Doubt & Worship
“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.”
The words, “but some doubted,” raise two questions in my mind. Who were the some, and what did they doubt? Reading only those verses, it would appear that some were among the eleven disciples. It seems to imply that, despite all the miraculous events the disciples had recently witnessed, there were still doubts about something. My ESV Study Bible suggests that there were more than the eleven on the mountaintop that day. Recall, Jesus had instructed the women at the empty tomb to report their findings to his brothers. They were to go to Galilee, and there they would see Jesus. The commentators suggest the term brothers meant his believers. Earlier in Matthew, Jesus had made the point that his brothers were those who believed in him. Whoever the some were, the noteworthy point is they doubted.
What did they doubt? Did they still have doubts that Jesus was the Son of God? Perhaps they believed that he hadn’t died on that cross. Someone returning from the dead had to an overwhelmingly unlikely reality.
Whoever they were, and whatever they doubted, this much is clear, gathered around Jesus on that day were men and women who bore the title disciples, yet carried doubts in their hearts.
I find that strangely comforting. I don’t know if Matthew was fully aware of the effect those words might have on his readers. But I’m sure the Spirit which gave him the words did. The Spirit knew that doubting would not end with the early church. If anything, the farther the church is removed from those first-century events, the more likely there will be doubt. The Bible is very vocal on a subject that the church and believers often circumvent with silence. Questions and doubts often accompany faith. The man who cried out to Jesus, “I believe, help my unbelief,” spoke for us all.
The idea that doubts are always present on our faith journey should not surprise us. Today is Trinity Sunday. A celebration of one God in three persons. Tell me that it doesn’t confound your limited mortal mind. If it doesn’t, please be here next Sunday and teach the folks of Trinity the doctrine in a way that will make it unquestionably clear.
The fact that Jesus’ audience on the day of his Great Commission were those who had physically experienced the risen Christ should put to rest any delusions that we would believe more, if only we could see more. Writing on the subject of doubt, Scott Hoezee says, “Faith is finally a mystery whether we can bolster it with physical proofs and evidence or not.”
So I want to assure you faith and doubt, to one degree or another, are always in competition for the mind of the believer. Singing hymns of praise to Jesus while simultaneously questioning the veracity of Christian doctrines does not make you a hypocrite. But the fact that doubt is prevalent among believers does not make it any less dangerous.
Carl Rogers, the U.S. psychologist, was 22 years old when he entered Union Theological Seminary in 1924. While there, he participated in a seminar organized to explore religious doubts. Rogers later said of the group, “The majority of members…in thinking their way through questions they had raised, thought themselves right out of religious work. I was one.” (sermon illustrations)
The German writer Johann Goethe once wrote, “Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any, but keep your doubts to yourself, for I have enough of my own.”
John Steingard grew up in a Christian home as a pastor’s kid. He was the lead singer in the Christian band, Hawk Nelson. He recently renounced his faith. He said he had doubts since his childhood. But they had become more pronounced as he became an adult. Because of those doubts, he no longer believed in God and was leaving the band. Of course, the secular media that never bother to mention when prominent atheists or agnostics come to faith in Christ made Steingard’s experience big news.
So, we needn’t be burdened by guilt because of nagging questions and doubts. However, we do need to guard against those doubts destroying our faith.
How do we do that? How do we worship God, even among our uncertainties? Perhaps more specifically, how amid a pandemic and increasing social unrest do we attain any sense of reality in God’s promise to always be with us?
We begin by understanding that we worship God because he is God, not because he makes the world operate according to our desires. Isaiah 55:8-9 states: 8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Earlier I quoted Johan Goethe. Here’s another quote often attributed to him, “Few people have the imagination for reality.” This world can be a horrible and ugly place to live at times. As Christians, we are to be making it a more beautiful place. But we are to do so with the understanding that this world is not our home. And none of us have the imagination to picture the reality of heaven or the new heaven and new earth.
We need to face our doubts with the understanding that terrible things we cannot imagine are a reality in this world. But there is another reality, one of beauty, peace, justice, and joy, beyond our imagination.
The second means of working through our doubts is to remember that while Jesus left us in a world that can be ugly, he did not leave us here alone. The Trinity, as a doctrine, is mind-boggling. But as a reality, it is mind-numbing. The God who made us, and by whose grace we have eternal life, lives with us in the person of the Holy Spirit. He’s not a doctrine. He’s a person. As we worship Him, even amid our doubts, he makes himself real to us. And living through those doubts gives our testimony more weight as we become witnesses to the work he has done in us.