Unless You See Signs and Wonders

A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

Racial Justice Sunday, 8 February 2026

John 4.46–54
2 Kings 5.1–19a

There is something almost deceptively understated about our gospel story for today,
            as we continue our journey through John’s gospel.

John doesn’t present it as a public confrontation or a dramatic display.
            No crowds gather. No controversy erupts.
            There are no raised voices, no visible opponents.

Instead, the story unfolds quietly, almost privately,
            as though we have been allowed to overhear an encounter
            rather than witness a performance.

Jesus has returned to Cana of Galilee,
            the place where water once became wine.

And it’s hard not to hear the echo of that earlier sign.
            That first miracle had been about abundance,
                        about joy arriving unnoticed at the edge of a celebration,
                        about quiet transformation rather than spectacle.

Now Jesus is back in the same place, but the mood is different.
            This time the air is heavy with fear.

And a royal official comes to Jesus because his son is dying.

John gives us just enough information to complicate our response.
            This is not a desperate peasant with nowhere else to turn.

This man is part of Herod’s administration, close to power,
            embedded in a compromised system of rule
            that maintained order through violence and inequality.
He represents privilege, authority, and proximity to empire.

And yet none of that matters now.

Because power cannot protect a child from death.
            Status cannot bargain with mortality.
            And influence cannot command life to stay.

When a son is at the point of death, every hierarchy collapses.
            All the leverage that usually works for this man has failed him.
So he does the only thing left to him.
            He travels.

The journey from Capernaum to Cana is around twenty miles,
            uphill most of the way.
This is not a casual visit.
            It’s a journey shaped by urgency, anxiety, and hope.

He comes because he has heard something.
            Perhaps a story circulating beyond official channels.
            Maybe a rumour that this Galilean teacher
                        can do what no court physician can manage.

And he begs Jesus to come down with him. To be present.
            To do what healers are supposed to do.
            To stand at the bedside. To intervene directly.

But Jesus doesn’t comply.
            Instead he offers theology rather than healing:

“Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
            At first hearing, these words sound abrupt, even unkind.

But perhaps Jesus isn’t dismissing the man
            so much as naming something
            that runs deeper than this one encounter.

Jesus exposes an instinct that shapes human life again and again.
            We want proof before we trust.
            We want certainty before we commit.
            We want to see before we will believe.

The official does not argue theology.
            He does not debate signs.
He simply presses his need.
            “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

And then Jesus does something unexpected.
            He refuses to go.

He withholds the thing the man thinks he needs most.
            There is no journey, no healing touch.
            No visible intervention.

Instead, Jesus offers only a word.
            “Go,” He says, “Your son will live.”

This is the moment everything hinges on.
            John tells us, almost quietly,
            that the man believed the word Jesus spoke
            and started on his way.

He leaves Cana with nothing tangible in his hands.
            No proof. No confirmation.
            Just a promise spoken by someone he barely knows.

The reassurance comes later.
            And it comes through his servants, who meet him on the road.
            Through the careful matching of times and hours.
            Through the slow realisation that the healing happened
                        at the exact moment Jesus spoke.

In this story, belief precedes evidence.
            Trust comes before explanation.

That matters, because John is never interested in miracles for their own sake.
            This isn’t about supernatural power on display.

Rather, this is about what belief looks like when certainty is withheld.
            It’s about what kind of faith reshapes a life.

John even tells us that the whole household comes to believe.
            And that detail is easy to skim past, but it’s crucial.
Households were not just private units of affection.
            They were economic units, social units,
            places where patterns of life were formed and reinforced.
Faith here is not a private conviction.
            It is a reordering of daily life.

 

And then, at this point in the story, John quietly widens the lens.

Having told us that the whole household came to believe,
            he then moves on, as though that were self-explanatory.

But it isn’t. Not really.

In the ancient world, a household was not just a family gathered around a table.
            It was a web of relationships.
Kin and servants. Dependants and labourers.
            People with very different degrees of power,
            bound together under one roof and one authority.

When John says that the household believes,
            he’s not describing a moment of collective piety.
            He is describing a change in the shape of everyday life.

The royal official’s authority doesn’t disappear.
            But it is now exercised differently.
His power is no longer the final word in the house.
            It’s been relativised by a promise he didn’t control
            and a healing he didn’t manage.

Belief, in this sense, is not simply
            about adding a religious layer to an existing structure.
Rather, it’s about allowing the structure itself to be questioned.

And this matters for us,
            because we are also part of households.

Not just domestic ones, but institutional ones.
            Congregations, workplaces, universities, neighbourhoods.
Each with their own hierarchies, habits, and unspoken rules
            about who is listened to and who is overlooked.

If belief reshapes households,
            then it asks uncomfortable questions of us.

How is authority exercised among us.
            Whose experience carries weight.
            Who is expected to adapt, and who is assumed to be the norm.

This is where the gospel quietly becomes political.
            Not in slogans or party allegiance,
            but in the patient reordering of relationships.
In the slow work of learning to live differently together.

The healing of one child becomes the beginning of a new social reality.
            Not because everything is suddenly perfect,
            but because something decisive has shifted.

A word has been trusted.
            A journey has been taken.
            And life has entered the house in a new way.

This becomes even clearer when we place this story
            alongside our Old Testament reading from 2 Kings,
            the story of Naaman the Syrian.

Another powerful man. Another military leader.
            Another figure accustomed to being obeyed.

And again, another man whose healing
            depends on voices he is tempted to ignore.

Naaman’s story turns on the word of an enslaved girl,
            taken from her homeland by violence.

It turns on servants who dare to speak truth to power.
            It turns on a prophet who refuses to come out and perform.

Naaman expects drama.
            He expects recognition.
            He expects healing to arrive in a form proportionate to his status.

Instead, he receives a message carried by others,
            a simple instruction that feels almost insulting in its ordinariness.

And like the royal official encountering Jesus,
            Naaman must decide whether he will trust a word that unsettles his pride.

In both stories, healing does not reinforce hierarchy.
            It disrupts it.

It’s worth also noticing that in both these stories,
            healing does not arrive without cost.

We often imagine healing as pure gain.
            As something added.
            As an uncomplicated good.

But for both Naaman and the royal official,
            healing comes alongside a kind of loss.

Naaman is healed of his disease,
            but he is also stripped of his illusions.

He loses the fantasy that power can command grace.
            He loses the assurance that his status will be honoured.

He must submit to a process that feels humiliating
            before it becomes life-giving.

The royal official, too, gains his son’s life,
            but he loses something else along the way.
He loses control.
            He loses the ability to manage the outcome.
He must entrust the most precious thing in his life
            to a word spoken by someone outside his world of influence.

In both cases, healing destabilises as much as it restores.

And that is important,
            because it names something we often prefer not to acknowledge.

Justice, like healing, can feel like loss
            to those who have benefitted from the way things are.

When hierarchies are disrupted,
            those who have lived comfortably within them
            may experience that change as disorientation.
                        As uncertainty.
                        As the unsettling sense that familiar patterns no longer hold.

But this does not mean the healing is wrong.
            It means it is real.

Racial justice work often falters at precisely this point.
            Not because people disagree with equality in principle,
            but because the emotional cost of change is underestimated.

It can feel like ground shifting under our feet.
            Like authority being questioned.
            Like a loss of innocence about how our institutions function.

The gospel does not deny that discomfort.
            It names it.
But it refuses to make comfort the measure of faithfulness.

Neither Naaman nor the royal official
            is asked to feel good about the process.
They are asked to trust it.

And perhaps that is a word some of us need to hear.

That the unease we feel
            when long-standing assumptions are challenged
            is not necessarily a sign that something has gone wrong.

It may be evidence that something truthful is taking place.

Healing that leaves everything exactly as it was is not healing.
            It is maintenance.

The stories we are given today invite us into something braver.
            Into a form of faith that allows power to be unsettled,
                        pride to be exposed,
                        and control to be relinquished,
            so that life can break in where it was previously constrained.

God’s life-giving power flows not through status or spectacle,
            but through trust, humility,
            and attentiveness to marginal voices.

And this is where Racial Justice Sunday
            presses in with particular force.

Because racism is not sustained only by overt hostility.
            It is sustained by habits of disbelief.
By systems that decide in advance
            whose testimony is credible
            and whose requires verification.
By assumptions about who needs evidence
            and who is believed by default.

These stories ask an uncomfortable question.
            Whose word do we trust?

There is a subtle temptation here,
            especially in churches like ours.

We value thoughtfulness. We care about nuance.
            We want to get things right.
            We read, we reflect, we discuss.

And yet the instinct Jesus names can still surface among us.

We are reluctant to act unless there is data.
            Unless there is consensus.
            Unless there is reassurance that we will not make mistakes.

And all of those things have their place.
            But they can also become ways of delaying trust,
            of postponing response,
of asking those who experience racial injustice
            to keep telling their stories until we feel sufficiently convinced.

The royal official is not offered that option.
            Jesus does not say, “Stay here while I prove it to you.”
Jesus says, “Go.”

And going involves risk.
            It means acting as though the word is true
            before it has been confirmed by experience.

It asks for something deeper than intellectual agreement.
            It asks for alignment.

In John’s story, belief reshapes a household.
            In our context, belief reshapes communities.

It asks how our shared life might be reorganised
            by the testimonies we hear.

It asks what practices might need to change.
            What voices might need to be centred.
            What comforts might need to be surrendered.

There is another detail that deepens this challenge.
            Jesus heals at a distance.

He doesn’t go to Capernaum.
            He doesn’t see the child.
The healing crosses absence and space.

Which tells us something vital.
            God’s work is not limited by proximity or familiarity.
We do not have to share someone’s experience
            in order to trust their word.

The royal official never witnesses the healing.
            He hears about it later.

John calls this healing a sign.
            Not an ending, but a pointer.

A sign gestures beyond itself,
            towards a world reordered by trust,
            by boundary-crossing grace,
            by life that refuses to be contained by inherited power structures.

On Racial Justice Sunday,
            we are not claiming the work is complete.

We are acknowledging that the sign still points ahead.
            Towards communities where marginalised voices are trusted.
Towards belief that takes the form of costly action.
            Towards life, full and abundant,
            breaking through where it was least expected.

The royal official walks home carrying only a promise.
            Perhaps that is the invitation offered to us as well.

To walk the road of justice
            not because everything is settled,
            but because we have trusted the word that life is possible,
            and have chosen to begin the journey.

Amen.

Let us pray:

God of life,
            we come before you carrying many words,
some we have spoken aloud,
            and others that have lodged quietly within us.

We thank you for the stories we have heard through our lives,
            for journeys taken in fear and hope,
for promises trusted before they were proven,
            for healing that crossed distance and expectation.

We confess that we often want reassurance
            before we are willing to trust,
clarity before we are willing to act,
            and certainty before we are willing to change.

We confess that we are shaped by habits we did not choose,
            by systems that advantage some and silence others,
by assumptions about whose voices carry weight
            and whose stories need extra proof.

Forgive us when we demand signs and wonders
            before we will listen well.
Forgive us when discomfort becomes an excuse for delay.
Forgive us when we cling to control
            rather than entrusting ourselves to your word of life.

Teach us what it means to believe
            not only with our thoughts,
but with our steps,
            our shared life,
and the way we order our relationships.

Give us courage to walk the road
            before everything is resolved.
Give us humility to hear testimony
            that unsettles our assumptions.
Give us patience to stay open
            when healing feels costly.

We pray for households, communities, and institutions,
            that they may be reshaped by justice,
softened by truth,
            and opened to voices long ignored.

Where there is fear, speak life.
            Where there is silence, release truth.
            Where there is weariness, renew hope.

And as we prepare to leave this place,
            send us out carrying not certainty,
            but trust.
Not control,
            but commitment.

So that life, full and abundant,
            may take root among us,
and your healing work
            may continue on the road ahead.

Amen.

Living Water, Risky Encounters, and the Shape of Witness

A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

1 February 2026

John 4.1–42

If you wanted to design a scene
            that disrupted every expectation of how religious life is supposed to work,
            you could do worse than John chapter 4.

A Jewish man speaks publicly with a Samaritan woman.
            A rabbi asks to receive, not to give.
A woman with no recognised authority
            becomes the first evangelist to her community.
A conversation begins with water
            and ends with transformed relationships.

And all of this takes place not in a synagogue, not in Jerusalem,
            not on a mountain charged with holiness, but beside a well.
An ordinary place. A necessary place.
            A place people go because they need to survive.

John’s gospel, more than any other, invites us to slow down and linger.
            This is not a story that can be rushed.
It unfolds in layers, with misunderstandings, interruptions, silences,
            and moments where what matters most is not what is said,
            but who stays present to whom.

At Bloomsbury, we are used to complexity.
            We are used to faith that does not come neatly packaged,
            to lives that do not conform to religious scripts,
            to questions that remain open longer than some traditions find comfortable.
And this story, I think, speaks precisely into that space.

Because this is not a story about getting it right.
            It is not a story about repentance before welcome.
            It is not a story about moral reform as the price of encounter.

Rather, it is a story about what happens
            when Jesus meets someone where they actually are,
            and what that encounter sets in motion.

Crossing the wrong boundaries

John tells us that Jesus “had to go through Samaria”.
            That line can sound deceptively neutral,
            as though it were simply the shortest route.

But every first-century listener would know
            that this is not straightforward geography.

Many Jews avoided Samaria entirely,
            even if it meant a longer and more difficult journey.

Samaria was a contested place,
            marked by ethnic hostility, theological dispute, and historical trauma.
Jews and Samaritans shared scriptures but not interpretations.
            They shared ancestry but not trust.
            They shared land but not table fellowship.

So when John says that Jesus “had to go through Samaria”,
            we are already being alerted that necessity here is not about convenience.
            It is about vocation.

Jesus stops at Jacob’s well, a site heavy with ancestral memory.
            Wells in scripture are places where stories turn.
            They are sites of betrothal, revelation, and unexpected meeting.
Think of Rebecca, Rachel, Zipporah.
            Wells are places where survival and relationship meet.

Jesus is tired. John makes a point of telling us that.
            And this isn’t incidental.
The Word made flesh doesn’t float above the body.
            He is thirsty. He needs water. He sits.

And then comes the encounter that should not happen.

A Samaritan woman comes to draw water,
            and Jesus asks her for a drink.

The request itself is already transgressive.
            Jewish purity codes, ethnic hostility, and gender conventions
            all say that this interaction is inappropriate.
But John doesn’t treat this as a dramatic shock moment.
            He allows it to unfold with almost quiet insistence.

Jesus does not open with theology.
            He doesn’t begin with judgement.
He begins with vulnerability.

            “Give me a drink.” He says to her.

The one through whom all things came into being
            asks to receive something from someone
            whose society tells her she should not even be addressed.

This is where the story begins,
            and this is where we need to linger.

Because Christian faith has often been framed as something we dispense,
            rather than something we receive.
As certainty we offer,
            rather than encounter we risk.
As answers we possess,
            rather than thirst we acknowledge.

But here, Jesus begins not with authority, but with need.

Misunderstanding as invitation

The conversation that follows is full of misunderstanding.
            Jesus speaks of living water,
                        and the woman hears a promise of running water.
            Jesus speaks symbolically,
                        and she responds practically.

This pattern recurs throughout John’s gospel.
            Nicodemus misunderstands being born from above.
            The crowds misunderstand the bread of life.
            Martha misunderstands resurrection.
John is not mocking these misunderstandings.
            Rather, he uses them as doorways.

Misunderstanding is not failure.
            It is often the first step of engagement.

The Samaritan woman is not slow or obtuse.
            She is sharp, perceptive, and quick to respond.
She notices the boundary crossing.
            “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman?” she says.

She names what is usually left unspoken.
            And Jesus doesn’t correct her.
He doesn’t deny the reality of the boundary.
            He simply steps across it.

When Jesus speaks of living water,
            he’s not offering a spiritual upgrade.
            He’s not dismissing her material need.
Rather, he is speaking of a different kind of life,
            a life that doesn’t run dry,
            a life that isn’t dependent on constant return to the same sources
                        that never quite satisfy.

In John’s gospel, eternal life is not a future reward.
            It is a present quality of life rooted in relationship with God.
It is life lived in the light, life that flows,
            life that doesn’t need to be hoarded.

And this is important,
            because the woman’s life
            has clearly required careful management of resources.
Water must be drawn daily.
            Relationships have been complex.
            Security hasn’t been guaranteed.

One detail in this story that is easy to pass over too quickly is the time of day.
            John tells us that it is about noon, the hottest part of the day.

Preachers have often used this to suggest
            that the woman comes to the well at an unusual hour to avoid other people,
            implying shame or social exclusion.

But once again, the text doesn’t require that conclusion.
            What it does insist upon is the exposure of the moment.

This isn’t a conversation that takes place under cover of darkness,
            like Nicodemus’ visit earlier in the gospel.
This isn’t a private, protected, night-time exchange
            where questions can be asked without being seen.

This encounter happens in full light,
            when the sun is high and shadows are short.

Nothing is hidden here.
            Nothing is softened by anonymity.

John is careful with such details,
            and here the contrast matters.

Nicodemus, a respected male religious leader, came to Jesus by night.
            This unnamed Samaritan woman, without status or protection,
            meets Jesus in the full glare of day.

If John is inviting comparison, then the implication is unsettling.
            Those with social power often seek the safety of darkness,
            while those without it conduct their lives in full visibility.

And yet, it is in the brightness of noon
            that recognition and transformation take place.

The living water Jesus offers is not something dispensed in secret.
            It isn’t reserved for those who can manage their reputation.
Rather, it’s given in the open, where life is actually lived.

For a church like ours, this matters.
            Much harm has been done by forms of faith that operate in shadows,
            that demand secrecy, denial, or silence in order to belong.

This story insists that encounter with God doesn’t require concealment.
            It happens in the light, with lives as they really are.

Living water is not about escape from exposure,
            but about sustaining life within it.
It is the gift of being able to stand in the open,
            known and unhidden,
            and still discover that God is present there.

And so we return to the woman,
            and we find that Jesus doesn’t romanticise her situation.
But neither does he reduce her to it.

“Go, call your husband”, he says

Few lines in scripture have generated as much damage as this one.

            “Go, call your husband, and come back.”

So often this moment has been treated as a dramatic unmasking,
            a revelation of hidden sin,
            a turning point where the woman’s moral failure is exposed.

And as I have preached before,
            the text simply does not support that reading.

There is no accusation.
            There is no call to repentance.
            There is no offer of forgiveness.

What there is, is recognition.

Jesus acknowledges the reality of her life without commentary.
            He names it accurately, without judgement or rescue.
And the woman doesn’t collapse in shame.
            She doesn’t apologise. She doesn’t defend herself.

She simply recognises that she has been seen.

“He told me everything I have ever done.”

Not everything she has ever done wrong.
            But everything she has ever done.

In a world where women’s lives were often rendered invisible
            unless they transgressed,
to be fully seen was itself transformative.

We don’t know the story behind her marriages, and we don’t need to.
            The gospel isn’t interested in satisfying our curiosity.
Rather it’s interested in showing us what it looks like
            when someone’s whole life is acknowledged
            as the context for encounter with God.

This isn’t a story about moral correction.
            It’s a story about relational truth.

And that matters deeply in a church context,
            because too many people have been taught
            that they must explain, justify, or repair themselves
            before they are eligible for divine encounter.

But this story says otherwise.

Worship beyond the right place

The conversation shifts, as conversations often do
            when something vulnerable has been named.

The woman raises a theological question about worship.
            Which mountain is the right one?

This isn’t deflection. It’s discernment.
            She is testing whether this encounter can hold the weight of real difference.

Jesus’ response is one of the most radical statements in the gospel.
            Worship is no longer anchored to geography.
            It’s no longer confined to sacred sites.
            Rather, it is re-located in relationship.

God is not accessed through the correct location,
            but through truth and spirit.

And truth here is not doctrinal precision.
            It is openness. It is alignment.
            It is life lived without duplicity.

This is not an argument against tradition or embodied practice.
            It is a refusal to allow any system to monopolise access to God.

And for a congregation like Bloomsbury,
            rooted in a tradition that has always questioned established power,
            this matters.
It reminds us that God is not contained by our structures,
            even the ones we cherish.

The Spirit blows where it will.
            Grace refuses to stay put.
And encounter happens in places we didn’t plan.

The interruption of discipleship

And then, just as the conversation reaches its depth,
            the disciples return. And their reaction is telling.

They are astonished that Jesus is speaking with a woman.
            But they don’t say anything.

John often uses silence as commentary.
            And their silence reveals discomfort.
They don’t yet have the language for what they are witnessing.

The woman, meanwhile, leaves her water jar and goes back to the city.

This detail is easy to overlook, but it’s significant.
            She leaves behind the very thing she came for.
Not because water no longer matters,
            but because something else has claimed her attention.

She becomes a witness, not because she has everything figured out,
            but because she has encountered something she cannot keep to herself.

“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done.
            He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”

Her testimony is tentative. It is invitational.
            It leaves room for others to discover for themselves.

This is not evangelism as persuasion.
            It is evangelism as overflow.

The woman’s witness contrasts with the disciples’ misunderstanding.
            While they are concerned with food and status,
            she is attentive to transformation.

She becomes the bridge through which her community encounters Jesus.

Abundance redefined

When the Samaritans come to Jesus,
            they ask him to stay. And he does. For two days.

This is remarkable.
            Jesus doesn’t rush on.
He doesn’t treat Samaria as a brief stopover.
            Rather he stays in a place that religious convention told him to avoid.

And many come to believe,
            not because of the woman’s testimony alone,
            but because of their own encounter with Jesus.

This is how faith spreads in John’s gospel.
            Not through coercion, not through argument,
            but through relationship.

The story ends with a declaration that Jesus is the Saviour of the world.
            Not the saviour of the righteous.
            Not the saviour of those who get it right.
But the saviour of the world.

And that is a profoundly political claim.
            It relativises every boundary, every hierarchy,
            every claim to exclusive access.

It says that no one’s life is outside the scope of divine concern.
            It says that no one’s story is too complex for encounter.
It says that abundant life begins not in the future, but here.

Living water today

So what does this story ask of us?

It asks whether we are willing to meet people where they actually are,
            rather than where we think they should be.

It asks whether we can allow misunderstanding to be part of the journey,
            rather than a reason to withdraw.

It asks whether we trust that God is already at work
            beyond our boundaries.

And perhaps most searchingly,
            it asks whether we are willing to recognise our own thirst.

Because this is not just a story about the Samaritan woman.
            It is a story about Jesus, tired and thirsty, sitting at a well.

It is a story about a God who does not wait for us to get it right,
            but meets us in the heat of the day,
            in the ordinary places of survival, and offers life that flows.

Life that does not depend on constant self-justification.
            Life that is not exhausted by complexity.
Life that is sustained by relationship.

And that, surely, is good news worth sharing.

Not as certainty.
Not as control.
But as an invitation.

As the woman says, “Come and see.”

 

Is Doubt the End of Faith?

This week's Bloomsbury Online Group will be reflecting on the question of 'Is Doubt the End of Faith?' 

For many Christians, doubt is treated as something to be managed quietly, if not eliminated altogether. We worry that questions signal weakness, that uncertainty betrays a lack of trust, or that admitting doubt somehow places us on the edge of faith rather than within it. Yet when we listen carefully to the Christian story, a very different picture emerges.

Doubt is not a modern failure of nerve. It is woven into the fabric of Scripture itself.

From the beginning, the people of God are those who question, hesitate, argue, and wrestle. Abraham laughs at the promise of a child. Moses doubts his ability to lead. The psalmists cry out in confusion and protest. The prophets rail against God as much as they speak for God. Even the disciples, who walk with Jesus, repeatedly misunderstand, falter, and fail to grasp what is happening in front of them.

Doubt, it seems, is not the opposite of faith. It is part of faith’s lived reality.

Often when we speak of doubt, we imagine its opposite to be certainty. But biblical faith is rarely about certainty in the modern sense. It is not the possession of airtight answers or unshakeable propositions. Faith is trust. Faith is relationship. Faith is faithfulness over time. And trust, by its very nature, involves risk, vulnerability, and the willingness to step forward without full clarity.

This is why the familiar caricature of “Doubting Thomas” deserves closer attention. Thomas is not presented in the gospel as a cynical sceptic or a spoiler of Easter joy. He is absent when the risen Jesus first appears. He hears testimony that feels too good to be true. He refuses to rely on second-hand faith. He wants to know for himself.

That desire is not condemned.

When Jesus meets Thomas, he does not shame him for asking. He does not withdraw his presence. He does not say, “You should have known better.” Instead, he offers himself. He invites Thomas into encounter. And out of that encounter comes one of the most profound confessions in the New Testament: “My lord and my god.”

What stands opposed to faith here is not doubt, but faithlessness. Not honest questioning, but disengagement. Thomas is not drifting away. He is still in the community. Still listening. Still seeking. His doubt is not an exit from faith, but a stage within it.

This matters deeply for the church today.

Too often our communities imply that good Christians have things neatly sorted out. That faith means confidence. That spiritual maturity looks like having fewer questions rather than better ones. The result is that doubt becomes something to hide. Questions are suppressed. Uncertainty is carried alone.

Yet a faith that cannot accommodate doubt is a brittle faith. It may look strong on the surface, but it fractures under pressure. When life disrupts our assumptions, when suffering resists easy explanations, when inherited beliefs no longer make sense, a faith built on certainty alone often cannot hold.

By contrast, a faith that has learned to live with doubt is often more resilient. It has already practised trust without guarantees. It knows that God is not reduced to our understanding. It is less threatened by ambiguity, and more open to growth.

Doubt can be a catalyst. It can push us to think more deeply, pray more honestly, and engage more seriously with Scripture and tradition. It can lead us away from borrowed faith and towards something more personal and embodied. It can open us to community, because questions invite conversation rather than closure.

None of this means that doubt is comfortable. It can be unsettling, even painful. It can feel like standing on shifting ground. But Scripture suggests that God is not anxious about our questions. God meets people in their wrestling. God seems willing to be argued with, lamented before, even accused, rather than ignored.

Faith, in this light, is not the absence of doubt but the decision to keep turning towards God within it.

This has implications for how we relate to one another in the church. If doubt is part of the Christian life, then our communities need to be places where questions are welcomed rather than policed. Where uncertainty is met with patience rather than correction. Where people are allowed to speak honestly without fear of being judged as deficient or unfaithful.

It also invites us to be gentler with ourselves. Many people carry quiet anxiety that their questions disqualify them. That if they were “really faithful” they would feel more certain, more settled, more sure. But faith is not a static possession. It grows, shifts, deepens, and sometimes unravels before it is re-formed.

The God we encounter in Scripture is not a fragile deity who requires our certainty to survive. This is a God who enters human vulnerability, who meets people in locked rooms and broken expectations, who bears wounds rather than erasing them. A God who invites relationship, not performance.

So perhaps the better question is not whether doubt is the end of faith, but whether it might be one of the ways faith becomes real.

A faith that has never doubted may never have been tested. A faith that has wrestled, questioned, and struggled may be one that has learned how to trust more deeply, more honestly, and more humbly.

Doubt, then, is not something to fear. It is something to attend to. Something to carry thoughtfully. Something that, held within community and prayer, can become a doorway rather than a dead end.

Faith does not begin where questions end. Often, it begins where we dare to ask them.