Several days after the Resurrection and the apostles and disciples were still unbelieving and full of questions, made even more disquieting by their fears.
To be human is to ask a lot of questions. Even believers are bothered by questions, may be even more so. But the questions asked by believers are different from those asked by nonbelievers.
Nonbelievers ask questions like those asked by the scribes and the pharisees: legalistic, pseudo-scientific, designed to trap and confound. Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar? Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Where did this man get his power and his wisdom? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? These questions are meant to prove the respondent wrong.
Believers ask questions that seek to know the respondent better: “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Questions that seek guidance: “How will this be seeing I know not a man?” or “What must I do to gain eternal life?” These questions are meant to build and nurture a relationship.
My own questions have been unchanging but the answers have been changing as I go through life: Who am I and why am I here? What drives me to get up in the morning? Where and how do I find my greatest fulfillment and happiness? Did I fill the world with love? Whom do I love and serve? How do I love and serve?
I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me.
But later, as the Eleven were at table, he appeared to them
and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart
because they had not believed those
who saw him after he had been raised.
He said to them, “Go into the whole world
and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”
Mark 16:9-15