Disbelief gets a hard rap, and sometimes for good measure. Jesus critiques the disbelief of the disciples quite often in the scriptures. However, the resurrection narratives found in the gospels remind us that not all disbelief is the same.
After Jesus is buried in the tomb and all hope seems lost, the disciples are overwhelmed with fear. As they discover Jesus is (or might be) alive the feeling of fear does not immediately dissipate. It remains and recurs. The gospel of Mark describes the first responses at the empty tomb being those of trembling and astonishment. The text in Matthew sums up the mixed feelings as “fear and great joy”. (Mark 16: 1-8; Matthew 28:1-10)
While fear tends to reappear in the subsequent resurrection stories, an equally overwhelming sense of joy emerges. This emotion becomes the primary one while fear slowly recedes into the background. Throughout all this, the sense of disbelief is a constant. Even after seeing Jesus clearly in their midst, the gospel writer Luke says the disciples “disbelieved for joy”. (Luke 24:36-49)
So what type of disbelief is this? This is the type of disbelief you and I may have felt on a wedding day, at the birth of a child, on the first day of a new job, or while embarking on a trip to somewhere foreign. It is the disbelief that comes in those moments of life that just seem too good to be true.
When we take stock of all the times we experience joyful disbelief in our own lives, we can come to sympathize with the disbelief of the disciples, and the frequent disbelief of our own faith. Perhaps it is sometimes simply rooted in the sense that the good news of Jesus Christ is simply too good to be true. Can Jesus really love me this much? Would God really forgive me? Will I really rise from the dead someday?
When good news and good moments just seem too good to be true, it is very easy to have our vision clouded, for varying perspectives to all be true, and for previously solid faith to turn into disbelief. We see all this happening in the resurrection accounts.
All of a sudden, properly recognizing joyful disbelief helps us to understand in a fresh way the disbelief of Thomas, the disciple most famously connected with disbelief. When he said he would only believe if he saw the nail holes in Jesus’ hands, perhaps this desire was from a stance of joyful disbelief. The surreal news others told him was simply too much to believe. (John 20:24-39)
Jesus Christ dismisses Thomas’ joyful disbelief and is willing and ready to dismiss ours. The line of either following Jesus or not gets drawn at the point of outright, conscious rejection of the ways of Jesus—not over doubts of faith or daily stumblings.
We should live confidently with our little bits of faith and our great many doubts, because this is how the disciples lived their lives the days after the resurrection. In those days, Jesus came to them, forgave them, and gave them the Holy Spirit of God. And in the years that followed the disciples multiplied in numbers and did countless marvelous good works for humanity and for the Eternal Kingdom of God. So too, the risen Lord can come to us today by the power of the Holy Spirit, and we too can go on to do wonderful things for God and for humanity.
Relevant Reformation 