What Is Faith?

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Father. Amen.

What is faith? What is the purpose of believing? An awful lot of talk happens in Christian circles about faith – growing in faith, the power of faith, faith moving mountains, and so on. But why? What is the big deal about faith?

 

Is faith an intellectual assent to a set of propositions? “Strong belief” or “complete trust”, as some dictionaries define it? Or perhaps faith is an emotional connection to something? Many religious sorts would posit that faith is defined by a burning in the bosom, some sort of internal and immediate flush of feeling and conviction that serves some sort of devotional purpose. To such as this, faith is not about intellectual matters so much as a matter of the heart simply hearing the call of God and experiencing the nearness of Christ, or some such business.

St. Augustine famously once said, “Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that thou mayest understand; since, 'except ye believe, ye shall not understand.'” Believe, that you may understand. Faith comes first, and through the lens of faith, you see the things of God as revealed by the same Holy Spirit who worked such faith in you to begin with.

You cannot understand the things of God by yourself. Yes, “the heavens declare the glory of God,” but they do not declare the grace of God. What is revealed without faith is the God of the Law, the God who condemns you because He is God and you are not, despite your wishing.

You need the Lord as an expositor in order to understand His grace and mercy. You need Jesus to understand the Scriptures. The will of God is only understandable to His people because the Lord has revealed Himself to you. It is as the Ethiopian eunuch put it to Philip: “How can I [understand], unless someone guides me?”

You cannot understand, unless the Lord guides you into all truth. So that is precisely what He does. The Lord reveals Himself to His people in the person of Jesus Christ. You heard last week about our Lord revealing Himself to Thomas in the secret room. He did not say, “Looky here! Gaze into My eyes!” or “Can't you feel the burning in your bosom? Don't you understand what I told you before?” He says “put your fingers in My nail-holes, and shove your hand into My riven side.” He reveals Himself to Thomas in concrete, tangible ways, but in nothing new or exciting – His flesh may be risen and glorified, but it is still the same Jesus as before.

Now, today, you have heard the account of Jesus appearing to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. They saw their Lord, but they did not know it was Jesus. So what did Jesus do? Dance and sing and wear a neon “Here I am!” sign? No! “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” Jesus taught them a Bible Study. He revealed Himself to them in the Scriptures. Again – nothing new. Same old Scriptures they had from the beginning.

And then He revealed Himself to them in the breaking of the bread. “He took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him.” Nothing new. He was revealed to them in the breaking of the bread, just as He gave His Body and Blood to the apostles under the bread and wine. He was revealed to them just as He said He would be. He was revealed to them in Emmaus just as He has promised to reveal Himself to you here and now. Same Jesus, same revelation.

Furthermore, both our Lord's revelation to Thomas and to the disciples at Emmaus led them back into the communion of saints. Thomas had been separated from the believers by his absence at the Lord's appearance and by his doubt of their accounts. The two on the road were separated from the faithful by their despair and doubt over the gruesome crucifixion and the peculiar news from the women.

But in both cases, Christ appears to them, and they are restored to fellowship with Him and with the communion of saints. Thomas is reconciled with the Truth and confesses Him as Lord and God. He is forgiven his sins, and he rejoins his brethren among the apostles. The disciples on the Emmaus road have their eyes opened in the breaking of the bread, and they come to fully understand what the Lord had been speaking to them on the road. They immediately pack up and race back to the fellowship of the saints in Jerusalem, where they share their witness of the Lord's resurrection. They are reconciled on the basis of the Lord's revelation.

Often faith is stirred within us due to some profound experience that propels us forward joyfully in our relationship with God. But as the power of these experiences wanes over time, we are forced to trust that we remain in communion with God even as His presence seemingly vanishes. Our situation is akin to that of the apostles: for three years they experienced directly the presence of Christ, and the attendant joy and security that came with it. But after His death and resurrection, they learned, courtesy of Thomas, that it is not feeling but raw trust that constitutes faith. “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”ⁱ

Our Lord revealed Himself to His disciples not in the warmness of their hearts, not in the stillness of their minds, not in the authenticity of their emotions, but in the concrete evidence of His Body and in the sign He had promised, the breaking of the bread.

The point of the resurrection of our Lord is that Jesus died. He does not come back as a spirit or spectre. He does not come back in mystical visions. He does not come back in the feelings of your hearts. He comes back in the flesh, with hands and feet and sides and a voice and a mouth and stomach. He comes back to display that He has died. Death claimed its victim. He was pierced. He was riven through. He was dead and buried. For you. For the sins of the world, and for you. The Good Shepherd died for the wayward sheep. He fulfilled His messianic office and obligation. His heel was bruised by the serpent. He drank the cup of lethal woe to the dregs, leaving nothing for you.

It is finished. The Kingdom of grace comes by itself, in the person of Jesus and by the preaching of the witnesses of His resurrection. For where the Word of God is proclaimed, there the Word Incarnate is, doing as He says. It does not depend on your emotions or your warm-fuzzies, or your immediate experiences. Christ is there because He says He is, whether you feel Him or not – perhaps despite your feelings.

Now that is different from how the world thinks of Easter and what is heard on the radio or television by the seemingly “religious.” For the world likes glory. They like miracles. They like festive excitement, pretty dresses, and even Hallelujahs. They like the empty tomb. It is Jesus on the cross, His suffering, bleeding, and dying, that they cannot stand. Thus their Easter is like the denial of Thomas. For he refused the Apostolic message because he would not accept the cross. It is like the selfish worry of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. They admitted that they had thought that Jesus was come to redeem Israel, until He went and got Himself crucified. With empty, orgastic Hallelujahs our fallen flesh focuses on itself and its self-satisfying praise. Thus Satan would drown out the Church’s Hosannas, Her pleas for mercy, and the reality that it is by His stripes, by His suffering, bleeding, and dying, that we are saved.

Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand. The point of He is risen is: He died. Easter is about Jesus’ death. And for those who believe it, there is no better news, no other cause for joy.

Emotion, as a reality of the human experience, has a role within the life of faith. The Scriptures themselves express the full pantheon of human sentiment: joy and sorrow, gratitude and jealousy, trust and doubt, hope and fear, love and hate are all part of the divine economy of salvation because they, in their different ways, bring us into contact with God. But it is critical for believers to understand their emotions as one aspect within the broader context of their faith and their relationship with God – not as constitutive of their faith.ⁱⁱ

Easter is not about emotions, cheeful and joyous as the occasion might be. Easter is about death – Christ's death for the salvation of your souls. That fact may generate good feelings, but faith is rooted in the Truth, not in the Feeling.

Easter is about death. And this is Good News. This is Gospel – with a capital G. Easter is about the display of the end of death. Death is satisfied. The grave is defeated, broken open, and laid bare for all to see. Easter is about the death of Jesus on the cross, so that it might not be about the death of sinners for eternity. This is Good News, and you can feel good about that.

 

Emotions result from assessments made about the past, present, and future—and Christianity grounds its believers in a specific past, present, and future. Through the act of Baptism, we are incorporated into the story of God healing a fractured world. We are adopted into the household of faith, meaning that Israel’s story has become our story. Thus, we no longer see the past, present, and future the same way as the world. We no longer need to embrace a narrative that says only the fittest will survive. We no longer need to see our happiness as tied to what gadgets and goods we possess. We no longer need to live in denial of the immense suffering and death that pervades human existence. We no longer need to look to the future with utter uncertainty, for we know that our story ends with fellowship with God and all the saints.ⁱⁱⁱ 

You know that Christ has come, Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again. You know that you have peace with God through the blood of the cross. You know that you are a beloved child of our heavenly Father because He has engraved His Name upon you. You know that your sins are forgiven because the Body and Blood of our Lord are placed into your mouth.

 

Christ is revealed to you in the same ways He revealed Himself to the disciples, as St. Luke records. He is revealed to you when His Holy Spirit grants you faith to plumb the depths of Scriptures, drawing from those twin wells the water of salvation. He is revealed to you in the speaking of the Word, in the preaching of Christ crucified for the forgiveness of your sins. He is revealed to you in the breaking of the bread, as the Body of Christ is offered to you in a blessed feast of forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration. You are restored to fellowship with God, to communion with all the saints, and to peace and joy within yourself.

 

If you are looking for good feelings and nice emotions, then look at this. Look to the real Good News – that death is dead and life reigns immortal. You can feel good about the fact that Christ is risen for the forgiveness of your sins. You can feel good about the fact that you are reconciled with God and you have a place in heaven.

 

But even if you feel down-trodden, even if you feel worn out, even if you feel tired and sick, even if you feel nothing at all, the Good News is nevertheless still true. Christ has died for you, and no vacillation of feeling in your bosom can change that. Thanks be to God for facts!

 

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

 

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

iDavid G. Bonagura, Jr. “Faith and Emotion”. The Catholic Thing, 6 Feb 2014

iiIbid.

iii Matthew Richard Schlimm. Emotions and Faith: The Perplexing Relationship Between What We Feel and What We Believe. At This Point. V6, n1, Spring 2011