"The Answer to Doubt" The Resurrection of Our Lord Easter Day April 5, 2015 Mark 16:1–8
There’s a lot doubt in the world. There are those who outright reject the existence of God. There are those who aren’t sure if He exists or not. There are of course those who believe in God, but there are thousands of religions, so people believe in all kinds of gods. If there’s a lot of doubt out there, what about in here? What about the many people who believe in the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? Do they all have rock-solid faith? Does their trust in Him never waver? Is it only those ‘out there’ that doubt—or is there plenty of doubt to go around among us Christians? The answer to that is the Gospel according to Mark. Mark wrote his Gospel account almost two thousand years ago. Not too long after Jesus died and rose and ascended into heaven. He was writing to Christians. Why was he writing to them? What he says about the resurrection of Jesus speaks volumes about what those Christians almost two thousand years ago were dealing with. In the Gospel reading there is a lot of doubt going on. When the women show up to the tomb on Sunday morning they are expecting to anoint the dead body of Jesus. They expected to see Jesus dead instead of believing His promise that He would rise. As they were approaching the tomb, they doubted whether they would actually be able to carry out their task of anointing Jesus’ body. Who will roll away the stone for us? What if we’ve come all the way here and we’re not able to do what we came to do? When they got there they were met by an angel. They were alarmed. What was going on? This couldn’t be good. The stone was no longer in the way, but why was there a heavenly visitor there? Where was their Lord? Even when all was said and done, when the angel had announced Jesus’ resurrection, when he showed them the empty tomb, when he told them to go tell the disciples that Jesus was alive and would meet them, the women went away afraid. This is how the Gospel account of the resurrection of Jesus ends, on this note of fear. Which I suppose is another way to say doubt. They still aren’t getting it. We are far removed from that time and place. We think it’s harder for us to believe. But for them back there, they didn’t have the span of centuries upon centuries in between Jesus rising from the grave and them believing. But Mark was writing here about doubt. He was giving witness to the resurrection of Jesus, but he was sprinkling it with a lot details of their doubt. And the last thing he tells us is that they went away in fear? After the good news that Jesus has been raised from the dead? It doesn’t matter when you live or where you live, doubt is always crouching at the door. It’s how Satan got his foothold in the door with Adam and Eve, getting them to doubt God. Did God really say? Mark knew that those Christians in the first few decades after Jesus rose from the grave had their doubts. The Holy Spirit knows that Christians will always struggle with doubt. He inspired Mark to write these words as the answer to doubt. You may have come here this morning because you have no doubt. You know who your Lord is. You know He died for all of your sins. You know He rose from the grave. You know He will come again to take you to heaven. Your confession of faith in your risen Lord is certain. You are not doubting; far from it, you believe in God even though you haven’t seen Him. This is a true blessing from God. Nevertheless, humility is always in order. Doubt may not enter your mind, but their many temptations crouching at your door. But what if you do struggle with doubt? You may have come here this morning with a plate full of doubt and a few side dishes to go with it. You may be here because you’re hoping that something will click for you and you can go away from here and leave your doubt behind. You might have things going on in your life that leave you very uncertain. You may be facing something that in the big scheme of things is small, but to you it is eating away at you. If you’re in school and you have a test coming up you may wonder if you’ll be able to do as well as you need to do. Perhaps you’re long past childhood but you’re going back to school. Will you even be able to make it through? Maybe your job that you have had for so long and you’ve enjoyed so much now has added demands or a cut in pay or new leadership that doesn’t appreciate what you do. Maybe you see signs of someone you love deeply that they are growing distant from you rather than growing closer to you. Maybe you are struggling to keep up with the fast-paced world and doubt that things can ever really get better when they seem to be getting worse or out of control. And for all that you have going on in your life, you may struggle with doubt in your relationship with God. You may wonder if He really does forgive you. You may wonder if He really does love you. You may question if He really is there for you when it seems that sometimes He’s very distant. And you may just plain wonder if there is answer to your doubt here in this place. The answer to doubt is indeed right here in this place. The answer is not in some nebulous idea that everything will be okay, or it will all work out, or that you just need to keep trying harder, or that you just need to keep believing. This is not what faith is. Faith is not just believing because you’re supposed to believe. Neither is it a flight of fancy, believing in something that has no ground in reality. And it most definitely is not something that you must work out yourself. That is why if you are looking for answer to your doubt and you think that you just need to have more faith you may well end up enveloped in more and more doubt. Faith is never the end result. Faith must be in something and it must be grounded in something. It is that something that is the answer to doubt. But that something is not some nebulous notion of ‘God’. No, that wouldn’t help you out very much since there are many gods people believe in and there are many false gods. There is one thing that is the answer to doubt. And it is specific. It is not just ‘God’, it is the God who has given us His Son. The answer to doubt is the one who, as the angel said in the Gospel reading, was the one the women were seeking: “Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, and who has been raised.” The one who was crucified and has been raised is the answer to the doubt that plagues you. The entire action of God in delivering you from your sin, your guilt, your condemnation—and your doubt—is wrapped up in the words the angel spoke: the one you are seeking is Jesus, the one who was crucified but who has been raised. He is not here. Look at the tomb. See the place where they laid Him. It is empty. Here is the greatest irony of all of this, though. The one who is the answer; the one who was crucified and who has been raised; the one who is the answer to all your sin and guilt and doubt; the one who is Jesus Christ, God and Lord and Savior… He is not only not here in the tomb, as the angel pointed out, He is not even here in the Gospel reading! The only ones we see in the Gospel reading are the women and the angel. The angel tells them Jesus has been raised. He tells them that He will go before the disciples into Galilee. But Jesus Himself does not appear in the account of His own resurrection! What is Mark telling you? Whether you have doubt, or not, this Jesus is for you. That Mark does not put Him in the resurrection account shows you that despite doubt or fear or struggle with sin and temptation, your Lord is the one who was crucified, though you did not see Him crucified. He is the one who was raised, though you did not see Him rise. And He is the one who comes to you in His Gospel and in your Baptism and in His Holy Supper, though you do not see Him in any of those things. See, your faith is in Him and it is grounded in the certainty that He has risen, that He is who He says He is. The answer, remember, is Him. You can’t see Him and you can’t understand how He comes to you to forgive you in Baptism and in the Lord’s Supper, but He says He does. He says so, so that even in your doubts, you have His word on it. And that is certain. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
