I only ask, "May I share dinner with you?"

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”

Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him.

- John 6:60-71

It’s happening: do you feel it? The tension is ramping up. Somebody is close to being fed up. Somebody is starting to think that this Jesus movement is getting too big—that maybe the man they’ve followed all this time isn’t really in control. Doubt has crept in, and soon it will strike.

Meanwhile, those who would stay loyal can’t imagine any other possibility. If they only knew … but they will know soon enough. They, also, will drink a long, slow draught from the same cup.

Here’s Son Lux with “Betray.”

Dear God, sorry to disturb you but ...

My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land: "Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not in her?" ("Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?") "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?

O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people! O that I had in the desert a traveler's lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a band of traitors. They bend their tongues like bows; they have grown strong in the land for falsehood, and not for truth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me, says the Lord.

Beware of your neighbors, and put no trust in any of your kin; for all your kin are supplanters, and every neighbor goes around like a slanderer. They all deceive their neighbors, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongues to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent. Oppression upon oppression, deceit upon deceit! They refuse to know me, says the Lord. – Jeremiah 8:18-9:6

In this passage I begin to lose track of whether it is Jeremiah speaking, or God. The prophet seems to have become of one soul with the divine, and that soul is grieving. Meanwhile, the people the prophet has come to have lost faith in God completely.

I keep coming back to this point: faith is much bigger than “belief about.” The people haven’t begun to disbelieve in the existence of God; such a thing was practically unheard of in those days. They have begun to believe that God cannot help them. All the while, they don’t realize that they are the ones standing in the way of receiving God’s help, simply because they insist on living corrupt, wretched lives without concern for those who are less fortunate. When one turns outward and begins to help others, faith in God can then be given room to work.

I had my first crisis as a self-absorbed teenager. I began to wonder, as I think most of us do at some point, whether God exists at all. When I was 15, I heard a song that set my doubts to music and helped me face them more clearly: “Dear God” by XTC. The song haunted me and frightened me; I felt alternately guilty and joyful listening to it. Today I regard it as a vital step in my journey of faith.

The thing is, as angry as the singer is about all the horrible things that God allows to happen in the world, he’s still singing to the God he claims not to believe in. This suggests to me a relationship, which is a lot more hopeful ... and faithful ... than apathy. His passion tells me he wants to trust God, but from what he's seen, he doesn't believe God deserves his trust.

(The lyrics printed over the top are not original to the video; I wish they weren’t there, because some of them are incorrect.)

A YouTube Advent Calendar: December 21

Then Job answered the LORD:

I know that thou canst do all things
and that no purpose is beyond thee.
But I have spoken of great things which I have not understood,
things too wonderful for me to know.
I knew of thee then only by report,
but now I see thee with my own eyes.
Therefore I melt away;
I repent in dust and ashes.

-      Job 42

Thomas said to Jesus, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."

-      John 14

Today is the Winter Solstice … and we have just enjoyed a full lunar eclipse overnight. My wife and I stayed up too late last night watching a movie, and as we were getting ready for bed, we realized the eclipse had begun. The full eclipse itself didn’t arrive until the middle of the night. But we can see that it was beautiful. The solstice and a full lunar eclipse have not happened simultaneously since 1554.

I remember back to the summer of 1989, a time of particularly fierce doubt for me. There was a full lunar eclipse then, too—in the early evening, when I could really enjoy it. I was working that night as a dishwasher at The Galley seafood restaurant in St. Ignace, Michigan. I caught portions of the eclipse through the window as I was working, and more later that night after I got off work and was walking home.

During the eclipse, my doubts temporarily subsided. The universe was just too big and beautiful to have happened all by itself. If there were no creator, then what was all this for?

Today is also the Feast of St. Thomas, the apostle who doubted. I take great strength from Thomas’s doubts. The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Or, as Mother Superior said to Maria in The Sound of Music, “I try to keep faith in my doubts.”

From now on the days will get longer. Doubt will be held and consoled. Warmth will return to the world. Get ready, everyone … here comes the sun. (The Son?)