大象传媒

Good Morning. 鈥淚 do wish I had a faith鈥�, someone said to me this week. They were polite and wistful but further conversation revealed that they thought that believing in the resurrection was really just floating off into some never 鈥搉ever land of wishful thinking.

Actually the message of the risen Jesus was very different. He told his friends to go back to their homes; to go back to Galilee where they had first met. They were to re-immerse themselves in ordinary life but to live their lives in the light of Jesus鈥檚 way of dying and living.

Jesus did not point the way to dropping out into another world. He immersed himself in this world with all its beauty and tragedy. He took flesh and lived among us but by doing so did not leave this world as he found it. He was not 鈥渙ther worldly鈥� or 鈥渢his worldly鈥� but instead taught his friends how to live in a next worldly way.

So the eleven remaining disciples went to Galilee and met with the risen Christ in a mountainous place and there as St Matthew says, they worshipped him but some doubted.

Doubt is not the opposite to faith. We should respect our honest doubts which often serve to move us forward from an immature, self-serving understanding to a deeper trust in the self-sacrificing love of God.

The opposite to faith is a life locked up in ourselves, the disengaged and risk averse life which is in reality a living death.

Father, deepen our hunger to see your plan fulfilled for the spiritual evolution of the whole human race and for a world at peace in which there is justice for all humankind and care for the whole creation. Teach us the imperfections of our understanding and lead us in the way of your Son Jesus to worship you in spirit and in truth. Amen.