The Trouble with Jesus
by Constance Hastings
The Trouble with Jesus: Worship doesn't cancel doubt. It makes space for it.
When regular folks are catching the fallout from politicians wrangling over war and the economy while gas prices climb like they training for the Olympics, when your heritage is either of the oppressed or the oppressor and the inequities of society look rigged and permanent, when bullets keep finding bodies like it’s routine and often the sniper finds its mark, where’s all that unity and harmony of God supposed to be?
Doubt stops being some slippery feeling. It starts looking like the only thing that actually makes sense, more of a certainty that’s just the way the world works. No heaven on earth here.
A Doubtful Reality
"When they saw him, they worshiped him—but some of them still doubted!"
At the least, you could say there’s no sugarcoating here but an example of the accuracy and veracity on record by how doubters are mentioned. Remember, this passage reports Jesus’ appearance to the disciples after his appearing to them alive following a bloody execution and burial. It’s crucial to Jesus’ story. A good persuasive document leaves no holes for attacks. If this was propaganda, they’d clean it up: “Everybody believed instantly, no questions asked, end of story.” Today they’d want HD footage, multiple angles, maybe a drone shot. But the record straight-up admits: some of the guys standing right there with Jesus still had doubts. That’s huge.
To be fair, after all they’d been through, who wouldn’t? Maybe some of them needed to do this, to sit with their own thoughts, figure out what was real and what was trauma talking. Was this figure a ghost-like spirit or phantom? Were they afraid what they saw was only what they wanted to believe, a hallucination, something too good to be true? Or let’s give them the proverbial benefit of the doubt (sorry, couldn’t help it…) to say that the record shows they did not fall for everything thoughtlessly; they were just thinking people who didn’t swallow everything whole. Some got there fast. Some took the long road.
Bottom line: Worship doesn’t cancel doubt.
It makes space for it.
Whoever or whatever they saw, they bowed down. They worshiped. That’s not strange. Nobody fully understands God even as she or he brings a devotion and honor along with varying degrees of belief. For some, that belief lies in an undeniable spiritual experience of God meeting another in the soul-journeys of life. For others, it’s the unmistakable realization that a power greater than oneself has had a divine hand in steering life circumstances that preserve and lead to wholeness and balance. And yet others, while not exactly viewing a viral video tape, have witnessed the impossible to a degree which drops some to their knees.
But all of it hinges though on what came next.
Final Directive
"Jesus came and told his disciples,…"
They had seen him, even worshipped him, but now Jesus came to them. He came not as a surreal heavenly figure, not wrapped in an ecstatic emotional high, not even as the same man they’d walked with last three years. Jesus came close with an intimate nearness which revealed he was carrying the full weight of God. He spoke of “complete authority in heaven and on earth.” Their purpose in this revelation and plan was now given as he told them, “go and make disciples of all the nations…”
Go: don’t huddle together anymore. Stop hiding, stop clumping together. Stretch out to the world with my message. Make disciples: no one would know better than they what that meant, for these had answered when he called, “Follow me.” Now they were supposed to pass that call on.
But he wasn’t done.
Three-in-One
"Baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."
Baptize them. Not just “believe in God.”
Not just “get washed and forgiven.” Not just forgiven of any and all separations from God and others.
Not “join the club.” And certainly not for empty ritual into a religious organization.
Baptize them in, that is that they may know the Divine mystery of God. Baptize them into the unfathomable: the One who is Three and the Three who are One, the only One, Creator Father, Friend and Savior-Son, Spirit Counselor and Advocate. A holy paradox.
That many can be one is a stretch of intellect, let alone faith. Doubt certainly seems an option. But as a body is made of millions of cells acting as one human being, why should the divine not be similarly constructed and revealed? When those cells act in harmony, there is health. So why can’t God be unity inside complexity too? God is known through many facets yet interacting parts with unity between each one and everyone. Heaven and earth touch, come together.
Unity Through Love
"Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you."
So they would. They knew the risk, what they were up against. If Jesus himself died by the evil intentions of the powerful, these eleven disciples weren’t expecting a retirement plan; their fates would face the same. Not much has changed there.
Still, the message hasn’t changed either. Jesus’ commandment stands, “Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.” (John 13:34) As God is known in a communal sense, so Jesus’ message is to love in ways that do not separate and divide but brings a belonging to one another that extends beyond the individual. “Do for others as you would like them to do for you.” (Luke 6:31) It’s the link that blurs and erases differences across wounds, across histories, ties each to all.
And that kind of love?
It doesn’t disappear.
Jesus’ Last Line:
"And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
Named 2024 Notable Book Award by Southern Christian Writers Conference!
The Trouble with Jesus: Considerations Before You Walk Away by Constance Hastings
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