Science and Religion

            We have a constant argument going on in this country over global warming.  All of science seems to agree that the polar ice caps are melting, the turbulent storms that we have been having in the country, both summer and winter are as a result of climate change, but there are rampant deniers of this who want to call the people who are trying to warn us about what is happening in our climate as fear mongers or worse.  It is a shame that something as dangerous as the problem with our climate has degenerated in to political argument that has Republicans fighting with Democrats and people generally ignoring the problems that are associated with this development in our weather.

            I used to broadcast the weather on television.  I remember when the first TIROS satellite was launched that gave us the first picture of our weather all over the country.  It was a remarkable event.  It was the beginning of meteorologists being able to see at a glance what was happening around us, offering a tool for forecasting that brought us a new accuracy that hadn’t been possible before.  I remember talking to rotary clubs about this technology and saying to them that it was only a first step; that there was much more that needed to be done before we could know what our weather would be for certain. This, for me was science at its best.  We were eating away at what was required by faithfully believing that weathermen knew what they were saying.

            We are in the midst of the significant and blessed Easter season.  This is the time when we celebrate the most wonderful mystery that Christianity offers: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  Last week, we had Easter day, which comes after the horrible experience of the crucifixion of our Lord and his burial in a borrowed tomb.  When the women came to the tomb, they found it empty and couldn’t believe that Jesus has risen from the dead.  As the story continues, the disciples of Jesus are locked away in a room, as it says, for fear of the Jews, meaning that they were deathly afraid that they were the next to be arrested.  All of a sudden, Jesus appears among them.  They are overjoyed to see their Lord, although Thomas wasn’t there with them.  They try to tell Thomas what they have seen, but he doubts what they say.  He wants scientific proof.  Unless I can put my fingers into his wounds, and my hands into his side, I won’t believe, he says.  A few days later, Jesus again appears among the disciples.  Thomas is there.  Jesus says to him: Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe. Thomas says to Jesus: my Lord and my God!

            Jesus goes on to say to Thomas:  Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.  Here is that wonderful division of faith and science.  We are the ones who have not seen, yet have come to believe.  That is the essence of Easter.  The resurrection is certainly not a provable event.  We have never seen one, yet we celebrate the wonder of Easter because we know that Jesus has risen from the tomb and that we will also.  It makes sense of all of our lives.  Even the tragedies that we experience are overwhelmed finally by the whole idea of the resurrection.  That God’s love extends not only through our lives, but even into our deaths.  That is what makes a believer out of me. 

            There is too much destruction in this world.  We have families ripped apart and whole communities destroyed by violence.  Something has to supersede that.  In God’s infinite love, we are given the assurance of resurrection and a continuity of life that continues even after we die. 

            Once when I was doing the weather for a television station in West Texas, I watched as some seven tornadoes snaked their way across the horizon.  These terrible storms portended waves of destruction for the people in their wake.  This kind of damage occurs frequently in this country from Texas through the Midwest.  We even get some of them in our area.  We live through the tragedy that these storms bring, but it is always heartening to me to see the people in these areas rise again and reclaim their lives.  This is the process of resurrection being acted out on the stage of life.  The same thing happens when life is no more.  We can believe that the God that we worship has more in mind for us than to simply die and be no more.  We live on, and Easter is God’s scientific proof of that.  Even though we haven’t seen, we still believe.  We are blessed indeed.