Entertaining Doubt

Waddyathink?  Did Jesus rise from the dead?  Too flippant a way of asking the question?  How dare one even ask; people have been burned at the stake for even speaking of such…DOUBT.

Some walk right past the tomb, never entering.  Mystery has a way of troubling us, so most of our society doesn’t even spend time thinking about this.  For them, Easter is about clothing sales and candy.  But those of us who have listened to the story of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the tomb, I think of three ways of living with it.

Faith

Some consider it true and live believing, considering the resurrection a tenet of their faith, something that makes them who they are.  I can’t write much about this without study; I’m not one of these.  I think of the Crusades, of the holocaust, of ways this kind of certainty can decompose into dehumanizing exclusiveness and elitism.  The image above of Meryl Steep in the Film Doubt reminds us of this example of the devil in certainty.  

Hope

I suspect that many apparently untroubled by doubt might more honestly rely on hope.  Accepting unknowing and uncertainty, a lot of us, if we were to speak honestly, consider the resurrection a possibility, and perhaps even long for it to be true.  Or we might long for what seems to us to be an untroubled, unquestioning faith.

Love

Some who have entered the tomb have walked so far away from it or are so wearied by considering its truth choose not even to spend time thinking about it.  The pious believers might consider them heathens.  But these, and I know so many of them, who spend no time considering the validity of such dogma, occupy their lime by simply loving.

Struggling with Dogma and Doubt can distract us from loving lives lived in real moments.  On the other hand, letting in the twilight of mystery can guide us in uncertain steps of toddlers’ feet to the truth that resides in our humanity, in our deepest center of meaning.

I pray not that we invite Jesus into our hearts these days after Easter, but that we entertain doubt.  

It’s in season.  All that Jesus does in Scripture these next weeks helps us to respect the truth of this so that we may step beyond it in a direction toward our truth, our best reckoning of Truth that is God.  And that God is Love.