Click to hear this sermon  sermon100411

So suppose two people are walking in the woods, with a dusting of new snow on the
ground.

The Tracks in the Snow - John 20: 19-31 - April 11, 2010 - Cicero United Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So suppose two people are walking in the woods, with a dusting of new snow on the
ground. And suppose they come upon some tracks in the snow. One of them says, "Look. A deer walked through here." The other person says, "What makes you say that?" The first person, a little surprised, says, "See? Fresh tracks. A deer walked through here." The second person responds, "Those don't prove anything." Person Number One says, "What are you talking about? Look. Deer tracks. It's obvious. A deer has walked through here." Person Number Two answers, "That doesn't mean anything. Did you actually see a deer?" "No, but ... " "Then you don't know anything."

Of course, that is a preposterous conversation. But it is somewhat akin to how two different people can feel when they talk about God. A person who doesn't believe in God might say, "1 can't believe in God because I've never seen Him. I've never met Him." And a person of faith might say, "What do you mean? The tracks are everywhere!" Polls lately show a growing number of nonbelievers - somewhere between 8-12% of Americans are either atheist or agnostic. So these conversations between believers and nonbelievers are more and more common; they are taking place in classrooms, in movie theaters, in workplaces, and in families. Some of them are angry conversations - believers who get defensive and angry when faith is challenged; and atheists and agnostics who are militant and noisy against faith.

But they don't have to be angry conversations. I believe they can be respectful, honest
and searching conversations, and we can all gain by them. For one thing, while I suppose there can be people who are absolutely rock-solid in their faith, and others who are rock- solid in their unbelief - most people, I believe, are somewhere on a spectrum in-between. It seems to me that most people of faith have moments when they find themselves asking, "But how do I know? What is the proof of what I believe?" And I also think even declared atheists must have their moments of doubt, when they ask, "But what if it's true? What if God is real?" So believers and nonbelievers should have at least a glimpse of where the other is coming from, and be able to discuss these things with a mutual desire to answer the question that Pontius Pilate asked Jesus at his trial: "What is truth?"

After the one we have come to call Doubting Thomas insisted that he would only believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ if he could personally see and feel the wounds of the Risen Saviour, and after Jesus gave him exactly that opportunity, and after Thomas felt the wounds and declared, "My Lord and my God," then Jesus said these words to him: "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." Those words were directed at you and me. We live 2000 years after the fact. And short of a supernatural experience, we are not going to see or feel the actual wounds of the Risen Christ. But blessed are those who have not seen and yet come to believe. That is a blessing that God wants to give us this morning.

But believing without seeing is not so easy for many people. The fact is, in that
conversation I described between the two people looking at the tracks in the woods - I
am both of those people. 1 am the one who sees the tracks and knows absolutely that God

has been here. And I am the one who won't believe it until I see God with my own eyes.  I am like the struggling man in Mark, chapter 9 who cried out to Jesus, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief." My mind is like a pendulum that swings back and forth between those two ways of thinking. This morning I want to share with you why that pendulum always - always - sooner or later ends up stopping on the side of faith.

First of all, there's those tracks in the snow; they're pretty hard to deny. The evidence
of God is everywhere we look. And the first track - the first body of evidence, is existence itself. Quite simply, we shouldn't be here. This world we live in, and especially we human creatures, are nothing short of miraculous. Since earliest known times, when humans evolved into the capacity to think about these things, the wonder of creation called up one obvious question: Who did this? It's like walking into a room and seeing a beautiful painting on the wall: the obvious question is, Who painted that? Or, finding a tasty meal on the table and saying, Somebody talented must have cooked this. Who? From earliest times, humans have known that Somebody must be behind this world. So, the Bible begins with the declaration that "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," and then describes that creation like an artist creating a masterpiece. And just like a Rembrandt painting reflects the artist's style and vision, or a Spielberg movie reflects the filmmaker's voice and passion, so this world we experience reflects the One who created it. "The heavens declare the glory of the Lord," says a psalm-writer in the Bible, and a couple nights last week, when the sky was clear and the stars were beyond counting, the vision and artwork of God was on display.

In modern times, as we all know, humankind has gained the capacity to study and explain many things. Scientists have determined that the best explanation for how the world we know happened is a Big Bang: everything in the universe was pressed into a tight, amazingly heavy ball, that had so much compressed energy that it had to explode. And all the elements for the universe, and the solar system, and the planet earth, and every tiny little baby were flung out in that explosion. And over billions of years, they came together and formed what we see and know, and what we don't yet know.

That's a good theory, but what I don't understand is that some scientists - by no means all- but some scientists, and many other people, then go on to say, "Now that we have this Big Bang theory, it's obvious that there is no such thing as God." To me, that's like taking that a Rembrandt painting and analyzing the paint - how the colors were mixed, how the picture was first sketched, what brushes were used, when the painting was done - maybe calling it the Big Brush Theory. And then, when you've got all that figured out, saying, "See? This wasn't such a mystery. Clearly there was no such person as Rembrandt." You can explain the mechanics of painting, and get nowhere close to the heart of the artist. The heavens still declare God's glory; the tracks in the snow are clear.

But there is another track that goes even deeper than the mere fact of existence. That is the call of the human soul. Back in prehistoric times, those first humans looked at the world, and asked, Who did this? But that wasn't the only question they asked. They also asked, Whose is this voice I hear in the deepest parts of my being? Why do I have this unmistakable feeling that Someone behind this sunset, this meadow, this natural beauty is speaking to me? It's one thing to look at a river and say How beautiful. But at our best moments, there is something deeper happening - a sense of spiritual communion. Someone is calling us. We have a longing for communion with Someone greater than ourselves. And scientists are trying to explain that as well - by finding the 'religious gene', or by a new field of science called evolutionary psychology. But again, it seems to me those are only going to address the How question. They can't explain the Who question, and the Why question. It seems obvious to me that that longing within us is a longing for the One who made us. If the great early Christian teacher Augustine were here, he might call it our restlessness, that can only be filled by finding rest in God. We can search everywhere else and come up empty, because it is God we are searching for. If John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, were here, he might talk about prevenient grace, which, broadly peaking, is the grace that makes us long for God. However we say it, there is a soulful knowledge within us - an intuition - that Someone is calling to us. And I believe that is part of that trail in the snow.

We're here this morning because God filled that spiritual longing in a specific way. And next week I want to go deeper into how following that trail in the snow leads us to Christ. But for now, as this sermon winds down, let's at least acknowledge this: a couple thousand years ago, in a faraway place - a multitude of people got excited because they found the answer to their spiritual search in a man named Jesus. In his words, and example, and death, and appearances after death - they found communion with God - so much so that they knew in their hearts that this must be the very Son of God. This was more than tracks in the snow. This was the very presence of God. That knowledge was so compelling to them, that they intended nothing short of telling the whole world about Jesus, their Saviour and Lord. We're here today because of their testimony.

One of them was named Thomas, and I am so thankful for him. Because in his inclination to only believe what he could see and feel himself, he represents so many of us - people of faith and doubt wrapped up in the same human package. I can identify with that. I find myself appreciating the complex thought behind the Gospel chorus that goes, "Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him / how I've proved him o'er and o'er." Words of faith in One who is continually proven in this life. But then listen to the next line: "Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus. Oh for grace to trust him more." Lord, I believe; help my unbelief. It's as if the writer of that hymn is saying that faith never really arrives - it is an ongoing search, and God has so much more to show us, so much more to prove to us.

These last couple days have brought some tough news - a plane crash that killed the
brightest and best of the leadership of Poland; death from a mine in West Virginia; more local tragedy as well. Such times raise deep questions within us. But that's okay, because it's always good to ask questions - there's no such thing as a dumb one. I believe that Easter is God's answer. And I believe that if we honestly search, the signs of hope and faith will be all around us. They are the tracks of God. And even in times of confusion and doubt, the glory around us, and the voice inside us, will remind us of the One who has always been with us, whether we knew it or not. God love turns out to be the most real thing. And in our best moments, when we look at the tracks before us, we will declare with Thomas, my Lord and my God! And blessed are those who believe.