Every mountain has a north face. The north face is always the darkest, scariest and hardest side of a peak to ascend. According to my rock climber friends, it is also the most interesting and compelling side of the mountain. Maybe the experience of doubt is like climbing on the north face: sometimes exhilarating, sometimes motivating, sometimes perilous and deadly.
And if there is a character in Scripture who models “faith on the north face” and speaks from this cold, dark, yet compelling place, it is Thomas. Perhaps it is a kind of hidden joke within the lectionary that on the first Sunday after Easter, a Sunday known for low attendance in worship, we meet Thomas, the guy who wasn’t there. Having met the risen Lord in the flesh, the disciples receive a bodily grasp on the reality of the resurrection. Thomas, not so much. He’s left alone to sing in the dark.
Doubts and questions come unbidden, threatening to shake us. Yet Christ has walked that lonely north face, has climbed a hill of death of our sakes. Risen, Christ meets us there still, just as he met Thomas, wounds and all.
This message is excerpted from “Mountains with many faces” by Liv Larson Andrews in the April 2017 Gather magazine. Today is the Second Sunday of Easter.
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