Can I Believe In God?

Thomas the unbeliever is someone that many of us can relate to - how do we believe in God when we cannot see God? How do we believe in Christ? When we open our eyes and start recognizing the immense grace that we live in, we cannot but see God everywhere! The White Robed Monks of St Benedict believe that Jesus never said no to anyone and try to focus on the lessons that Christ came to teach humanity - that of unconditional love.

Transcript

The Lord be with you.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John.

In the evening of that same day,

The first day of the week,

The doors were closed in the room where the disciples were for fear of the Jews.

Jesus came and stood among them.

He said to them,

Peace be with you,

And showed them his hands and his side.

The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Lord,

And he said to them again,

Peace be with you.

As the Father sent me,

So am I sending you.

After this,

Saying this,

He breathed on them and said,

Receive the Holy Spirit.

For those whose sins you forgive,

They are forgiven.

For those whose sins you retain,

They are retained.

Thomas called the twin,

Who was one of the twelve,

Was not with them when Jesus came.

When the disciples said,

We have seen the Lord,

He answered,

Unless I see the holes that the nails made in his hands,

And can put my finger into the holes they made,

And unless I can put my hand into his side,

I refuse to believe.

Eight days later,

The disciples were in the house again,

And Thomas was with them.

The doors were closed,

But Jesus came in and stood among them.

Peace be with you,

He said.

Then he spoke to Thomas,

Put your finger here,

Look,

Here are my hands.

Give me your hand,

Put it into my side.

Doubt no longer but believe.

Thomas replied,

My Lord and my God.

Jesus said to him,

You believe because you can see me.

Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.

There were many other signs that Jesus worked and the disciples saw,

But they are not recorded in this book.

These are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ,

The Son of God,

And that believing this,

You may have life through his name.

The Gospel of the Lord,

Praise to you,

Lord Jesus Christ.

How do we trust God?

How do we have faith in God?

That's pretty much one of the questions that came up in a discussion we had earlier today.

I don't think for myself,

It is one of the most challenging things.

It is trusting God and believing in God.

I know God exists,

And yet I sometimes wonder.

That is why my patron saint is St.

Thomas,

The skeptic.

Because it doesn't matter how many miracles God shows,

Time and time again,

Wonder,

A wonder ring creeps up in me.

I think that is true for many of us,

That we see,

We experience the greatness,

The grace of God in everyday happenings and in everyday life.

And then we forget the wonder of God.

And then we forget that our lives have been saved so many times in different ways.

We start writing it off to chance.

Now,

Christ,

Luckily,

Said to Thomas,

Here I am,

Here are my hands,

You can see,

I give you the proof that you asked for,

And then Thomas believed.

We don't have that luxury,

We don't have Christ coming to us and saying,

Here are my hands,

In the way that St.

Thomas did.

So let us take a step back.

And we remember what Christ taught us,

The commandment of Christ,

That one,

Of love God and love each other,

Love God and love each other as ourselves and love God in each other,

Recognize that God is in each other.

And this to me is where I start experiencing Christ.

Eight days later,

After Jesus was resurrected,

Jesus came to the people.

Jesus came to his apostles to show them that even though I wasn't what you expected me to be,

Even though I didn't save you from the Romans,

And I wasn't this warrior that you wanted me to be,

I was so much more and I am so much more and I forever will be so much more than you think I am.

And he came to Thomas when Thomas said,

I don't believe it.

I need proof.

And he gave that proof.

Now what if when we see somebody who is hurting and we see somebody else helping them,

We see proof of God.

We see somebody helping them,

Not because they can take a photo and post it on Facebook or TikTok videos on,

You know,

Look at me,

How beautiful I'm doing,

But they do it in the silence and in a space where they do it from the goodness of their own hearts,

Where they don't necessarily realize that you are seeing them.

Is that not proof of God?

Is that not proof of the compassion of Christ?

And no,

It's not necessarily in a religious sense at all.

But to me,

The mere fact that people are good to each other in a way that doesn't bring them any glory in a way that doesn't bring them fame,

Just because they are,

Means to me that there has to be more in this life than just living and dying.

It means that there is a goodness,

There is an inherent goodness in humankind.

That's where Thomas sees Christ.

When I see somebody who doesn't have a lot still reach out and does what they can for somebody else.

I put my finger in the holes created by the nails and in the side of Jesus when I see those people helping.

And it makes me want to do the same.

I don't want to have a video camera on me when I try and live the life that Christ gave us to live,

A life of love.

I actually want to kind of have a curtain around me so that I know that it's not,

I don't want my ego involved with helping at all.

If the help that I do and the help that I give others can be help that is anonymous all the better.

If I can do it,

That's my focus.

That's something that's quite dear to me.

Something very interesting in the Gospel according to John.

There were many other signs that Jesus worked and the disciples saw,

But they are not recorded in this book.

Why on earth would one say such a thing?

Why on earth it's almost like clickbait?

Very smart.

Maybe John was the first to make use of clickbait.

Because how else are we going to see these wonders,

The signs that Jesus worked,

If we don't then go and subscribe?

If we don't go deeper and say,

Let me see what this Jesus character is all about?

More than just a pretty story of somebody who died for me and then rose up and then went up to heaven and now I can't see him.

Now I can't experience him.

Let me try and get to know this Jesus.

Let me try and maybe get to create or be in a loving relationship with this person who died so many years ago.

So maybe John was very good at building in that little clickbait.

What it also means is that the words of Jesus were enough and what they saw there was enough for us to believe that what was shown was a set of maybe extra tools that was given to the disciples and shown to them secret teachings that they may be passed on through the apostolic succession.

Do you know what?

Something else stands out here for me and it's a lesson that I am learning and that I've learned again this week is that not everything needs to be recorded.

Sometimes you need to keep things for yourself and as we go through life,

It is also then not a necessity that every single thing that you do or say be out loud.

Let us honor the sacred silence.

Let us honor the fact that sometimes all we need to be is to be in this very very moment.

We don't always have to make loud proclamations because if we do so we might sometimes intrude on the sacred silence and on the relationship that somebody else is forming with God.

Not that it will last very long but it might just break their concentration for a bit.

So as we enter this second week of Easter,

Perhaps let's focus on recognizing the small miracles that happen every day.

Have you noticed that if a day goes good sometimes you will drive and a set of traffic lights or robots here in South Africa might be green green green and you say,

Shut up,

It's a good day.

Start realizing that those things are small blessings and see then that there is a hand in that,

That there is a hand in your life,

That when you then enter your own sacred silence in meditation,

In prayer,

Whichever way you connect with the divine with God,

That there is a presence and that presence is filled with love.

And that is what we can trust,

The love that is in this infinite silence of God.

And then we can join Thomas and we can say,

My Lord and my God.

Amen.

Reviews

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Thank you! This is so helpful. I believe AND I need help believing. 💝🙏

Amen 🦋

Really great message Thankyou!

"Honor the sacred silence."
Beautiful

Also, love your ability to make ancient knowledge relevant to today.