“Believing is Seeing”

John 20:19-31

Margaret I. Manning

The Voynich manuscript[1] eluded the best cryptologists in the world. This manuscript, discovered in 1912, contained 234 pages of hand-lettered, code with no punctuation or any indication of where the document began or ended. WWII cryptologists, who broke Nazi code, were unable to decipher this mysterious code. Since then, other professionals including linguists, mathematicians, astrologers, medievalists and literary scholars have taken their turn and attempted to decipher this mysterious, 400 year old document. No one could see an answer or figure out this code.

That is, until recently. Gordon Rugg, a psychologist and professor at Keele University in England came up with the most probable solution. The Voynich manuscript, which had mystified and confounded the world’s best code-breakers, said absolutely NOTHING! The document was a hoax intended to dupe royalty to pay an outrageous sum for its purchase. Indeed, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, who reigned from 1576-1612 paid the equivalent of $30,000 in today’s money for this manuscript.

Now for our purposes this morning, the means by which Rugg saw the document to be a fraud, is more important that the content of the document itself. For his means of investigation, Rugg used a form of inquiry called the verifier approach. The verifier approach looks for gaps in logic, research or experimentation and explores them. Rugg argues that when professionals investigate problems, they tend to rely on the principles from their area of expertise; which makes perfect sense since a specific area of expertise is what makes them experts! However, expertise sometimes narrows vision, and prevents researches from seeing the big picture. Why? These experts, whom Rugg defines as someone with 10 years in a discipline, have no more reasoning power than anybody else, but they do have a lot of experience — experience that can blind them to things that seem to fit their expertise but are actually something different. As a result, they sometimes miss novel or creative approaches for examination, and very often the solution lies somewhere in one of these overlooked gaps.

For example, a doctor sees so many cases of chicken pox that when a patient shows up with red spots all over his body, the doctor uses the ‘pattern’ of chicken pox symptoms to diagnose the condition. Most of the time, this is a correct diagnosis, but sometimes the ‘pattern’ points to something other than chicken pox - a more serious condition, perhaps, that also manifests itself with red spots. Simply pattern matching, based on experience, often fails and this is where Rugg’s verifier approach comes into play. The verifier approach looks at all the research patterns for a particular problem, and then sees what has not been considered. In the case of the Voynich manuscript, no one had considered the possibility that it could be a hoax. Rugg saw that gap in researched possibilities, and began to research and test the hoax hypothesis for the manuscript. In the end, his belief that the manuscript was a hoax led to his ability to see this ‘gap’ in possibility. This sight gave him a new vision for how to approach his research. He solved the Voynich puzzle not because he was smarter than others, but because he saw what the others had not contemplated.

Our disciples were in the same predicament as the experts stumped by the Voynich manuscript. They had their ‘pattern’ for viewing the circumstances surrounding the death of Jesus. They saw Jesus die, saw his body laid in a large, garden tomb and they knew that this was the end because that’s what their pattern of knowing told them. And even when Mary showed them the empty tomb, they still did not see and believe the Scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead.[2] Their established patterns of thinking and experience prevented them from seeing the possibilities in the gaps between what their experience and their reason told them.

Thomas serves as the exemplary disciple in this regard. Now it’s not that Thomas was more a skeptic than the other disciples – after all, as John tells us in his gospel, he was not with the disciples when Jesus first appeared to them in the upper room. Furthermore, when Jesus does appear, the rest of the disciples, and not Thomas are behind closed doors because of their ‘fear.’ They do not yet believe even though they’ve just heard Mary’s report – and both John and Peter have seen the empty tomb. Jesus must show them his hands and his side. John makes a point to tell us, ‘‘then’ [only after he had given them the ‘proof’ that matched their pattern] they were glad when they saw the Lord.”

Thomas serves as our exemplar because he represents all who will not see the risen Lord, but will have the opportunity to hear about him through witness and testimony. Thomas is given the opportunity to believe in the midst of the gap between seeing the risen Lord and hearing the disciples’ testimony that Jesus has been raised from the dead. Can he transcend his pattern of experience and reason to believe without seeing the physical proof? Unfortunately, he too, like the other disciples, relies on physical evidence, on sight, patterns and experience bound to the natural world. He will not believe “unless”, as Thomas insisted, “I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side.”

Now, before you’re too hard on Thomas, remember that he was the disciple who insisted on following after Jesus even if it led to his own death.[3] Perhaps part of Thomas’ doubt stems from the disillusionment and despair that came from watching his leader die. Elsewhere in John’s gospel, Thomas is also the one who willingly admits his own ignorance with regards to Jesus’ greater purpose to go and prepare an eternal kingdom home.[4] So, perhaps Thomas’ doubt comes from lack of understanding. Suffice it to say, Thomas is not any more a doubter than the rest of the disciples – if anything, Thomas is the disciple who is honest enough to admit his doubts and his lack of understanding concerning Jesus’ teaching and mission.

But, here in what is believed to be the climactic ending to John’s gospel, we see Thomas as the critical witness of Jesus’ resurrection. Why? Because, Thomas stands where you and I stand. We, too have heard the testimony of Jesus – now, will we believe in the gap between our sight and what we must hold on to by faith? Or will we only ‘believe’ once our pattern of experience is verified by whatever evidence we insist on for belief? Upon seeing Jesus and experiencing firsthand his wounded body, Thomas declares, “My Lord and My God.” Thomas sees and then believes. And while Thomas’ faith is anchored to sight, Jesus does not disparage the faith of Thomas when he tells him, ‘because you have seen me you believe. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.’ Jesus merely shows Thomas’ privilege – he will see, but those who come after will be blessed by believing, without the privilege of seeing.

Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe. Believing leads to blessing. John explicitly lifts up this virtue for all of us; he tells us, ‘Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe, and that believing you may have life in his name.’ Blessed are those who believe; believing leads to life! We can find new life and see with new eyes when we trust and believe in the God of unseen possibility. We begin to see God at work, even in the midst of suffering. We find hope and possibility here and now when we believe that God is the one who resurrects the dead. We see all God’s bounty and provision when we believe that life never consists of the abundance of things. When we use faith as the starting point, we see like we’ve never seen before. God’s call to all of us who want to be disciples, is not to rely on experience or reason for our ultimate sight, but to rely on faith to help us truly and really see. The charge for all of us, who have the witness of Scripture is ‘to be believers; not unbelievers; to be faithful, and not faithless.’ We have the opportunity to embrace a new pattern, like Gordon Rugg did, in the gap - Believe, Jesus says to us through the ages, and then you will see!

I suspect many of us are like Thomas and the disciples. We need our established patterns of knowing and believing affirmed in the evidence of experience and reason. We wrestle with the gap of 2000 plus years since Jesus walked this earth and the variance between his culture, language and history and ours. We wrestle with the discoveries of science that seem at the very least to contradict, if not directly invalidate a ‘believing is seeing’ approach to faith. And yet, Jesus is calling all of us to a faith-full discipleship that transcends experienced-based discipleship. The challenge for all of us, as we live into the resurrection reality of Easter is to remain faithful in the midst of a world that presses us towards faithlessness. Reason and experience often point us toward faith and bolster the decision of faith, but at some point, if we are to know the truth of the risen Christ, we’ve got to take a leap to faith[5] at the gap that reason and experience don’t cover. That leap to faith is like the verifier approach.

This leap to faith is not a leap into the abyss of irrationality, or the abandonment of what our reason and our experience teach us. Rather, the leap to faith focuses on the reliability of the ground on which the leaper lands.[6] Those of us who have committed our lives to Christ know that a relationship with him is solid ground in the midst of and in spite of the doubts that often plague us. Jesus Christ is the solid rock on which we stand, even when our experience presses us to see otherwise.

But, for those of us in need of evidence, John has laid out all the ‘evidence’ for us and now the choice is ours. After reading the many episodes from Jesus’ life in these twenty chapters, we are summoned to make a judgment in faith. Throughout John’s gospel faith and sight are linked. But this means more than seeing Jesus and choosing to believe. It is about a different sort of vision altogether. Many saw Jesus and marveled, but it was seeing through faith that permitted them to see his glory, to recognize his Sonship, to respond to his voice. Faith permits vision, a knowing inaccessible to the person whose sight remains shaped by the world. Therefore, we are called to read John’s story and there discover a vision, not unlike Rugg’s verifier approach, that finds knowledge in the gap of faith – a faith that affirms, believing is seeing.[7] Amen.

[1] The following illustration about the Voynich Manuscript is taken from Homileticsonline.com, “The Verifier Approach”, April 3, 2005.

[5] The phrase, ‘leap to faith’ is cited from Jamie Ferrera in Homileticsonline.com, “The Verifier Approach.”

[6] Homileticsonline.com, ‘The Verifier Approach.’

[7] Commentary Information from: The NIV Application Commentary: John; 1 Peter; by Gary M. Burge and Scot McNight respectively. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000, 1996.