GUERCINO - "Doubting Thomas" - Oil on canvas
Residenzgalerie, Salzburg
From The Church in Wales:
Believing in God is like catching a plane or falling in love - it require trust, risk and a leap of faith, Dr Barry Morgan said in his sermon at Llandaff Cathedral on Easter Sunday.
He said, "Without a degree of faith and trust, no one would fall in love, neither would any of us catch a plane or go for an operation or allow our children to walk to school. All these are undertaken in trust and contain an element of risk. Belief in God, faith, is very similar."
But faith, he said, can transform lives and if we want proof of God we should look for "resurrection moments" – signs that show transformation and a confidence in a better world - rather than hard facts or knockdown arguments.
"There are Resurrection moments when parents find it in their hearts to forgive their children's murderers; where church communities cease to look after their own interests and defend the rights of others; where people stand up for truth, justice and integrity at great personal cost across the globe; and where attitudes that limit and frustrate, imprison, degrade and dehumanise people are overcome. Believing in resurrection is refusing to accept the world as it is but knowing it can be changed, it can be transfigured.”
Just as the transformed lives of Christ’s disciples after the Resurrection brought people to God, so people will be drawn to God if they see faith at work in Christians today.
Dr Morgan said, “If people see in us the seeds of resurrection life, they too have a model for its living reality and might similarly be transformed. If people see in our lives hope overcoming despair, light replacing darkness, love conquering hate, and lives being transformed, they too might begin to believe that Jesus is truly risen from the dead and that His kingdom has begun to be inaugurated.”
The full text of the sermon follows.
Bishop Morgan quotes A. N. Wilson in the sermon:
So he says “every inner prompting of conscience, every glimmering sense of beauty, every response we make to music, every experience we have of love, be it physical, sexual, family or love of friends, reminds us of this fact. We are not just a collection of chemicals. How are we capable of love, heroism or poetry if we are simply animated pieces of meat? There is more to life than we can see or prove. Faith, like love, is to make more of a commitment than one can rationally explain”.
Remember, it's still Easter. Happy 2 Easter and St. Thomas Sunday!
Image from theWeb Gallery of Art.
H/T to Peter Owen at Thinking Anglicans for the link to the sermon.
UPDATE: I bumped up this post, because I want it to remain on top until tomorrow.
