Was blind but now I see. . .

This Christian stuff is not easy and sometimes it really burns me when folks try to make it seem easy.  I especially detest that "let go and let God" saying.  We Christians struggle with what it is that we believe and confess.  It is never easy and never simple.  There is no such thing as the simple faith of Jesus and there is even less of no such thing in the simple faith in Jesus.  If it were simple or easy, we would not need a Holy Spirit to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify us.  But we do.  We do because faith is not easy or simple.

Jesus repeatedly tells His disciples and us that we have not seen the Father.  Duh.  Just show us the Father, somebody once said.  We have not and do not see the Father.  Jesus does.  He has seen the Father.  He comes from the Father.  He is the embodiment of the Father's heart, His saving will and purpose.  Jesus does not tell us we need to see the Father or even that we can see the Father.  Seeing Jesus is enough.  For the disciples that was a little more straightforward.  After all, for three years they walked with Him, heard His voice, witnessed His miracles, touched Him, and saw Him die and then risen again.  No wonder they did not have to see the Father.  They saw Jesus and that was enough.

Or was it?  They had constant doubts.  When Jesus was talking or doing miracles or revealing the hidden Kingdom to them, they were somewhere else.  At least in their minds, anyway,  Sometimes they were even asleep.  Their doubts drove them to Jesus because they did not know where else to go.  Somebody once said that, I think.  Doubts in the face of a little boy's lunch multiplied while they carried the baskets of leftovers.  Doubts before those whose ills left the world with little more than sympathy.  Doubts before the unmistakable voice and presence of Jesus when they thought they had seen Him dead and buried.  In the end, the doubts kept pushing them back to where they were not sure they wanted to go -- to Jesus.  Peter put it best.  Where else can we go?  Lord know, Peter and the rest of them had tried to find somebody else.  Doubts can either gnaw away at what little faith is left until there is nothing (Judas) or they can push you into the arms of One who has seen the Father (the rest of the apostles).

Jesus never said it would be easy or simple.  In fact, He reminded them of their doubts and asked them if they were going to give up and just walk away.  In the end, they could not just walk away.  Only one had seen the Father, come down from heaven into flesh and blood, paid the debt for sin, died to kill death, and rise to raise up those who still had bodies to shed before they were made new and glorious.  Jesus asked them if they were offended because of Him.  He preached from the mound of the blessedness of those who were not offended by Him (whose doubts drove them into His arms and not away from Him).  And so we come.

When the Church got into the habit of making faith simple or easy and doctrine reasonable and flexible to fit the times and situations of the people, the pews emptied.  But when the full measure of what faith is and requires was laid before the people, they took up the cross and followed Him.  The easier and simpler we try to make faith and the easier and simpler we try to making following Him, the worse it will be for the Church.  It is in the desperate doubt that has surveyed every other option and found none that the broken are restored, raised up from despair and disappointment to follow Him.  It is in the hesitance before the call of God that saints are made from sinners and the strong forged from the weakest of stock.  Make worship easy and simple and fun, they said.  But they did not come and those who came did not bother to stay.  But hold up the mystery of the faith and invite the doubts to rest in the arms of the one and only who has seen the Father and, well, the Church lives.