Musings about Faith

Tell us plainly – are you the Messiah, or not? This question oozes with impatience. How often do we find ourselves with the same attitude? We want answers! Yes or No?!? Right or Wrong?!? Black or White?!? We like answers. We don’t like ambiguity. Jesus, can’t you just answer a simple question? How does he answer this question? Jesus points to his acts of grace – to his works and he asks his questioners (us) a counter-question – what have you experienced? Have we experienced Jesus as the Messiah? Have you experienced Jesus’ presence during different times in your life; have you experienced Jesus in the Sacraments; have you experienced Jesus’ love and grace through others who have reached out to you? That is the answer to the question! So is Jesus the Messiah? Well, what does your experience tell you? One way we have of seeking the answer is to look for supernatural acts. And in fact we often get caught up looking for the supernatural. Like Elijah, we expect God t...

What does it take for you to believe that Jesus has risen?  We live in a society that really seems to crave “proof.”  We just have trouble taking things on faith.  And even if we have “proof” of some sort, that might not be enough.  We want more and more signs and wonders.  But is that enough? The disciples also wanted “proof.”  Mary comes from the tomb with the news that she has seen the Lord, and two of the disciples then run to the tomb to see for themselves.  The Gospel tells us that the “Beloved Disciples” believed right away when he saw the folded up grace clothes.  Peter, on the other hand, was perplexed and, we assume, not completely convinced.  Then Jesus appears to 10 of them – Judas is gone and Thomas is somewhere else, we don’t know where.  Meeting with Jesus, seeing him and talking with him brings the disciples to believe (sort of).  But Thomas is not there and when he hears the news he refuses to accept th...

Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Today is the day that Christ is raised from the dead and in doing this God defeats the powers of death and darkness. Today – not yesterday – Today! But didn’t all these events happen in the past? What do you mean that Christ is raised today? It is so tempting for us to look at the events of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection as being only past history. But when we do that, coming to church on Easter then becomes a commemoration of something that happened in the past. Which is nice, might even be fun, but that’s about as far as it goes. When I was young I grew up in a little town, New Castle, Delaware. Now New Castle was one of the oldest European settlements in the United States having been established by Peter Stuyvesant in 1651. It is actually older than Williamsburg, Virginia. And so, growing up there was like growing up in the midst of a lot of history....