Seeing is believing?

Reading the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ passion, crucifixion and death, this Easter season I’m struck by something different this year as I’ve read. To be sure, this Easter is different from past years, due to the COVID-19 quarantine affording me a lot more time to think, ponder, and wonder. 

 At His crucifixion, as Jesus hung on the Cross barely recognizable for all the torture and beatings, the chief priests and religious scholars mocked Him saying:

He saved others, but he can’t even save himself. ‘Israel’s king,’ is he? Let the ‘Messiah,’ the ‘king of Israel,’ come down from the cross right now. We’ll believe it when we see it! (Mark 15:31-32, TPT).

 But would they have believed even if He had come down from the Cross? They had ample evidence of His true nature by the sheer number of miracles He performed. Healing the sick, the blind, and the paralyzed, delivering the demon possessed, raising the dead. What more proof could they want? When Jesus was being reviled by the Jewish leaders about His deity earlier that week, He had said:

Don’t believe me unless I’m doing My Father’s work. But if I am doing His work, at least believe in the evidence of the miracles, even if you don’t believe my words. Then you will know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in Him (John 10:37-38, NLT).

 So, even if Jesus had come down from the Cross, which would have violated His Father’s will and plan of redemption, they would not have believed. A.W. Tozer expressed it well:

 We shall not seek to understand in order that we may believe, but to believe in order that we may understand. The unbelieving mind would not be convinced by any proof, and the worshipping heart needs none.

 My prayer this Resurrection Sunday 2020, is that many hearts would be open to believe before seeing, trust before experiencing, and know before verifying. 

 Blessed are those who believe without seeing me (John 20:29, NLT).