Love is Alive: Even When We Doubt

The peace that Jesus speaks of is not the absence of questions or the removal of uncertainty. It is the presence of Christ in the midst of it all. And that matters for us because it begins to shape how we understand how it means, what it means, love to be alive in your life and mine. Love that is alive does not wait for everything to be settled. Love that is alive does not require for us to arrive at a place of perfect understanding. [01:05:08] (39 seconds)  #PeaceInPresence

Love is alive because love that is alive is not fragile. Love that is alive is not easily shaken by any questions. Love that is alive is steady. It's present. It's patient. It's willing to remain with us as we grow, as we learn, as we come to see more clearly over time? Anyone here believe exactly the same way about your faith that you did when you were five years old and you were in VBS, or have you grown through the years? [01:09:38] (43 seconds)  #LoveThatEndures

We carry our faith, and I want you to know it's okay to carry our questions. In fact, we welcome your questions as we continue to walk through the ordinary days that follow the joy of Easter morning. May we allow ourselves to live into this incredible truth that Christ continues to come to us, that peace continues to be spoken over us, that love continues to meet us exactly where we are and even in those places where we're still wondering, where we're still growing, where we're still learning. [01:12:21] (41 seconds)  #QuestionsWelcome

And in that moment, we begin to see something so essential about the nature of Christ's presence with us because Jesus does not ask Thomas to pretend. Jesus does not tell Thomas to just keep all your questions to yourself. Jesus meets Thomas right where he is in the middle of his questions, and that encounter becomes a place where Thomas moves from uncertainty into recognition, from questioning into trust, from distance into relationship. [01:08:45] (39 seconds)  #MetInTheQuestions

And church, if you are still breathing, you are still growing, you are still learning. We are still opening our hearts and our lives to god to continue to work in our hearts because love is alive, and love is closer than you think. Let's pray together. [01:13:02] (23 seconds)  #StillGrowingInLove

And what's so remarkable in this story is not simply that Thomas expresses that deep human longing that he has and we all have, but that Jesus responds to it. Jesus returns. He comes back into that very space, and this time, Thomas is there. And once again, Jesus stands among them. And once again, he speaks peace, and then he turns towards Thomas, and he meets him exactly where he is. He loves Thomas. [01:08:07] (38 seconds)  #JesusReturnsWithPeace

And if we're honest, I bet we know that space also. We know what it is to try to gather our thoughts. We know what it's like to sit with all of our questions to hold both hope and doubt and uncertainty at the same time, to live in that tension where we believe, of course, we do, and yet we're still trying to make sense of what that belief is going to look like in our everyday lives. And so it is right there. It's right there in that human space that Jesus comes to the disciples. [01:03:50] (39 seconds)  #FaithInTension

And when we consider our own lives, we recognize that same longing within ourselves. We recognize a desire for a faith that's not just inherited, not something that's just passed down and assumed that, of course, we're all going to be Methodist and go to the Methodist Church in Mooresville, Indiana. We want a faith that we can experience, a faith that meets us in our very questions, a faith that holds us in our wondering, a faith that grows as we engage with it honestly. [01:07:32] (35 seconds)  #ExperienceFaith