Franklin Sanders’ The Moneychanger© Articles from The Moneychanger

There are some special times of rest, when the world seems to come to a stop, a sort of parenthesis, while we quietly exult in the blessing of God. That happens after a baby is born, when the magnitude of the event seems to shut everything else down. When we graduate from high school or college, there are a few days when we seem exempt from routine cares. And of course, after a wedding there is a honeymoon. These are all times to stop and rejoice in the greatness of God’s blessing.

So is Easter. Christ is risen, the greatest of all victories won. It’s strange then that our readings today would turn on the point of faith. At Eastertide, of all times, isn’t that settled? Don’t we have proof? Hasn’t Christ risen, according to historical witnesses?

Today our readings all contrast faith with unbelief. In the Gospel we have doubting Thomas, although we might say Thomas took the blame when he didn’t deserve all of it. The disciples were just as doubting as he was, they just came around faster. In 1 Peter 1:3-9 we read, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing ye rejoice.” Psalm 111 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Here “fear” means “faith,” because you have no fear of something you don’t believe in. Finally, Acts 2 compares the believing to the unbelieving communities.

That seems very strange at Easter. What is the point? Faith cannot flow from a mere experience of events or the senses, but must originate from the word of God.

You may think this is so obvious that restating it is pointless, but quite the contrary is true, because we live in a materialistic age. Materialism rejects everything it cannot perceive with its senses. If I can’t touch it or see it or hear it or smell it, it doesn’t exist. Since I can’t see the spiritual world, it doesn’t exist or if it does, it doesn’t matter. Today almost everyone, even many Christians, believe that faith must be based on experience and events. They have believed that for 150 years and the roots of materialism go back further than that. Furthermore, everyone sets up himself as the arbiter of the truth. Like Thomas, we say, If I haven’t seen it, it didn’t happen.

Be sure that I do not mean unbelievers alone, but believers as well. They demand proof, so they have become practising unbelievers. We might call them existentialists who demand to experience everything for themselves, or it can have no relevance to their lives. Besides, what’s true for you might not be true for me.

Last week I read a book called Salvation on Sand Mountain. It is about snakehandlers. Following quite literally the words of Mark 16:17-18, during their “worship” services they handle snakes. Not just any snakes, but 25-pound canebrake rattlers and timber rattlers and big copperheads. As if that weren’t extreme enough, they drink strychnine, too. From time to time, some of them die – of snakebite, not surprisingly. Dennis Covington, a reporter for the New York Times, visited their services to write a story and ended up handling snakes himself.

Snakehandlers, you see, want proof of God. They believe that experience is necessary to belief. In fact, we might divide all types of theology into just two, Snakehandler theology and orthodox Christian theology.

You may think that’s extreme, but think again. What about those Christians who don’t believe you are really saved unless you talk in tongues or do healings and miracles or see miracles and I don’t know what all else. What about this passage today from Acts, where all the believers right after the day of Pentecost pooled their goods in a sort of practical communism. For centuries there have been sects who maintain that if you really trust God, you’ll give away everything and live in common with us. If you really trust God, you’ll handle snakes.

There are milder versions of Snakehandler theology, but underneath they all remain the same Snakehandler theology. I saw a poster not long ago for a gospel meeting that advertised “pyrotechnics” – fireworks -- and music and there was a picture of a shouting evangelist about to swallow a microphone and for all I know they were going to shoot that evangelist out of a cannon, too. They need spiritual fireworks before they will believe.

And don’t forget the Fleece People. These Christian people view life with God the same as living in a dark room, feeling around the walls for the light switch. They are always searching for the will of God. Well, stop searching. The will of God for you is salvation in Jesus Christ. Beyond that, you have the glorious liberty of the sons of God to do whatever obedience, reason, and prudence allow. If God has given you a great voice, then become an opera singer – or not, as you have the desire in your heart to glorify God.

I call these the Fleece People because like Gideon, they are always “putting out the fleece” to make a decision. Think about that for a moment. When Gideon put out the fleece, it was not an act of great faith. Just the opposite, it was an act of unashamed unbelief. God had already sent him an angel with his word, but he was still vacillating and temporising and making excuses. His duty was clear, but he didn’t want to do it. So he started dickering with God. “God, here’s what I’ll do, to test you and see if you really mean it. Tonight I will put out a fleece of wool. In the morning, if the fleece only has dew on it, and the ground is dry, I know you mean it.”

So he did that, and the fleece was wet, wet enough to wring out. But that wasn’t enough. Now that Gideon had an answer, he changed the test, just to see once again if God really, really meant it. “This time I will put out the fleece, and let the fleece be dry and that the ground be wet with dew.”

The Fleece People are always doing this. Trying to make a decision, they set out tests for God. “God, if you really want me to marry Sally instead of Louise, then tomorrow morning let Sally call first on the telephone.” Or let Sally show up with dew on her head, or coconut custard pie. This is actually a form of divination. I admit, they don’t kill sheep and tell the future from the liver; they don’t watch the sky for birds to forecast events; they don’t throw down pickup sticks or dice, they don’t use a Ouija board, but it’s divination just the same. It is a retreat from faith.

Although they claim to be Christians, these people really don’t believe that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” They don’t believe that God is reliable. They believe that God is a trickster, waiting to lure you into a mistake just to test you. They don’t believe the word of God that says, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6) The word of God is either true, or not. You either believe it or not.

Thomas didn’t believe it. The disciples didn’t believe it. Snakehandlers and many Christians today don’t believe it. They want proof.

But true faith cannot flow from a mere experience of events or the senses; it must originate from the word of God.

It is not the nature of faith to ask for proof. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) Faith looks through the events of this world to the unseen world above. Faith looks through the naysaying of the world to the eternal yea of God’s word.

In John 20:29, why does Christ rebuke Thomas and praise those who believe without seeing? Faith submits to the bare word and does not depend on the fleshly senses or human reason or logic.

Faith does not rest satisfied with what it immediately sees, but penetrates to heaven itself. It believes things hidden from the human senses. It rests on the “evidence of things not seen.”

And that is proper. We ought to give this honour to God, that we view his word as self-authenticating. His word is true not because I experience or prove the truth of it, be because he said it. It proves itself because it is the word of God. Without any other proof his truth stands beyond all doubt.

Faith is the opposite of sight. Paul tells us about the afflictions he is suffering, but explains that these temporary trials cannot shake his faith. He looks through them to the eternal. “We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. … For we walk by faith, not by sight.” (II Corinthians 4:18; 5:7).

Faith does not look about for visible proofs, but depends on the mouth of God and so rises above the whole world to fix its anchor in heaven. In short, faith is not of a right kind unless it is founded on the word of God, and rises to the invisible kingdom of God surpassing all human capacity.

But faith is not stupidity. Faith is not handling snakes. Faith is not recklessness. Not testing God. Not simply doing all things contrary to the reason and prudence with which God has endowed men. Faith is not “embarrassing yourself for Jesus.”

Truth is, we all know what faith is, and how we should believe and act on it, but we don’t. We’re like Thomas and the disciples. At the first hint of trouble, we run. We fill up with self-pity and doubt, and say, “Why me, Lord? You must not love me. Maybe you’re not even able to protect me. Maybe there’s no God at all.” Whoa, and the first time unbelievers spit at us their demand for ”evidence,” we tuck tail and run, crying, “God, give me evidence!”

Think about Christ and Thomas. Where is the greatest consolation in this passage? Thomas has allowed himself to forget what Christ taught him. He has allowed himself to fall into doubt – the same way every one of us does, so that’s no surprise. No, what amazes us in this passage is that Christ does not abandon Thomas to unbelief. Christ does not say (as he would have been justified in saying), ‘Thomas, you had your chance, and you blew it, so hit the road!”

Although Thomas was unfaithful, Christ was faithful. Although Thomas doubts, Christ does not dismiss. Rather, in gentleness Christ accommodates his weakness. What tenderer picture is possible that the risen Christ, the glorious cosmic Victor, lowering himself to submit to Thomas’s tests, so that he might be reclaimed to faith? Christ does not refuse him or cast him out.

What love! What encouragement for us, and what instruction. When you doubt, don’t run to philosophy or evidence, but to the risen Christ! Do not doubt whether he will receive you. Look at the evidence – the wounds he suffered for you – and “be not faithless but believing.”

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