Seeing the Invisible

Hebrews 11:1-3; John 20:24-29

Robert M. Watkins

August 5, 2007

 

Hearing these words from Hebrews, one is tempted to believe that the writer of this epistle was there in the room with the disciples as Thomas made his loud declaration about what he would and would not believe. He needed evidence—hard facts and physical heft—if he was to be convinced the Resurrection was indeed real.

 

We know Thomas all too well in our time. We live in a profoundly materialistic age—one where value and worth are determined by the visible signs of riches—fancy cars, enormous homes, brand names. Everyone is out to prove that they have indeed made it, they have succeeded, and they are therefore valuable human beings. We have the stuff, we must be worth something. Thomas is right there with us. He is not going to stake his life on some wishful thinking. He is not going to risk believing in something that is only someone else’s fantasy. No, he wants proof, a body to handle, wounds to see.

 

The writer of Hebrews takes him on directly. Faith is not about proof. In fact, faith is something else altogether. Faith is belief, not knowledge, and there is a fundamental difference. For his purposes, he fixes on two points found in key phrases of Verse 1. The first is, “…the assurance of things hoped for…;” and the second is, “…the conviction of things not seen…”

 

Hope, said Marcie in a Charlie Brown comic strip, is a good breakfast, but a bad supper. Hope is what gets us out of bed in the morning able to face the coming day. Hope allows us to face the challenges we will encounter with the promise that everything will be all right. Hope offers us the possibility of seeing outcomes that may at first seem unattainable. Thus, it is good to begin the day with hope.

 

Where hope becomes difficult is when we have to hold onto hope for a long time. The longer we wait for something to happen, the less likely it seems. As school resumes, think about this year’s crop of Seniors. Soon, they will begin the process of deciding what their next step will be. Some will fire off applications for college or grad school; others will begin sending out resumes and applying for jobs. Right now, hope flourishes. Trouble will come when those applications begin to age, when the student begins to see time fly by without word or response. The longer time flows by, the more certain seems rejection.

 

Faith, however, means being able to endure that passage of time. Faith holds onto promises as actual no matter what the context tells one about the outcome. Thomas was there when Jesus told the disciples he would rejoin them after the awful events in Jerusalem passed. Of course, none of the disciples could fathom what those events would truly entail until they actually happened, and when they did see the horror of Golgotha, no one could blame them for finding their hopes shattered. Thomas is simply being reasonable. He knows Jesus was murdered. That is the end of it. He knows what has happened, but he does not believe. Jesus made a promise. Belief refuses to let go of that promise, ever, no matter what. Faith risks all on the word of Christ because in being Christ, Jesus is not bound by the confines of rationality. For God, there are no confines.

 

No one has ever seen God, wrote John, but if we love one another, God lives within us. This idea rests in the phrase about conviction within our passage from Hebrews. No one ever has seen God. God is transcendent and beyond human perception. Yet we believe God to be. We discern God’s presence through our own spirituality—the well of transcendence within our own being.

 

There has been a wave of books published recently by secular thinkers completely debunking the notion of God. They sound like Thomas. There is no evidence of God’s presence. There is no indication that God exists. There are too many ills within human life to justify any sort of belief in God, particularly when one considers how much evil is done in God’s name. If God is, these authors cry out, then why will God not show up?

 

Faith declares that God is all around us all the time. To perceive that presence, however, one needs to see with something other than one’s eyes. One needs to see with one’s heart.

 

It must be said, however, that such a line of thinking has been much abused in our world. The writer of Hebrews is not advocating viewing life through sentimental lenses, seeing goodness and light where none exists, minimizing human suffering and pain with stick-on smiles. Nothing could be further from his message. What he challenges us to do is not to deny the presence of evil within the world, but to boldly declare that it has no ultimate power.

 

That is a tall order.

 

Many of us watched with horror the news reports of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. What did it feel like to be on a bridge that suddenly was no longer there? What it would be like to be on a cell phone with someone who suddenly plunged into the river beneath them? No one deserved that fate. No one drove onto that bridge to face their justified doom. It just happened. Faith does not diminish the tragedy. Faith does not look for fault. Faith faces the stark reality of human pain and grief and fear in that moment with the certainty that God is present, redeeming, healing, and comforting all who are lost in any way. Faith gives us the ability to respond in kind. Through faith, we can become instruments of comfort and aid even while being completely overwhelmed by what is unfolding all around us.

 

There was an article in The New York Times this week written by a physician memorializing those who donate their bodies to teaching hospitals. This physician commented that it was impossible for her to ever forget on what she was working as she proceeded through her gross anatomy lab courses. These were fellow human beings, even though nameless, who gave themselves to teach others how to care, others they would never know, nor could ever have even imagined. They simply did so because they felt compelled to offer themselves in this way. That is faith, faith Thomas must discover if he is ever to discover the depth of God around him.