Hope instead of Unbelief
“Blessed are all those who never see Me and yet they still believe.”
John 20:29 The Voice version
Did you ever notice how hard it can be to share good news with some people? Ever notice how hard it is to accept and believe good news? What is it that causes such skepticism?
Remember Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome?
These special women got up early that first Easter morn to finish preparing Jesus’ body for burial. While on the way they realized a huge obstacle was in the way between them and Jesus and they did not have the ability to remove it. But when they looked up, they found that the stone had already been rolled away. Then an angel tells them that Jesus isn’t dead anymore.
What would you expect their reaction to be? This was the greatest news ever, so we’d expect that they would be jumping up and down celebrating and partying. The angel told them to go tell the disciples, so they ran as fast as they could to share the good news, right?
Except that’s not how Mark reads. “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid” (16:8). John tells us that Mary Magdalene did go to the disciples, not to tell them Jesus had risen, but that someone had taken Jesus from the tomb (20:2). Peter and John go to check out what Mary had said. Sure enough, the tomb is empty; Jesus is gone. But there is no party. Instead, they lock themselves up in a room too scared to come out, afraid that they might suffer the same consequences as Jesus.
What’s the problem? The stone was rolled away. The angel told the women Jesus was alive. Jesus had previously told the disciples on numerous occasions, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life” (Matthew 17:22-23). But they didn’t remember. All they know is that Jesus is dead. There is no physical stone in the way to separate them from Jesus, but there is a stone. It’s a big, huge stone and it’s been keeping people from Jesus for centuries. It’s the stone of unbelief.
The stone of unbelief is ominous, casting a dark, gloomy shadow over everything. It refuses to see good and only sees negative. It closes the mind to possibilities. It is itself death. And because unbelief is death that is all it knows. The disciples had seen Jesus crucified; they had watched him die. Life is done; it’s over, finished. Satan wants us to think that Jesus died and all hope died with him by placing the stone of unbelief in our way. One of the reasons there is so much death and destruction in this world is because people don’t have hope; they don’t know that there is more to life than this life. So, they live only for this life and what this life might give them before they die.
If you are living only for today because you think there is no future, no life beyond now, I have good news for you. From behind the stone of death Jesus rises to life; onto the gloom of unbelief Jesus shines; and into the locked room of now Jesus steps to roll away the stone of unbelief so that we can believe. Jesus declared, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me … will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Unbelief breeds death, but Jesus came that we might “have life, and have it to the full” (John10:10).
The stone of unbelief looms large and creates fear. For the disciples, who thought Jesus was dead and hope was gone, the fear of what might happen to them locked them into a room. How interesting it is that even when you think you have no purpose for living you still fear what others might do to you. But there was more to the disciples’ fear for it was accentuated by the guilt that they had contributed to Jesus’ death and now their own lack of hope by betraying him, denying him, and not standing up for him. Fear and death go hand in hand, inextricably tied together.
How often don’t we live in fear that we won’t measure up, that we have done something that betrayed our God and that he would not forgive? How often has the stone of our unbelief limited the greatness of our Jesus? In spite of our fear, Jesus rolls away the stone of unbelief and death and declares “Peace.” Not just a peace of quiet and lack of confusion and hostility, but shalom – the restoration of physical, moral, and spiritual well-being that all will be as it was intended to be from the beginning. And from the beginning it was intended that we would live not die; that we would experience love, not fear; and that we would know God. And even as we received the image of God as he breathed life in us in the beginning, so too we receive the Spirit of God as Jesus blows the death of unbelief away and breathes new life into all who believe.
The stone of unbelief demands proof: “Seeing is believing.” Thomas wasn’t there the first time Jesus “popped in” on the disciples. There was no way he was willing to believe the others unless he had proof. We are often no different. Before we are willing to submit to surgery, we want to know that the surgeon is successful. Before we invest in a project, we want to be certain that our time, energy, finances, and sweat equity will not be wasted. If we are going to commit ourselves to a relationship with God, we want proof.
Then Jesus rolls the stone of unbelief away and presents proof. For Thomas, Jesus presented himself, holes and all, “Put your finger here; see my hands … put [your hand] in my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Satan wanted Jesus to prove himself and Jesus replied, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” But I am amazed at how many times Jesus rolls away the stone of unbelief by providing the proof we demand so that we will believe. What is important to God is that nothing will become an obstacle between us and God, especially unbelief.
That is the very reason Jesus came and is the intended outcome of Jesus’ mission, life, death, and resurrection: to remove any obstacle between us and God. Paul says that “righteousness comes from God to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans.3:22-24). God in Christ removed every obstacle in our way. There is nothing we can or could do to earn salvation. But we must believe; for “it is by believing you may have life in his name.”
Believe … perhaps it’s too simple. But it is faith that enables us to live, faith that dispels our fears, faith that accepts what we cannot see, and faith that sees beyond unbelief to the heart of Jesus. Is that why believing is easier for little children? Jesus said that if we have childlike faith, we will see God.
“Blessed are all those who never see Me and yet they still believe.”
With you on the Journey, DS John