true. Therefore, for him to have faith in the news was to see Jesus and feel the marks of crucifixion. Hence, he said “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

– So, One thing is clear that, Thomas represents those who insist on seeing signs to believe.

V. 26 – Another week Jesus came back again, and this time Thomas was there. Jesus knew the heart of Thomas so he repeated Thomas own words, and invited him to make the test that he had wanted.

V. 27 – In v.27, Jesus challenge Thomas “Stop Doubting and Believe”.

V.28 – Thomas moved from skepticism to the grandest confession “My Lord My God”. This is the climax of John’s Gospel. It echoes the opening words of the prologue, where Jesus is identified with God. (John 1:1)

In this incident we see how Thomas tries to know God. What he did to know God is not a problem, because I believe that even we would like to see for our self, if it was the crucified Jesus or not. And here, Thomas is just being honest in saying that he did not understand what he did not, and don’t belief what he did not. But the amazing thing here is, once he was sure, he completely surrendered himself. This we can make out from the passage “My Lord My God”. He doubted so that he become sure and to be certain. Many a time we try to understand things and then believe. Therefore, we fall in the category ‘I understand therefore I believe,’ we want everything to be rationally dissect, and want to understand how exactly things work. This is what happened during enlightenment, the whole religious believe systems were questioned, everything were rationalized, and there was a Copernican shift, in the history of religion. Just like the understanding of universe from geo-centric universe moved to hellio-centric universe, in religion God centered move to human centered. It was human who define what anything is. Therefore,  “mind” became the centre.

Therefore, in the second edition of “critique of pure reason” Kant explained: “I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith,” which opens another dimension in the process of knowing. To see through the lens of faith as Jesus is recommending to Thomas.

3.      Thomas – Challenged by Jesus through faith (V. 29) – Jesus is saying to Thomas you needed the eye of sight to make you believe but the day will come when people will see with the eye of faith and believe.

Thomas way of knowing God was not the only way to know Jesus or God, because that was limited to his/their time frame. So we can see Jesus giving another window through which we can know God. And that is through “Faith”.

Just like Thomas, even today we struggle to know God, in our daily life experiences and try to make sense out of our life, in relation to God. Because we seek from this perspective ‘I believe therefore I understand.’ But this way is one of the most challenging things to do; because we need to seek things which we can’t see, from the things we see. For e.g., In the midst of poverty, one must able to see and declare, I am rich, for the golden city of heaven belongs to me, because I am the son/daughter of the king. In sorrow, pain, struggles, and in our difficult times, one must able to say I rejoice in Christ Jesus. This is faith. Jesus is saying to Thomas that such a time will come when people will need this lens of faith to understand things.

Therefore, when it comes to Bible, it is more difficult to understand what the Bible reads. In this line let us try to think and question, Is Bible the word of God? No, it is the word of human, because it is written by human, in the human language. But in this scripture there are living words, which cannot be found by rational reading or systematic reading or historical reading. But in order to let the living word speak, one must read using the lens of faith. Because as Boltmann opinions that Bible is written in highly mythical form, and taking it literally is dangerous, for e.g., how can blood of Jesus wash a sinner white as snow? Can anyone wash with blood? No, it takes water to wash, how can two become one after marriage? These are highly mythical. Therefore, preaching scripture is dangerous, so we must preach Christ, which according to Karl Barth is the real revealed word of God. And this is possible only through Faith. Yes, it is not easy. May God bless us all! Amen!