Matthew 28:17

Matthew 28 describes one of Jesus' appearances after his resurrection — when he came back to life three days after being crucified. His disciples had gathered on a hillside in Galilee (a region in northern Israel) to meet him, as he had instructed them. The word 'worshiped' indicates they recognized him as divine. But Matthew doesn't clean up what happened next: even there, face to face with the risen Christ, some of those present doubted. This is one of the most startlingly honest moments in the Gospels, revealing that doubt and worship can exist simultaneously — in the same moment, in the same person.

God, I am sometimes like the ones on that mountain — seeing and still not fully sure. Thank you that you didn't turn them away, and that you won't turn me away either. Meet me in my uncertainty. That's exactly where I am today. Amen.

If you were writing the triumphant ending of the greatest story ever told, you would not include this sentence. You would not say 'but some doubted.' You'd want the scene clean, electric, unanimous. But Matthew left it in — and this stubborn, inconvenient detail might be the most pastorally important line in the entire resurrection narrative. They are standing in front of the risen Jesus. Some of them worshiped. And some of them still weren't sure. If doubt disqualified you from this story, the disciples themselves wouldn't have made it. Doubt isn't the opposite of faith — certainty is. Faith is the choice to take a step toward something your mind hasn't fully resolved. So if you're sitting with hard questions right now — the kind you're a little embarrassed to say out loud in church — you are on that mountain with them. You are exactly where this story has room for you.