But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. – Luke 24:11

Today's Scripture Reading (February 23, 2024): Luke 24

One of the things I run into is people who tell me they just can't believe in the Gospel story. And I get that. Sometimes, even I have trouble believing it. If you listen to me pray, count how many times I say, "Lord, I don't understand." Because that is the truth; I don't understand. 

I will even go a step further; I am not sure what I think about you if you believe you have all this stuff figured out. I don't understand why God, who is all-powerful and created everything, would care enough about you and me to send his son to die on the cross. Who gets that? Doesn't that seem like you or me watching an ant walk across the floor and being so worried about the life the ant leads that we are willing to send our child to die on a cross for the ant so that ants can live better lives? I admit that I struggle to get my head around that reality.

Besides that, dead seems to be dead to me. I wish I could tell you that, if it were me, I would have believed the women as they returned from the empty tomb, but that would be a lie. There is no way. I would have probably written it off as a result of the deep grief that all of Jesus's followers were going through.

But this is all part of Luke's telling of the Jesus story. The women had gone to the tomb to prepare the body of Jesus for death, but Jesus wasn't there. The women returned home from Jesus's tomb with a story, and they told that story to the men, including but not limited to the disciples, but the men thought the story was nonsense. The word we have translated here as nonsense means that the story was "idle talk." Greek Medical writers used the term to describe the insane babbling of a fevered person. The men refused to believe the story the women were telling. They were suffering from some sort of grief fever. Eventually, the reality would take over, but for now, all any of them could do was try to comfort each other as they all continued to suffer through their time of mourning.

There is nothing special about unbelief. There is also nothing noble about unbelief. But the problem is that if we don't believe, the dream of Christianity ends. The reality is that our unbelief handicaps God. And if we don't start to believe, we don't have a hope to change this world and make it better.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: John 20