Rejoicing in the Midst of Doubt

Are you the one who is to come,

or shall we look for another?

Four years ago, on November 30th,

my brother died of pancreatic cancer.

And the day before, just 24 hours earlier,

my spiritual director of many years

had also died of pancreatic cancer.

It was a brutal time for me.

I remember standing outside

the hospital corridors of that room,

being angry and upset at God.

Wondering, "Lord, you know, where are you?

Where are you now?

Where is this love that you speak of?

Because it feels a whole lot more

like abandonment than presence."

And in that moment, I was doubting,

not just questioning, but doubting

where God was in the midst of all that.

To be honest with you,

I was embarrassed as a priest of 20 plus years,

still doubting his presence.

But there I was in the midst of that.

And yet, I knew in the corner of my heart

that the Lord was present

in the midst of that silence.

And that in the middle of all of this,

that the Lord was there.

Here is what is interesting,

what I have learned since then and before,

through other many situations.

Doubt is not the opposite of faith.

We often believe that

doubt is the opposite of faith.

But it is a part of faith.

Doubt is not the opposite of or the enemy of joy.

It is part of it.

Doubt is part of the process of faith development.

Think of it as a muscle that gets flexed,

that needs to have extra weight.

Doubt is the extra weight

that causes the muscle to grow deeper and stronger.

This is what I have learned over the years.

Today, as we celebrate Gaudete Sunday. Rejoice!

We have to understand that

what comes in the midst of rejoicing is doubting.

It is not the enemy or the opposite,

and it is not present when we rejoice.

We have to rejoice in the midst of doubting,

because that is the reality of our lives.

I know that many of you have lost loved ones this last year.

In this last several years,

many, many of you have lost loved ones,

whether that is a parent or a grandparent or a spouse,

and in some cases, it is a child and grandchild.

That loss is very real today

and as the songs get sung,

there is a certain sadness in your heart.

When everyone else is singing for joy,

you have this doubt that is your saddening,

because there is an empty chair at the table.

That is hard, and you doubt, like I do.

It is real and it is hard to rejoice

when there is a heaviness in your heart.

But that is what we are called to do today.

We have to live with the reality of that tension,

the reality that it is not black or white,

it is both/and.

We have to find a way to look through this.

As we look at Scripture today,

and at John the Baptist, the greatest, remember,

none born of man is greater than John the Baptist,

according to Jesus.

Yet, John the Baptist is in prison,

and in that darkness, he starts to question,

and he starts to doubt.

He sends his disciples to Jesus, saying,

“Are you the one to come, or do we need to look for another?

You do not sound like us.

you are way kinder and gentler.”

John was the one

who was breathing fire and brimstone in the desert,

and people were coming for repentance.

But here comes along Jesus, healing and gentleness

and dining with the Pharisees and the Sadducees

and all types of sinners,

and John is beginning to question.

Now here is what is the most important part.

It does not just stop there,

what Jesus does there,

but how does Jesus complete this?

What Jesus says to his disciples is

to go show them what you see.

The lame walk,

the blind will see,

the deaf will hear,

the dead will be raised,

and those who are poor

will have the good news preached to them.

He says, look at the fruits of my work.

Notice what he does not do.

He does not scold them for doubting.

He does not remind him how important Jesus is

and how less important John is.

He simply says, gently,

to look at the fruits of the work that I do.

But then even more, as soon as they leave,

he turns around and upholds John and says,

none greater of a woman is born than John the Baptist.

These are encouraging words for us,

the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.

That is a reference to you and me.

If we can remain faithful

in those moments of doubting,

if we can remain faithful

in those moments of darkness,

if we can remain ever faithful

and rejoice,

then the Lord will remember

those moments.

And he does not scold us.

He does the same thing to us.

He holds us up and says, rejoice!

Rejoice with me.

Now, that can be hard work,

and that is where you and I come in together.

I remember that four years ago,

that while it was a difficult time for me,

what got me through that

not only was my own faith, but this community,

because you were there,

and you wrote me notes in kindness and gentleness

of reminding me to keep going, and I did.

We can do that again for each other

and for those around us.

So here is what I want,

two things I am going to ask of you this week.

The first is that

if you are in the midst of doubting,

if you have lost a loved one,

or you remember one

that you have lost some time ago,

and the sadness is creeping in,

the doubting is creeping in,

the darkness of this time is creeping in,

and the lights of the Christmas

are finding hard on your heart,

then spend some time with the Lord.

Hold On.

Do not be afraid to name the doubting.

Do not be afraid to bring it to God.

God is big enough to hold it.

Just like me in the corridors of Stanford Hospital

when I was angry and letting God have it.

God can take our anger.

He will be gentle back with you.

Let your doubting have a voice.

Give it a name,

name it and hand it to the Lord.

Then allow Him to bring healing to your heart,

and allow Him to bring the rejoicing

of this Sunday back to you as well.

But more than that,

the second thing I ask of you is this,

this season is a season which most of us try to rejoice

at Christmas, a wonderful time,

but for some it is very hard.

You may not have lost somebody,

but somebody around you may have lost somebody.

Or there might be somebody in your family

or in your friendship with which

a rupture has happened in your relationship.

Maybe you have broken a relationship,

a long-term relationship,

or there is an old relationship

that continues to speak pain to your heart.

Is it possible that you can bring words of healing

to that relationship?

Can you bring healing to somebody in your neighborhood

who has lost a loved one?

Can you be present to them

so in the midst of their darkness

that you sparkle a little bit of light,

not necessarily by what you say,

but by your presence,

that you just show up?

Would that be in a written note,

or would that be in a text,

or would that be actually showing up at their door?

There are plenty of people who need the light.

There are many who are in darkness

and they do not know how to get out.

They do not know how to rejoice.

So my friends, we gather today

to celebrate Gaudete Sunday,

this Sunday to rejoice.

But some of us

are in the midst of doubting.

Let us bind together,

listen to the Lord, and allow the Lord

to bring healing

so that we can see more clearly again,

so that we can hear clearer again,

that we can be agents of healing

in our community.

That we can help those walk again

who have been disabled

by pain or suffering.

My friends, today we rejoice with the Lord

in the reality that there is doubt,

but we still rejoice.

Are you the one who is to come,

or shall we look for another?