麻豆社

Use 麻豆社.com or the new 麻豆社 App to listen to 麻豆社 podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Episode details

Radio 4,2 mins

Blinded with Joy. Rev Dr Rob Marshall - 03/07/2021

Thought for the Day

Available for over a year

Good Morning. Caravaggio鈥檚 painting The Incredulity of St Thomas, with its dark shade and promise of light, brilliantly encapsulates the one disciple who dared to doubt the resurrection. Now on display in a museum in Potsdam, Germany, the work is a perfect icon for today - the day on which Christians celebrate the life of the disciple who is often referred to as 鈥榙oubting Thomas鈥. Thomas has a much higher profile in St John than any of the other Gospels. He insists that he will not believe until he has seen the risen Jesus for himself. In response, when the two of them get together, Jesus says, 鈥淏lessed are those who have not seen but believe.鈥 Thomas鈥 open capacity for doubt, however, has defined his faith ever since. I think it鈥檚 fair to say that, though I have my faith, I still spend time questioning and, yes, even doubting lots of things. Not so much about what tomorrow will bring, or about my own mortality, but about the wellbeing of those close to me. Will there even be world for the next generation to inherit? I want to believe that all will be well but, like Thomas, it would be much easier if I could actually see such a reality for myself. As the comedian and writer David Baddiel said on this programme on the morning after England鈥檚 victory against Germany, football is often a metaphor for life. He said that after an hour of pure tension, when England eventually scored, fans all over the country spontaneously forgot all that we鈥檝e all been through over the past few months as they were 鈥渂linded with joy鈥. He used the phrase several times equating such moments as revelatory; nothing else mattered. Hope was restored. The classic song Don鈥檛 stop believing, hold on to that feeling remains popular perhaps because it sums the tension many feel at times. When doubt swirls around us in the constant quest for certainty, it鈥檚 easier said than done to keep holding on and believing. The Christian mystic Julian of Norwich, who despite her deep faith, also experienced periods of doubt believed firmly that 'All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well鈥. In her writings she never let鈥檚 go of the hope that the revealed love of God clearly offered her. So St Thomas鈥檚 Day, a day by the way when England once again take to the field in the Eternal City of Rome, is a good time for an honest assessment about how to keep the faith in those things that are as yet unseen. And it鈥檚 not just of course in football where moments of pure joy unexpectedly disperse our doubt and fill us with hope.

Programme Website
More episodes