I WILL NEVER BELIEVE

By the time one reaches chapter 20 in the Gospel of John, the apostle who also wrote the Book of Revelation, many signs and much testimony have been given about the ministry of Joshua (Yeshua), who the bible calls Jesus.

One of the disciples who has heard it all is famously known as "Doubting Thomas." Thomas remains unconvinced in the ressurection. Thomas embodies the stubborn unbelief that Yeshua rose from the dead. Thomas wants his own irrefutable physical evidence. He sets his own conditions and refuses the apostolic witness.

In many ways the disciple Thomas (Didymus) mirrors the characteristics and spiritual

journey of the people of Israel as portrayed in the biblical narrative, particularly in his

journey from doubt to faith, his need for tangible proof, and his ultimate commitment. Thomas represents humanity's tendency toward skepticism, yet also demonstrates a

capacity for sincere devotion.

Thomas hears the others say, “We have seen the Lord,” and answers:

“Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” 𝐽𝑜ℎ𝑛 20:25

The amazing twist in the story is that Yeshua graciously grants Thomas’s requirements. In John 20:26-27 it says: 

And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the

doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” Then He said to

Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” John 20:26-27

Jesus confronts Thomas’s unbelief by meeting his conditions, and draws out one of the strongest confessions in the Gospel. Thomas’s resistance collapses in a single sentence: 

“My Lord and my God!” 𝐽𝑜ℎ𝑛 20:28.

Thomas' words echo back to ten chapters earlier in John 10:30:

"I and My Father are one.” 

That verse echos back further still into the Tenach, Deuteronomy 6:4 the Shema:

"Hear, O Israel

The LORD our God, 

the LORD is one".

As the center of Jewish worship, the Shema declares the unity and uniqueness of God.

When Thomas says, "My Lord, My God!", the scripture does two things at once. 

First, it reinforces the "oneness" of Adonai. Second, it shifts the relationship with "Hashem" (the Name) from a communal relationship to a personal one. 

Then Jesus turns the conversation outward with the following profound statement of faith:

“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” 𝐽𝑜ℎ𝑛 20:29

The evidence for the resurrection is compelling. Most Jews never stop to consider it at all. Minds are made up. Sentiment toward Jesus, particularly the claim that he is Messiah, let alone the "Son of God" is a lot to unpack, and I am not trying to do that in this blog post!  

By the same token, since the Resurrection of Yeshua is probably the single most significant event in world history, you might care to learn more about it, even if you think you will never believe it. 

  

Nathan Robinson was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home and recieved an excellent Yeshiva education in NYC schools. As an adult he came to find the love he longed for in Yeshua. Today, Pastor Nathan Robinson gave an educational "Resurrection Day" sermon. 

This is his ressurection day sermon. 

MORNING LIGHT

Sunrise at Zion National Park

There is a notable scriptural and gematria connection between בוקר (bóker), “morning,” which carries a numerical value of 308 and חש (chash), a "listening silence," which also carries a numerical value of 308. 

There is a mysterious connection in the letters חש. Chet (ח) 8 is the "great eight" which has a supernatural nature that I blogged about a few days ago and the Shin (ש) 300 which is the crushing teeth just before the last Hebrew letter Tav, a cross, sign, mark. It is the letter of the Shema (Hear) and Shaddai on Jewish doorposts and gates.

In the beginning, God said, “Let there be light,” That first light filled the lifeless void and “God saw that the light was good (tov).” There is perpetual rejoicing in the "morning light." The gematria of בוקר reminds me that this is not random light; it is measured, intentional light. Morning Light has a special holy quality; it is a time to connect with the Creator of the primordial light. 

When we are חש (chash) “being quiet” in a chosen, focused, listening‑silence, it is what scripture means when it says, “Be silent before the Lord and wait patiently for Him,” “My soul, be quiet before God, for from Him comes my hope,” and “To You, silence is praise, O God in Zion.” 

The חש (chash) “being quiet” is not apathy, not zoning out, not blankness. It is the soul leaning forward. It is the inner posture. It is asking and listening in silence. It is a morning prayer. 

חש (chash) is what I believe these scriptures speak of: “In the morning, Lord, You hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before You and wait expectantly.” I pour out my words, but I do not stop there. I step consciously into חש (chash). That is when the “308”  (chash) of listening‑silence meets the morning “308” (boker) בוקר. I pause. I wait. I expect. I listen for the quiet reply—the thought I did not generate, the Scripture that surfaces, the gentle correction or comfort that feels like it came from outside my own noise. I am listening for the קול דממה דקה (qol demamáh dakáh), the “still small voice. ” Elijah does not meet God in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire, but in a voice of thin silence—a sound that can only be heard in חש. That voice is the God given Morning Light of day aleph, day 1, in our soul. 

Psalm 30.6  describe this 308: 

“My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning.” 

Like the morning watchman straining his eyes for the first light on the horizon; in חש, the soul strains its ears for the first whisper of God’s voice. 

Today is "Resurrection Day." It is the Chet day and Mary at the tomb shows this in story form. Before the rooster crows, “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,” Mary comes to the tomb in tears. She is standing exactly where this meditation lives: between night and morning, between not‑understanding and understanding. Her heart is in חש, grief‑softened, listening‑ready silence into which the risen Lord speaks. There, in the half‑light, she hears a single word—“Mary”—and everything changes. Her resurrection encounter begins not with seeing, but with hearing. The Voice is alive and it knows her name. Matching 308's. The pattern of Genesis 1 becomes personal. “Let there be light” is spoken again—not just over the world, but over our personal darkness. 

I like to think that when we say "Good Morning" (Boker Tov), in some profound way we are celebrating Creation. 

LIFTING UP MAN

This isn’t just a space story. This is a story about civilization and power.

Artemis II’s launch during Passover season, under the Paschal moon, has become an uncanny parable of the present struggle over world order. At the very moment when Jews remember the Exodus and Christians remember the lifting up of the Son of Man, humanity has “lifted up” four astronauts toward the heavens on a vehicle named for a pagan moon‑goddess and branded as the spearhead of a new civilizational era. The timing and imagery are not neutral. They dramatize a clash between two rival grammars of the cosmos: one in which power is secured by ascent, control, and technological reach, and one in which power is revealed through descent, self‑giving, and the blood of a Passover Lamb.

Exodus 7:5—The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.

In Scripture, Passover is a political and cosmic event before it is a private religious one. Yahweh confronts Pharaoh’s world order, judges Egypt’s gods, and redraws the meaning of time itself by resetting Israel’s calendar around the night when blood on doorposts marked out a liberated people. Jesus steps into this feast as both firstborn and Lamb, enacting a second, deeper Exodus. John’s Gospel insists that when he is “lifted up” he will draw all people to himself, indicating the kind of death he would die. The Greek verb there, ὑψόω, names both crucifixion and exaltation. Behind it stands the resonance of the Hebrew verb "Nasa" (נָשָׂא) meaning: to lift, bear, and carry away. On Nisan’s Paschal full moon, the true center of world order is publicly enthroned on a Roman cross.

By contrast, Artemis II embodies a different soteriology (study of salvation). Artemis II's mission is heralded as “historic,” a step toward permanent human presence beyond Earth, a test of systems that will sustain bases on and around the moon. That project is not just technical; it is theopolitical and astropolitical. Whoever writes the rules for cislunar* space effectively scripts the grammar of a new phase of civilization: who may extract, who may settle, who may surveil, whose myths and flags and gods define the story we tell about our species. Artemis, China’s lunar ambitions, and other national projects are therefore not just about science or prestige. They are rival liturgies reaching upward, each an enacted prayer that its civilization’s vision of the good will be inscribed into the heavens.

The Gospel does not deny humanity’s calling to exercise dominion in creation or to explore. But it exposes the idolatry of any ascent that refuses the pattern of the Lamb. Babel is not wrong to build; it is wrong to build a name apart from God. Artemis is not wrong to reach; it is wrong insofar as it imagines that control of orbits and regolith can establish a just cosmos. At Passover, the Creator defines the world’s true order through a path the empires did not anticipate: liberation through judgment borne by Another, victory through apparent defeat, enthronement through crucifixion.

So Artemis II’s launch under the Paschal moon becomes a sign. On one side stands a rocket, a goddess‑name, and a coalition of states struggling to secure the high ground of a coming space‑faring order. On the other stands a Lamb, slain yet standing, whose blood once marked Hebrew doorposts and now marks a multi‑national people. The question is not whether humanity will go to the moon, or even to Mars, but under which lordship we will travel. Will our “lifting up” be another Babel—an anxious project to secure ourselves by grasping height—or will it be received as a gift, folded into the already‑accomplished ascent of the crucified and risen Son of Man, whose cross at Passover remains the one true center of world and cosmic order?

“God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne.” Psalm 47:8

* Cislunar refers to the region of space encompassing Earth, the Moon, and the volume between them, extending just beyond the Moon's orbit. It acts as a springboard to the moon and other ventures.