Psalm 27
OT Reading: Isaiah 35
NT Reading: Hebrews 10.35 – 11.1
Text: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11.1)
Today is the Feast of St Thomas – doubting Thomas as we call him. Like the other apostles, Thomas had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the one sent by God to fulfil the Old Testament prophecies like those in tonight’s first reading. From the very start of his ministry, Jesus himself had proclaimed the year of the Lord’s favour. Only a week earlier Thomas had seen Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, like the king depicted by the prophet Zechariah, triumphant and victorious. Then, suddenly, it had all ended in a brutal crucifixion. It was the worst day of his life, and Thomas, unable even to face the company of the other apostles, shut himself away, utterly devastated, experiencing – I suppose – that utter paralysis of the will to function that is so often a consequence of bereavement.
What a wonderfully appropriate story to frame our reflections this evening. A week ago last Friday, the outcome of the referendum shattered the hopes so many of us had placed in the European Union as a step towards the permanent ending of the nationalistic rivalries that led to so much loss of life in two terrible wars. I was surprised how many grown men and women told me they were reduced to tears. Our feelings pale into insignificance when compared to the experience of St Thomas, but the sense of devastation akin to bereavement which many have felt is not dissimilar. Like Thomas we are in shock. We need to find a lifeline.
Of course, if you voted LEAVE last week, and are not miserable at all, perhaps rather pleased and excited about the prospect of taking back control of our national destiny, then I must ask you to be patient for a few minutes with those of us who are not with you in that sunny place. I invite you instead to recall other events which have affected you deeply, and caused you to ask the same questions that the rest of us are asking. Where was God? Doesn’t he care? How could he let this happen? And finally, when our anger is spent, how are we supposed to get on with our lives? Do we as Christians have any answers to these questions?
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews is certain that we do have an answer. The central argument of the letter has developed the image of Christ as the great high priest who fulfils and completes the Jewish system of sacrifice as both priest and victim. Now the author seeks to address the challenges surrounding the life experience of Jewish Christians in the later years of the first century of the Christian era. Some have been imprisoned, others have had to accept the plundering of their possessions, but their faith has connected them to a parallel, heavenly world, which transcends and illuminates the miserable, messy reality of their experience in this world, with all its disasters and disappointments. ‘We are not amongst those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,’ he asserts. And he goes on, in the great chapter which follows, to draw on the great rollcall of faith which runs through Hebrew history, as he makes the point that they were all sustained by a faith in God to which they clung through every conceivable vicissitude.
Yet all these, he concludes, despite their faith, did not receive what was promised. God had provided something better, and he goes on to share with them his conviction that Jesus is the ‘something better’ that those beacons of Old Testament faith lacked – Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb 12.2)
Can we ride with him? It’s not easy, but I do believe he offers us the only way forward in these uncertain times. The author of the letter to the Hebrews was seeking to buttress the faith of his readers in the face of disaster. Like them, our faith has to reach beyond the mess and muddle, the failures and setbacks which periodically fall upon us like some great avalanche blocking our path and even burying us beneath a heap of stones. However we may have voted in last week’s referendum, the black hole into which we have now fallen is one for which in a democratic society we have to accept some portion of blame. God has given us the precious gift of freedom, but freedom allows us to make terrible mistakes, either individually or in the present case collectively, which harm us and harm our neighbours. When that happens I believe he is as sad as we are, probably sadder still, since he can see the consequences so much more clearly than we can. Since there is no limit to his power, he could presumably over-rule our follies, but if he were to do that, he would be denying us the freedom without which we should not be made in the image of God. What he has done, the ‘something better’ to which our Bible reading refers, is to offer in Jesus a way of salvation which can redeem the mess and restore his image in us and in the world. And he invites us by faith to participate in that work.
So what might that mean for us in the present context? First of all, as we remember the million lives lost at the battle of the Somme, we should continue to say: ‘Never again’. The institutions that have been put in place over the past century to bind the nations of the world together are far from perfect, but if our God intends us to live together in peace, finding ways to support our mutual flourishing, we should do what we can – even after a Brexit vote – to build such structures up, even if they require some modification, rather than insisting on tearing them down. That will require patience and steadiness of purpose.
But there is something else we need to do as well. The LEAVE vote has been seen by many – rightly in my opinion – as a cry for help from our neighbours in this country who have suffered under successive governments of all parties over a period stretching back to at least 1979. We cannot go on electing governments – Tory and Labour alike – which increase the gap between rich and poor, paying for lower taxes and higher incomes by squeezing ever harder the welfare networks that offer support, and with it opportunity and hope, to those who are less fortunate than most of us in this congregation. We must all listen to the spasm of iconoclastic rage that lies behind the LEAVE vote, and find ways to rebuild a fairer society, which will in turn have the confidence and the capacity to embrace the immigrant and the stranger.
With our political system in meltdown in the aftermath of the referendum, it is hard to be optimistic. But the Christian is not asked to be optimistic or pessimistic. The Christian is asked to have faith in the loving purposes of God for all his creation. In Jesus he has not only shown us how the very worst we can do to one another can be redeemed and restored; he has also given us his Spirit to strengthen our hands and our hearts for the task that lies ahead. The immediate prospects look pretty grim, but faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
When the other disciples told Thomas that they had seen the Lord, their certainty of his living presence was not enough to convince him. He had to see for himself. He blustered about touching the mark of the nails, and feeling the deep wound made by the spear, but when he saw the risen Lord, he didn’t need further proof. Jesus said: Do not doubt but believe, and Thomas answered: My Lord and my God. Like Thomas, we are challenged to affirm that same faith in the risen Lord Jesus, which has the power to draw us out of our despondent lethargy, giving us the strength and the steadiness of purpose to pick up the pieces, and carry on witnessing to and working for the sort of world which we believe will be consistent with God’s loving purposes for us all.