“Believing is Seeing”

(part 1 of 2)

“Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!” In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! Let this Christ, the King of Israel, come down from the cross, that we may see and believe.”

Mark 15:29-32

How many of you have ever said, “I’ll believe it when I see it!” Probably everyone of us. We live in a “Seeing is believing” society, where if it cannot be verified with our senses then we have a hard time accepting it. We have been conditioned by our culture to be “sensual” allowing sight, sound, touch, taste and smell to become all the truth we need.

I came to meditate of this after asking myself, as a Christian… “Why do I believe?” The word believe means to: accept as true. So if “Seeing is believing”, then only what is seen (verified by our senses) can be accepted as true. A careful reading of the above passage, however, shows that this cannot be so:

In Mark 15:29 the people testified that they “heard” Christ’s message, but they did not accept it. In Mark 15:31 the chief priests and teachers testified that they had seen Him do miracles, yet they did not accept it! If “seeing is really believing” then why did they not accept what they had seen and heard as true.

The problem was not what they could see, hear or touch. The problem was that they did not want to accept “who” He claimed to be. So, regardless of what He did, even coming off the cross, would not have changed their minds. They would have simply asked for another sign! You cannot see your way into believing!!!

Jesus actually rebuked one of his own disciples, who refused to believe. Even after Jesus had been raised from the dead Thomas needed another sign:

“Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”

John 20:24-25

A week later, Jesus came to his disciples again, this time Thomas was with them. He stood among them and said to Thomas:

“Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
John 20:27

In essence, Jesus came to him and said, “Here I am Thomas… see me , hear me, touch me!” Scripture is unclear about whether Thomas even dared lay a hand on Jesus, but he did make a confession of faith saying to Him: “My Lord and my God!” However, his confession wasn’t followed by platitudes as was Peter’s confession of faith. Jesus did not say… “Good job Thomas!” Instead he told him:

“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

John 20:29

Jesus words to Thomas are still as powerful today as they were 2,000 years ago…It is when we first “believe” that we begin to truly see!

Pastor Scott Burr
http://faithandworshipseries.blogspot.com