March 16: When Doubt Assails Us
♫ Music:
Saturday, March 16
Christ is Life
Scripture: 1 John 1:1-4
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
Poetry:
Learning to Talk
by Minnie Bruce Pratt
On Magnolia Avenue there are no magnolias. Someone bought
the house of the one survivor. All morning I heard the chainsaw
sever its limbs from root to bud. No more scattered flowers, star city.
No pink galaxy. Now the yard is a parking space, one Jeep SUV,
one older car. Next door a woman comes out, late afternoon,
a child in her arms. She speaks low, as if there’s just the two of them.
She says to him, Listen to the little birdies, and he listens to
the common sparrows talking in the hedge. He listens as they argue
back and forth, their dialect of nature, as the street clatters with commuters
taking a shortcut home. She says: Listen. And he turns his head to follow
the fugitive motion, the small streaked wings unfolding, folding,
the relentless chirp from a tiny blunt beak, the sound almost within reach.
WHEN DOUBT ASSAILS US
We live in a world that challenges us to know the difference between what is real news and what is fake news. In John’s day many seriously proclaimed a counterfeit Jesus. Consequently, much debate and several church councils were necessary to come to agreement about Christ. There were numerous heresies and false teachers from the earliest days of the Church. They were what John called antichrists. In 2:18 he says …”as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come.”
John offers himself as one who can be trusted to know the real Christ - that Christ was truly God, truly human. He could do this because he was a disciple who followed Jesus for three years and knew him fully. John refuted the heresies causing divisions within the churches. His penultimate, undeniable refutation was his personal witness to the crucifixion and the resurrection. On this basis, John had full authority to rally confidence and fealty to Christ and his church.
In verses three and four, he calls for a steadfast fellowship by defining that fellowship as that which believers experience with the Father and the Son. The concept of fellowship comes from the Greek word koinonia. Its root means commonand speaks to unityof the church. As believers we are invited to participate in the same koinoniaas the Trinity enjoys. The purpose of this letter is to call us to right fellowship.
John’s letter causes us to consider what creates doubt. In truth, to doubt is human. Doubt can run alongside faith and dwell in our mind simultaneously but the path to victory over doubt is choosing to exercise faith. We are reminded in Hebrews 11:1, the essence of faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” To choose faith over doubt is to attach ourselves to Christ and to be willing to live with unanswered questions.
Faith is the antidote to doubt and creates the environment in which joy resides. Joy is the character ofkoinoniawithin the Trinity to which we are invited to continually dwell. “Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10b) John says in verse three, “and we are writing these things so that our joy may be made complete.”
The art for today shows us how Thomas was overcome with grief. Doubt of the resurrection locked him in to inability to accept either truth or joy. Jesus graciously invited Thomas to touch him and verify he was real. By choosing faith, Thomas regained his lost attachment to Christ. Likewise, the recipients of John’s letter included those who had lost their connection to the real Christ. Pastor John implores them to exercise faith over doubt; to experience the joy of knowing him and others in community where true koinonia exists.
When Thomas was invited to reattach to the real Christ, he entered into the joy Christ offered. So greatly was Thomas’ joy restored, it resulted in him giving the remainder of his life in service as a missionary to India. To this day, the church in India exists because of Thomas’ work.
This divine connection is that which brings us into koinoniawith the Godhead. What the Trinity had before the beginning of time, is what we gain as members of the household of God. This koinoniais a condition of our glorious future of continuous joy. This Lenten season, we have the opportunity to assess our source of joy. It behooves us to abide in joy through faith.
Prayer:
Lord God, we confess our doubt of the real Christ that lurks in the shadows of our minds and hearts. We need the Holy Spirit to draw us in to complete koinoniaas individuals and as the community of faith. We long for the joy you provide that is the characteristic of fellowship of the Trinity. Help us to dwell in unity of purpose; fill us with your presence.
Amen
Dr. Glenn T. Collard
Director of Coram Deo International
Charlotte, North Carolina
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day,we have provided resources under the “About”tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
The Doubt of Thomas, 2014
Dr. He Qi
Thomas was a disciple of Jesus who refused to believe that the resurrected Christ had appeared to the ten other apostles until he could see and feel the wounds received by Jesus on the cross. His faith was based solely on what he could touch and see for himself. It is worth noting that Jesus did not rebuke Thomas for his doubt, but instead had compassion for his all-too-human struggle with doubt and lack of faith. His invitation to all doubters is the same as to Thomas; test the evidence and believe. In response, "Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" This enlightening statement by Thomas is considered to be among the greatest confessions of faith ever made. Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Jesus was thinking of those who would later base their faith upon the message of His disciples.
About the Artist:
Dr. He Qi was among the many people sent to the countryside during the Chinese Cultural Revolution between 1966-1976. As a young man, he escaped hard labor by painting pictures of Chairman Mao Zedong. During those early years, Dr. Qi found a copy of Madonna and Child by Renaissance artist Raphael and was so moved by it that he began to paint copies of it at night. He earned a doctorate in religious art from Nanjing Art Institute, a Chinese institution dedicated to the fine arts, and also studied medieval art in Hamburg, Germany. He was a professor of Christian Art at the Nanjing Theological Seminary before moving to St. Paul, Minnesota, in 2004. He is a member of the Chinese Art Association and a former council member of the Asia Christian Art Association. His work has been seen in many international journals and media outlets and he has exhibited widely in Asia, Europe, and the United States.
About the Music:
“Of the Master's Hospitality Let Us Partake” from the album Ancient Chants of the Russian Orthodox Church
About the Composer:
Russian traditional
About the Performers:
The Moscow Patriarchate Choir, Anatoli Grindenko conducting
The Moscow Patriarchate Choir was founded by Anatoly Grindenko in 1983. The Choir consists of thirteen members. The singers are dedicated scholars of the repertoire for male voices, who led the way in the recovery of Orthodox church music in the late years of the Soviet Regime. At that time the government did not support the Choir’s efforts and the group spent years decoding ancient manuscripts and finally giving the first performances of music that had not been sung for centuries. The choir has appeared throughout Europe and the United States.
Anatoly Grindenko (b. 1950) is a Russian viola da gamba performer, an expert on early music and znamenny chant singing tradition, and the director of The Moscow Patriarchate Choir. Grindenko became one of the first Russian viola da gamba players to give solo concerts, and he has been performing with Gidon Kremer, Alexander Rudin, Andres Mustonen, Nazar Kozhukhar, Andrew Lawrence-King, and many other artists and ensembles. At some point in his career Grindenko decided to pursue a spiritual path and went to the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius Monastery to become a monk, but he was not accepted. After spending three years there, Anatoly established a choir with local seminarians and composed a liturgy based on traditional Znamenny chant, a singing tradition used in the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1985, he decided to create the Moscow Patriarchate Choir, which has performed internationally.
About the Poet:
Minnie Bruce Pratt (b. 1946) is an American educator, activist, and essayist. She is a Professor of Writing and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. She has published six books of poetry, The Sound of One Fork, We Say We Love Each Other, Crime Against Nature, Walking Back Up Depot Street, The Money Machine, and The Dirt She Ate: Selected and New Poems. Pratt has also received a Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Fellowship in Poetry from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She graduated with a BA from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and received her Ph.D. in English Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
About the Devotional Writer:
Dr. Glenn T. Collard
Director of Coram Deo International
Charlotte, North Carolina
Dr. Glenn T. Collard is the Director of Coram Deo International (Before the Face of God), in Charlotte, North Carolina, a ministry encouraging a resurgence of historic, authentic worship in today’s church. He writes, “The central concept of Coram Deo International is to live every day before the face of God. I believe this is the key to both the spiritual formation of the individual and of the resurgence of the church. The unifying principle is to anchor our current praxis to the ancient church fathers.” Glenn and his wife Dianne are the parents of three children. Their oldest son, Tim, is with the Lord. They have two other grown children, who are married and serving the Lord. They are the proud grandparents of five granddaughters.