Easter Hope for Those Who Doubt

How We Belong Before We Believe

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

"On the third day, the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away... But even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation... And in the semblance of the gardener, God walked again in the garden."

— G.K. Chesterton

Easter begins in a garden, but not the peaceful kind we imagine in paintings. This one is filled with confusion, grief, and unanswered questions. John 20 tells the story of Mary Magdalene coming to the tomb early in the morning, only to find it empty. She runs to tell Peter and John, who sprint to the site and find the linens neatly folded. John believes, though it’s not clear what he believes. Peter doesn’t say anything at all. And Mary, still weeping, sees someone she assumes is the gardener. It's Jesus, but she doesn’t recognize him until he speaks her name.

That single moment—when Jesus says "Mary"—changes everything. It's not evidence or argument or clarity that brings her to belief. It's recognition. It's relationship. It’s the personal, quiet, intimate voice that knows her.

I find myself returning to that moment often. Especially in seasons where the resurrection feels like an abstract hope more than a lived reality. In the Easter story, we usually emphasize the empty tomb, the triumph over death, the declaration that Christ is risen. And all of that matters. But John slows us down. He doesn't rush past the confusion or the tears. He lets us sit with Mary outside the tomb, not understanding what is happening. He lets us watch Peter and John react in their own strange and incomplete ways. He lets the disbelief linger.

And I think that matters. Because the truth is, many of us arrive at Easter with questions. Some of us arrive with grief, or exhaustion, or cynicism. We want to believe, but we also know that belief isn't a light switch we can flip. Some of us were taught that to belong in the church, we needed to first believe the right things and behave the right way. That formula—believe, behave, belong—became the unspoken liturgy of much of modern evangelical culture. It promised acceptance, but only after conformity. The message was clear: orthodoxy and obedience were prerequisites for community. But in the garden outside the tomb, we see a different order entirely. But in this garden, it seems to happen differently.

Mary belongs before she understands. She is included while she is still confused. She's seen before she recognizes, known before she believes, embraced while still grieving. What if the real pattern of grace has always been the opposite of what we were taught? What if it’s belong, be seen, be called—and then, in time, believe?

This pattern plays out again and again in John's Gospel. Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, unsure but curious. The Samaritan woman argues theology but leaves transformed. The man at the pool doesn’t ask to be healed, but he is. The blind man gains his sight and sparks a controversy. Thomas refuses to believe until he can touch the wounds, and Jesus meets him there. Belief, in John, is not uniform. It doesn’t follow a predictable path. It looks different every time.

That gives me hope. Because it means there’s room for all of us. For the ones who show up singing, and the ones who barely made it out of bed. For those who feel the joy of resurrection, and those who only feel the weight of what hasn’t healed yet. For those who believe easily, and those who need time. It means God is not waiting for us to get it all right. God is already calling our names.

Theologian Serene Jones writes that Jesus comes to us not as a general idea or an imagined ghostly figure, but as a presence that reaches beyond our minds’ overt powers of knowing and touches our lives in ways we cannot see. These encounters are not always loud or obvious. They are “felt, tasted, touched, smelled, heard, seen in an image and, as such, often as unconscious as they are visceral.” God is known in the muscle memory of our tissue, in the turn of a lip in that gardener’s smile, in the voice of a trusted friend, in the fall of a foot’s arch in wet grass at sunrise. God’s coming also unfolds in the world of our emotions and deepest dispositions—a mark of God’s presence that can sense that the world suddenly shifts into place and has meaning.

Resurrection, then, is not just something we affirm. It is something we brush against in the details of our living. It is something we sense in the quiet moments, when we feel known for reasons we can’t explain. It is the ache of being recognized and loved before we had the words for it.

Maybe you are still trying to make sense of your faith. Maybe you find yourself somewhere in the long arc of deconstruction, or maybe you've been rebuilding something fragile but real. Maybe you’re sure of less than you used to be. Maybe you're still showing up anyway. That counts for more than we think.

The poet and author Shel Silverstein once wrote an invitation to 'dreamers, wishers, liars, and magic bean buyers.' That whimsical line, though playful, is an image of the Kingdom of God. The church at its best has always been a home for liars, dreamers, and misfits—people whose stories don’t fit neatly into categories of certainty or strength. I would add to Silverstein's cast of characters: doubters, seekers, and those who refuse to fake it just to belong. The truth is, the table has always been set for people like us. The garden has always made room for confusion, and the resurrection has always unfolded more slowly than we expect.

So whether you are full of hallelujahs or not sure what you believe anymore, I hope you hear this: God knows your name. God sees you. And even when you don't recognize him, even when everything is unclear, he is standing close enough to whisper.

And sometimes, that whisper is all it takes for the world to begin again.