Sunday, April 12, 2026: "Belief is Good for Us"
The First United Presbyterian Church
“Belief is Good for Us”
Rev. Amy Morgan
April 12, 2026
1 Pet. 1:3-9
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Although you have not seen him, you love him, and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
John 20:19-31
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
Belief is good for us. Not because it saves us from some fiery punishment in the afterlife. But because it makes our lives better in the here and now. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, religious or spiritual belief can help a person tolerate stress by generating peace, purpose and forgiveness. In her book exploring the intersection of religion and science, Stanford anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann argues that individuals of faith often have to work hard to make supernatural beings real and that those who are able to do so experience helpful changes. “If they’re lucky,” she writes, “they’re able to attend differently to their thoughts, feel calmer and more beloved.” Research has also shown that believing in God can be good for your body, even producing higher immune function.
But, as Luhrmann notes, belief can be hard work. Because belief involves imagination and trust. We must be open to possibilities other than what is readily available to our senses, to experiences outside what we have known. We must have confidence in other people and trust the authority of other perspectives.
This is what belief means in scripture. When Jesus says, “believe in me,” he isn’t asking us to give intellectual assent to the idea that God became incarnate in a human being 2000 years ago. He’s asking us to believe he is who he says he is. He’s asking us to believe he will do what he said he would do. He’s asking us to imagine the world he describes. He’s asking us to trust him.
And there are even more benefits to that kind of belief, belief as trust. According to research published by the American Psychological Association, “people with higher levels of trust—in both others and institutions—report higher levels of subjective well-being, an important indicator of quality of life and predictor of health and longevity, than those with lower levels of trust…Indeed, when considering how much people feel trust within their interpersonal relationships, in the general goodness of people, and in government and institutions, the researchers found that trust and well-being go hand in hand. Being able to trust others increased well-being—and feeling greater well-being allowed someone to trust more.”
Those benefits are clearly recognized in our scripture readings this morning. 1 Peter describes believers as receiving “new birth into a living hope,” experiencing resiliency in suffering, rejoicing “with an indescribable and glorious joy,” and even the salvation of their souls. Jesus breaks the 4th wall in John’s gospel, speaking directly to those future readers of the gospel who have never seen him, declaring an additional beatitude, calling those who trust and believe in him without seeing “blessed.” The stated purpose of John’s Gospel is to enable people to trust in Jesus as God’s Messiah and have LIFE! These are all pretty incredible advantages for those who believe!
Jesus clearly wants this for his disciples and for all of us. For Jesus, salvation is not escape from eternal damnation and punishment. Salvation is something that happens every minute of every day. Salvation is hope and resilience, and joy. It is happiness, in the deepest, most blessed sense of that word. It is peace, shalom, wholeness, completeness. Jesus repeats, again and again and again, the offering, “peace to you.” He gives the disciples every possible proof they could ask for that he is who he says he is and that he has done what he said he would do. He wants to help them, all of them, believe. Jesus doesn’t need us to believe in him to make his sleigh fly like Santa Claus in the movie “Elf.” Jesus wants us to believe in him because it’s good for us, because it will save us – in mind, body, and spirit – here and now. And he wants that for us.
But belief is hard. Especially for Jesus’s disciples in the days following his death and resurrection. They are filled with fear and distrust. John’s gospel tells us they have locked themselves up and are hiding out from “the Jews,” from religious authorities threatened by Jesus. It’s also likely that the Roman authorities were keeping an eye on them to make sure they wouldn’t try to create some kind of civil unrest in retaliation for Jesus’s execution. And let’s not forget that they are also carrying the trauma of the traitor among them, of Judas, a member of Jesus’s inner circle, who sold him out and later died by suicide. Peter denied knowing Jesus during his trial, and certainly other disciples fled or hid out through the horror of the crucifixion. These disciples have learned they can’t trust each other. According to biologists, trust is a biologically-based part of the human condition, but it requires us to overcome our biological aversion to the risk of betrayal. This risk is very front-of mind for the disciples at this point in their experience.
So when they try to convince Thomas that the resurrected Jesus magically walked through locked doors to show them his resurrected body, Thomas isn’t doubting Jesus, he’s doubting the testimony of his fellow disciples. Just as Jesus’s body still bears the wounds of the crucifixion, the wounds of betrayal and desertion, the body of Jesus’s friends and followers remains wounded as well. Those wounds are evident in Thomas’s mistrust.
We also need to recognize that the challenge of believing in Jesus’s resurrection was not just that it would be biologically unlikely. This event was also theologically unbelievable. Jews in the first century were not expecting the resurrection of an individual human. Many of them believed there would be a resurrection, but the expectation was for a general resurrection at the end times, when Israel would be restored and all the dead would be raised. All the dead were not raised, and the end times had clearly not arrived because nothing had changed - the Romans still occupied Palestine, the poor were still the poor, Israel was still downtrodden. Jesus’s resurrection wasn’t just difficult to believe on the face of it. It contradicted what they did already believe about resurrection.
We are not so different from those disciples of Jesus. We are filled with fear and distrust. Belief is hard for us; trust is hard for us. Numerous recent studies highlight declining levels of trust in government and institutions, media and even in our fellow human beings. We feel disappointed or even betrayed by those authorities that once felt trustworthy. We are suspicious of people’s motives and afraid of their intentions. That biological hardwiring for doubt and skepticism, which scientists have discovered lives in our brain’s ventromedial prefrontal cortex, protects us from buying everything anyone tries to sell us and from believing fake news (ideally). This part of the brain is working overtime these days as AI-generated media floods our newsfeeds and targeted ads pop up on every webpage we visit. Today, the doubt generated by our ventromedial prefrontal cortex may be one of the most valuable and essential parts of our brains.
But this overabundance of distrust can also become a social contagion, leading to a breakdown in relationships, social structures, and institutions. Psychologist Mitch Abblett advises that “To doubt is human . . . Just don’t take your doubts so seriously—particularly the intense, skeptical kind which, if given mindless berth, will be one of the highest hurdles to happiness of your life.”
Doubt also dehumanizes us. According to Dr. Michael Kosfeld, “Trust is one of the distinguishing features of the human species. An element of trust characterizes almost all human social interactions. When trust is absent, we are, in a sense, dehumanized.”
Also like the disciples, we have theological barriers to belief, though they may look a little different. Harmful, oppressive, or simply unbiblical doctrines proclaimed by the church have led many to distrust the theological claims of Christianity. Many are alarmed at the collusion of religious and political powers. Emphasis on scientific accuracy has created distrust of mystical experiences as a valid form of reality. And, much like the disciples, people don’t see Christ’s resurrection making any difference in the world, undermining trust is Christ’s promise to make all things new.
So when we try to share the good news of Christ’s resurrection, it’s no wonder folks scoff, politely exit the conversation, or put up arguments against belief. Maybe we are on that side of the conversation ourselves, the ones with doubt, skepticism, or carrying religious trauma.
Our community carries wounds in our body. And those wounds make it hard to believe, hard to trust. Our doubts and distrust are well-founded. If seeing is believing, we’ve seen too much. Too much violence and hatred and division. Too much corruption and abuse of power. Too much suffering and betrayal and deception.
But it is into the locked rooms of our hearts that Jesus walks, with his broken body, and offers us peace, again and again and again. Jesus stands in the midst of our confusion and pain, our anxiety and disappointment, and invites us to touch his wounds, feel that he understands in his body how hurtful this world can be. And he invites us to trust, to believe he is who he says he is, that he will do what he said he would do.
Because only when we trust are we able to see that, in fact, all things are being made new. Only through the lens of trust can we see, in great and small acts of love, goodness, justice, and healing, that peace is here, salvation is now, joy and glory abound. Not instead of all the hurt and brokenness, but right alongside it. Theologian Paula Gooder writes that “Belief in the resurrection is an act of rebellion against the evil, corruption and oppression that can so easily swamp us. Believing in the resurrection can be a refusal to accept the world as it is, that it can never change…. Believing in the resurrection can and should transform not only how we view the world, but how we live in it. We should become people in whom others can see new life, and people who introduce that new life wherever the world is stultifying and life-denying. Resurrection makes a difference not only to Jesus and the earliest disciples but also to us, as we live out our lives day by day.”
Belief is good for us. It’s good for everybody. It is hard work. It requires imagination and trust. But Jesus wants this for us, and Jesus will give us what we need. He will give us his wounded body, and stand in our wounded communities, and keep offering peace, so that we can trust, and live transformed lives, and create communities that are transformed through healing. May we believe, not for Jesus, not just for ourselves, but for the life of the whole world.
To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.
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