It's Doubt Week!

It’s Doubt Week! 

What, you don’t believe me? 

GOOD!  You’re getting into it already.  But since you so wisely doubt that this is Doubt Week, here’s my evidence.  The Revised Common Lectionary is used, believe it or not, by all Catholic and many Protestant churches to walk their congregations through the richest Scripture on a three year cycle.  Each of these years follows the life of Christ from Advent (the coming of Christ) through his birth, public life, crucifixion and death, and rising from the dead (now) and showing up repeatedly until he physically ascends to the Father, leaving us the Spirit.  

The Lectionary guides us through this one-year cycle three different ways, with three different sets of readings (Hebrew Scriptures & Psalms, New Testament letters and Gospels) to give us varying angles on the same basic truth and issues. 

But Doubt Week is celebrated best during Year A (the first if those three cycles) because this year we use John’s Gospel, which is more poetic, long on imagination and short on detail.  And the particular Gospel reading for Easter morning is one that ends, well, let’s say inconclusively.  It’s kind of like a teaser for a mystery show – just enough to make you wonder, to disquiet you and make you want to find out.  John 20:1-9   leaves us lots of room for doubt.

The doubt – what happened to the body, did Jesus really rise, as the Scriptures promised – is put to rest in this coming Sunday’s Gospel  when Jesus shows up in dramatic fashion, appearing to his hiding disciples, and returning later for “Doubting Thomas”. 

Didn’t you feel a bit like Thomas?  Don’t you?  The fact that this week exists, allowing us to stew in our doubt, is for me a validation of doubt as an appropriate Christian response, soil broken and barren and waiting for seed to be planted.  If we hide from our doubt, our attempts at faith will be a sham.

Take time today to sit with your doubt.  It’s a gift.