Congregation Shema Yisrael

Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.” A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” -John 20:24-29

Do you believe? In the context of Christianity or Messianic Worship, this question will most often be interpreted as “Do you believe in Yeshua (Jesus)?” Do you believe he is the Son of God? Do you believe he is the Messiah (the Christ)? Do you believe he has the power to forgive sins? Do you believe? If you’re a Christian or a Messianic (by definition, a “believer”), you will likely answer this question (or these questions) with a resounding “yes”. Yet exactly what is “belief?” It’s not a question so much of what we believe but how believe. Consider this.

Quite a number of years ago, when my kids were small, my family, including my parents, took a trip across the country to Missouri. My three children were signed up to attend a Christian sports camp there, so we deposited them for a week or two, and then my parents, wife, and I were free to do some exploring. We ended up going down south. I don’t recall exactly where we visited, but we toured a number of Civil War sites. I love history and it was a real treat for me, but I remember having a rather odd experience.

The young fellow, who was one of our tour guides, apparently had ancestors on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line but primarily identified with the South. He was talking about people who lived and died 150 years ago as if he’d just seen them at breakfast that morning. I don’t have that sort of “lived” experience for the Civil War era and couldn’t muster up that kind of enthusiasm for what to me, were “historical figures”. I was immersed in a study of Genesis at the time, and I remember vividly thinking that Abraham and Sarah, people who lived many thousands of years ago in another country, were more real to me than people who lived in my own country less than a century and a half ago.

In the context of the Civil War, I tend to think about the people who lived in those days as “historical figures”. For many believers, when we consider the people and events of the Bible, we tend to think of them as “Bible stories”. “Bible stories?” That almost sounds like “fairy tales” or “morality plays”. On one level, we all consider the events in the lives of Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Moses, David, Daniel, Yeshua, Paul, and so on, as “real” in the way we consider people we read about in a history book as “real”, but not the same way as we experience our own lives and the lives of our family and friends as “real”. There’s “real” in the sense of historical fact and there’s “real” in a lived experience that involves more than just our intellect, but rather our seeing and touching, and talking to.

According to Dr. Menachem Kellner in an article he wrote for My Jewish Learning, “In the Torah, faith in God means trust, not belief in particular propositions”. In other words, you don’t just believe in God as a fact, but you experience God the way you experience yourself or someone in your life. I suppose that’s why there are so many “marriage metaphors” in both the Tanakh and the Apostolic Scriptures, with God or Yeshua as the groom and the Jewish nation or the body of believers as the bride. Believing in Yeshua isn’t just believing in a set of facts but rather, experiencing him as someone we are deeply in love with and a person with whom we are completely intimate. It’s more than just a friendship, it’s an extremely close and unique bond, or it’s supposed to be.

Here’s another way of seeing this point:

R’ Yochanan once lectured regarding the future gates of Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) which will be carved out of huge precious stones. One of the students present felt that his words were preposterous, as the size of the stones described were immense (thirty amos by thirty amos, or between about 45 by 45 feet and 60 by 60 feet), when we do not find today precious stones and pearls that are even the size of an egg. When the student later went to sea, he saw the ministering angels carving the gates for Yerushalayim from those large stones. The student returned to R’ Yochanan and complimented him on his earlier lecture, now reporting to R’ Yochanan that he had witnessed precisely what R’ Yochanan had spoken about.

R’ Yochanan was not impressed. He criticized the student who had earlier mocked his words. R’ Yochanan admonished him and said, “You are an empty person! Had you not seen it for yourself would you not have believed it? You are one who mocks the words of the sages!” R’ Yochanan set his eyes upon the student and he became a heap of bones.

From Daf Digest
Bava Basra 75
Gemara Gem
Mocking the words of our sages

While the commentary goes on to explain that the laws and rulings of the sages, as well as all of the oral laws are to be considered as having the authoritative weight of written Torah, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the words of Tomas (Thomas) From John 20, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.” It seems as if having “experiential” faith in what we can’t actually see is very difficult for us to do.

Last Shabbat, I was teaching on the Akedah or the “Binding of Isaac”, and was trying to describe what Abraham and Isaac must have felt as the events of Genesis 22 were unfolding. What sort of anguish was Abraham experiencing as he struggled with his obedience to God, while standing over his bound and helpless son, about to plunge the knife into his chest? Imagine looking into your son’s pleading eyes knowing that, short of a miracle, you are going to thrust a knife in his heart and watch his blood spurt all over your hands within the next few seconds. How will you ever be able to tell Sarah what you have done? How will you ever be able to live the rest of your life carrying those memories?

I’m not trying to be overly graphic, but this is the “lived experience” point of view of the Akedah, as opposed to the black text on the plain, white page version. In fact, the only reason the Bible can have any sort of usefulness to us at all, is if we can relate to all of the “stories” within as the lives of people who are trying to experience God in the same way we are. Of course, Abraham, as a prophet, experienced God in a more direct manner than most of us do, by actually speaking to God, and hearing God speak back. Abraham was called “God’s friend” and his life is a testimony to how a person lives who walks with God daily in a very real and tangible manner. Is it even possible for us to experience God in this way?

While we may not have such intense interactions with God as did Abraham and Moses, it is possible to see and “feel” God as more than what is described on the printed page or what we might generate within our imagination. My son David is a United States Marine and he’s currently deployed on a U.S. Navy ship somewhere in the Pacific or Indian Ocean (he can’t tell us where he’s going until he gets there). His wife and son haven’t seen him in well over a month and will not see him again until sometime next April, God be willing. Communication is sketchy at best. While my daughter-in-law has “experienced” her husband before, there’s a certain amount of “faith” involved in knowing and believing that he’s out there somewhere in the middle of a vast expanse of ocean, living a day-to-day life, working, eating, sleeping, and dreaming and that, even though she can’t see him; even though none of us who love him can be with him, he is nevertheless “real”.

It’s not a perfect analogy, but that’s one way we can experience God, even though we don’t have a “physical presence” to rely on, the way we do with the family we live with. That’s faith. It’s the experiencing without seeing, hearing, and touching. Yes, there are those who have experienced “more” in a sense that is difficult or even impossible to describe, but those experiences are not constant. We don’t have miracles that walk beside us day in and day out, at least most of us don’t. What we do have, or can have, is a lived experience and a knowing of God the way we know someone who we love dearly but is far away from us. While God isn’t far away at all, we still experience him “through a glass darkly”, though someday, we’ll see Him face-to-face.

Faith is a sense of expectancy, as if we’re walking down a city street missing someone, and anticipating that we’ll see them rounding the corner up ahead any second now. We know He’s there with more than just with our intellect and our imagination. We know He’s there because He’s there. He exists. He’s real. Not the “real” of a historical figure or a Bible story, but “real” as in someone we know and love. Even as I write this, I know my description is inadequate, because faith doesn’t exist as an exterior object that can be examined, the way we can pick up a jewel and turn it over in our hands, looking at its color and feeling its texture and weight. Faith is trust that God is with us and that we are not alone. Faith is trusting that a son and a husband and a father is there and will be coming home someday. Faith is more than believing. Faith is even more than knowing. Faith is a cord that ties my heart to God’s heart. Faith is the bridge between Heaven and Earth. Faith is the cord that ties my heart to my son’s. Faith is the road that will bring him home. Faith is a precious gem. Faith is love.