Tell Me Why You Believe

I John 5:6-13

Easter Sunday fell on April 5 this year.  It’s been a month and a half since then.  But it’s still Easter.  Notice that on the front of your bulletin, where we mark the liturgical calendar, it’s the seventh Sunday of the Easter season.  Though we’ve been reading I John for several weeks and it seems that Resurrection Sunday was a long time ago, we’re just now finishing the liturgical season of Easter. 

This is the wisdom of worship-shaped calendar time – the resurrection isn’t something you get figured out in a weekend.  It’s worth at least a season of reflection and wrestling and hoping.

And today’s reading – our last in a series of readings from I John – brings before us the themes of testimony, testifying, and testing.  This is courtroom language.  And so this morning we’ll take some time to consider whether there’s good testimony – good evidence – for us to live with resurrection hope.  Do we really have good evidence to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead and now lives among us as risen Lord?  And what kind of evidence are we looking for anyway?

 

So if you were in a conversation with someone, and it came up that you’re involved here at First Presbyterian, and the person just bluntly asked you, “Why do you believe?” – how would you respond?  What kind of testimony would you give?  What kind of appeal to evidence would help you make your case? 

The first three verses of our reading immediately alert us to how complicated and rich is this question about testimony.  Jesus Christ came by “water and blood” we’re told.  Last week, I suggested these verses might be alluding to the “water and blood” that flowed from the side of the crucified Jesus when he was pierced with a spear (John 19:34).  If so, that image might be birth imagery – as if Jesus’ death is itself a kind of birth experience for us.

But there seems to be something else going on.  “Water and blood” might also be a shorthand way of referring to the beginning and ending of Jesus’ public ministry.  From the water of his baptism to the blood he shed on the cross, Jesus was God’s Son sent to deliver us from our distress.  By water Jesus was baptized into a powerful ministry of healing and teaching.  By blood Jesus freely died to deliver us from all that threatens us.

We’re trying to get some traction in answering the question, “Why do we believe what we believe?”  And the first perspective offered by our reading is to point us to the life of Jesus Christ.  His life, from his baptism in the Jordan River to his death on the cross, is one kind of testimony.  In other words, the gospel accounts we have of Jesus’ life offer us a kind of testimony that we can rely on.  We are pointed to a basic story, to a plotline of events that make up Jesus’ life – what he did and suffered.  And that storyline is part of the testimony we rely on.  It’s one of the reasons we believe. 

So when someone asks us, Why do you believe?  One of the first things we can say is that when we read the gospel stories we find them compelling and real.  They get us close to the truth of the matter about the complexity and difficulty of life.  Now some of you are already ahead of me here.  That can’t be enough, you’re thinking.  Just pointing to the gospel stories about Jesus life can’t be sufficient evidence.  Because even if some of us believe the gospel stories, other people don’t.  Other people read or hear the same stories and decide that they are false, or exaggerated, or manufactured.  So what it is it that leads me to believe the stories and decide to trust in God’s love when others read the same story and walk away unmoved and unconvinced?

Let’s keep reading, because the letter deals with this very question.  “And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.  For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement” (vs. 6-8).  So it wasn’t just the “water and blood,” the ministry of Jesus from baptism to crucifixion that convinced us that God is real and that God was in Jesus Christ loving us and saving us.  It was God’s Spirit that made the difference. 

So now we have to add something.  When others ask us why we believe, we can tell them that we find the gospel stories about Jesus convincing.  But then we need to add that this wasn’t some discovery we made on our own.  We didn’t pore over mounds of research until we had a “eureka!” moment.  No, what happened was that God’s Spirit gave us the gift of believing.  Believing and trusting God wasn’t really something we did.  It’s something that happened to us.

Now the person we’re in conversation with asks, us, “How does God’s Spirit convince you that this is all true”  And we say, “I don’t know.”   And we really don’t know.  But now in answering the question, “Why do we believe?” – we have to add that we have come under the influence of God’s Spirit who has opened our hearts to see the truth of the good news about Jesus Christ.  It’s not because we’re smart and figured it out.  And it’s not that we just inherited the belief from our parents or grandparents.  This faith is ours.  And it’s ours because when we hear the story of Jesus’ life, God’s Spirit convinces us that this is the story of God’s love for us and that it calls for our full response.

Of course we know that the Bible was written by human beings.  And we know that the important people in our lives are human beings.  And our parents are human beings.  And our pastor is a very flawed human being.  So we’re not against human testimony.  We care what others experience and think, and we take all that into account when we commit to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength.

“We accept human testimony,” our reading says.  “But God’s testimony is greater” (v. 9).  So when I explain to someone else why I believe in the God who raised Jesus from the dead, I cannot simply cite all the other people I respect who also believe this.  That might be worth mentioning.  And in fact, that’s very important to many of us.  But it’s not enough. 

The human testimony of other people can’t quite anchor our confidence.  For stability and assurance we need God’s own testimony.  And God’s testimony is the sending of the Son.  And the work of the Spirit in our hearts and minds.

Jesus’ life, confirmed by the work of God’s Spirit, just is God’s testimony to us.  If you look at the gospels and see that story as God’s love for the world – and for you personally, you believe God’s testimony.  If you look at the gospels and refuse to see yourself and all others as loved by God, you have called God a liar.  You’ve mistrusted the voice of God at precisely the point where God has offered it to you.

But now let’s come back to your testimony.  Someone has asked you why you believe what you believe.  And you’ve given them your bit about God’s Spirit helping you see the gospel stories as true.  But now your friend sighs, and asks a different kind of question.  They say something like, “But do you really experience God’s love as true?  I mean, do you feel it?  I know you go to church and believe the Bible.  But what I really want to know is how you deal with loss and grief and disappointment and all the terrible things that happen in the world.  Can you really tell me from your own experience that Jesus Christ is risen and that God’s love is real?”

Let me read a bit more before offering a response to this kind of question.  “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (vs. 11-12).  Now I know that this sounds a little flat-footed and divisive.  It sounds too black and white to us.  But what I want you to notice is the central theme of this letter.  God has already given us “eternal life” now.  That is, something new has already broken into your life.  Your personality and your relationships have already been invaded and infected by the good news.  It has already begun working its way into your life.  Just like John’s gospel, “eternal life” is something we enjoy now, not something off in the distant future.

The whole purpose of this letter is found in v. 13 – “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”  The letter aims not simply at imparting some information.  The letter aims at instilling confidence and assurance in us that we are God’s children, that God has given us eternal life now.  So what God has already done for us is available to us in our own experience of the world, and that’s another important kind of testimony. 

And this life-changing letter of I John is as clear as can be: the love of the invisible God is made real for us only in the visible ways we love one another.  We experience and express God’s love by meeting the ordinary needs of people around us.    

So we might respond to our friend this way, “You’re right.  Life sometimes makes it hard to believe that everything and everyone is loved by God.  Lots of our own experience seems to contradict that.  So I guess I’ve had to learn to look for signs of God’s love in the ways people love and care for one another.  That’s what gives me confidence.  I see people make sacrifices, not just for their own children, but for people they don’t even know that well.  I see people share their money, time, and energy to help others that could never pay them back.  I see people go out of their way to say kind and encouraging things to folks in difficult situations.  I see people giving rides to others, visiting them when they’re sick, helping them pay bills when the money runs out.  And for me, those experiences give me confidence that God’s love is real.”

Now for some of you the kind of testimony and evidence we’ve talked about this morning will not be enough.  You were wanting and expecting something more.  But the most faithful thing we can do as a congregation is to refuse to offer one another illusions and false confidence.  There is no knock-down, drag-out argument that all of this is true.  You have to gamble.  You have to place a bet based on what you’ve experienced.  You have to say “Yes” with your life to the God who appears quietly in small acts of love and then seems to vanish for long periods of our lives. 

Giving testimony is a central practice for people of faith.  We are to learn the skill of testifying to our trust in God just like we learn to sing and pray and serve and give and care.  When we point others to the gospel stories, and to the Spirit’s work, and to our own experience of God’s love – and when we do all this with humility and kindness – God will do the rest, drawing others into the joy of the good news.