Doubt and Fear

Doubt and Fear

John 20:19-31

            Which is worse—doubt or fear?  We might answer, “They’re equally bad!”  But are they?  Perhaps our reactions to doubt and to fear can help us see a difference.

            I’m tired, and my legs are sore from walking and standing all day.  I’m in the middle of a heavy day of shopping with my wife.  As a good husband (actually, because I don’t want to look bad) I’m carrying most of the shopping bags.  We enter the last (I hope!) store of the day.  Over in the corner I see a rickety old chair.  I doubt it can hold me, but after poking and prodding it, and pushing down hard on it with both hands, I sit—and it doesn’t collapse.  I’ve overcome my doubt and found comfort—at last.

            Same scenario:  I’m just as tired, just as anxious to take a load off, and the chair is just as rickety, and yet inviting.  This time, however, I’m afraid.  I look at that chair and imagine all the things that could go wrong.  The legs could break.  The back could collapse.  The chair wobbles so much when I move it that I am sure it won’t hold my weight.  So, out of fear that I might wind up in a worse state than I am now, I walk away.  There it stands, ready to receive me if I only trust it—but I don’t.  I’m still tired, my legs are still sore, but it’s worse now because I’m too afraid to find relief.

            It is the evening of that first Easter.  The disciples are huddled in a room with the door locked “for fear of the Jews.”  Suddenly, Jesus is there among them.  “Shalom,” Jesus says.  “Peace be with you.”  We know what Jesus means.  In John 14:27, at the Passover supper, he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you.”  God’s peace is different from the world’s peace—if there even is such a thing.  Jesus offers his followers the peace that passes all understanding, peace so complete that one doesn’t have to be afraid even if it seems there might be a ghost in the room.

            John tells us Thomas was missing that night.  We don’t know why he wasn’t there.  All we know is that he was absent—and one other thing.  He seems to be the only disciple who’s not afraid to leave the room.  Wherever he was, he wasn’t locked in with the rest.  Thomas returned after Jesus had left.  When the others told him, “We have seen the Lord,” he didn’t believe them.  He said he’d have to see for himself before he’d accept that Jesus had risen.

            Eight days later, nothing had changed.  The disciples were still locked in the same room.   They hadn’t moved. The only difference was that Thomas was present.  The others had seen the risen Jesus more than a week before, but they were still huddled together, presumably still afraid of the Jews.  Their Lord’s appearance had made no difference. 

            Then, Jesus was with them again.  He spoke to Thomas.  “See the marks in my hands,” Jesus said.  “Touch the wound in my side.”  There is no record that Thomas touched Jesus.  We only know he said, “My Lord and my God!”  With those words he affirmed the deity of the risen Christ.

            So…which is worse—fear or doubt?  Thomas doubted until he saw Jesus; then his doubt disappeared.  The other disciples had seen Jesus, but were still afraid to move, still too paralyzed to realize that if Jesus could rise from the dead, they had nothing to worry about from the Jews.  Death had been conquered.  No one could harm them.

            We all doubt at times.  That’s to be expected.  It doesn’t stop us; it just slows us down a little.  But fear?  Fear debilitates, freezing us in place, keeping us from moving forward.  There may be reasons to doubt, but there’s never reason to fear.  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!