Proof

Propers: The Fourth Sunday of Easter, A.D. 2017 A

Homily:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Why doesn’t God just show Himself to everyone, so that everyone may believe in Him?

This was a question posed by one of our confirmands in a sermon note from last week, and I think it dovetails nicely with our Gospel reading this morning.

Why doesn’t God just show Himself to everyone? Of course, one day He will. There shall come a time when the division between God and Man is done away with entirely. Then there shall be no more shadows, no more darkness, no more lies. There will only be the light of God’s own truth shining forth upon us all. This healing—this Resurrection—was inaugurated by Christ upon the Cross, when the curtain of the Temple, veiling the Holy of Holies, was torn in two. And it shall achieve its final fruition at the end of the age, when the harvest comes in full. Then all of us will know God face to face.

But what about in the meantime? What about before the end of the world? Why don’t we see Christ walking about on this earth the way He used to, showing us the wounds in His hands, commanding us to touch the tear in His side? For 40 days after the Resurrection, the Risen Christ appeared to His disciples, to His Mother, to Peter and Cleopas and Mary Magdalene, to Thomas and the Eleven. None of them believed until they saw Him and touched Him for themselves.

And finally, as to one untimely born, the Risen Christ appeared to Paul, the great persecutor of Jesus’ Church. God chose to punish Paul by forgiving him his sins and drawing him into the family of God; Paul’s penance was to become the very thing he had hated. Through the terrible grace of God’s mysterious Providence, Paul’s zeal for persecution was turned to joy, to love, to a zealous, open heart. Before Jesus appears, Paul is our greatest enemy; after Jesus appears, he becomes our greatest champion.

So why doesn’t God appear like that to everyone? What would it be like, if the Risen Christ took up residence in Jerusalem or Rome, with a street address and a telephone number? We could just call Him up: “Is Jesus Risen?” “Yep, here I am!” Or better yet, what if God were to rend open the heavens, as at the Baptism of Our Lord, and the voice of the Father thundered aloud on primetime television: “This is My Son, the Beloved! Listen to Him!”

That would settle the whole thing right there, wouldn’t it? No more doubt or division or religious persecution. After all, seeing is believing! If God would just show Himself to everyone, then everyone would believe. Right…?

But then, if that were the best way to go about saving the world, then that’s what God would’ve done. And He would’ve done it a long time ago. He would not have left Adam and Eve alone with the serpent. He would’ve shown Himself to Pharaoh, rather than sending Moses with a bag of plagues. He would have written His promises in flaming letters across the sky, rather than through the pens of the prophets. And when He came to earth it would’ve been with unspeakable fanfare!—rather than being born in a cave in obscurity, welcomed by shepherds, and raised by a carpenter.

God appears to us, reveals Himself to us. But not in the ways that we would expect. His thoughts are not our thoughts, His ways not our ways. He does not act as we would act, were we God. He is subtle and clever. He teaches us in parables. He comes to us in the elderly, in the enslaved, in the dispossessed. He comes to us on a winter’s night through the guts of a girl! And when we want for proof, when we demand clear signs and reasonable explanations, He offers to us only the Cross: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.

And Jesus says it’s better this way. That’s the kicker. When it comes time for the Risen Christ to Ascend into Heaven, to return to the right hand of the Father, the Apostles ask Him why He must go. Can’t He stay? Can’t He be with us always in this manner? And He says no, He has to go; He must Ascend. But it is better this way, better for us. Because not only does He go to prepare a place for us in His Father’s House—to hallow Heaven by casting out the Accuser and to serve as our heavenly High Priest, ever interceding on our behalf—but He goes also to send us the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the very life and breath of God, who will dwell within us and make us one, who raises us all as the Body of Christ.

Instead of Jesus walking about on one pair of feet, healing and feeding with one pair of hands, proclaiming forgiveness and new life with but a single tongue, now His Body will walk about on two billion pairs of feet, two billion sets of healing hands, two billion tongues proclaiming new life in the Risen Christ to the world! When the world demands proof that Christ is Risen—when the world demands to see the Body, to see the evidence, to touch His wounded hands and side—God sends us. We are His proof. We are His evidence. We are the Body of Christ in the world. How we live out the Gospel will be all the proof the needy will need.

And it’s better this way, He says. Because there’s a difference between facts and faith. A fact is something that you have to believe whether you want to or not. Two and two are four, no matter how one may protest. But faith demands more. The truth revealed by faith—the truth that’s really true—is not propositional but relational. It isn’t about checking the right boxes or knowing the right things. It’s about how we love God by loving our neighbor; that’s who we truly are.

And this love is not an emotion, not some sappy saccharine sentiment. Christian love is a sacrificial love, a self-giving love. It is the pouring out of ourselves for the benefit of the other. That’s how God has always worked, pouring out His life for the world. This, then, is what it means to pick up our cross and follow Him.

If God were to light up the sky in bright neon letters, revealing Himself to the world on the evening news, that would not accomplish what He intends. All the wonders worked by Moses didn’t soften Pharaoh’s heart. Even the demons believe in God—and shudder. God doesn’t want us to believe in Him because we have to. He wants us to choose Him, to want Him, to welcome Him—because God is love and that’s how love works.

In truth, our universe offers us a superabundance of evidence. We can find plenty in our world to justify whatever belief. For those who know and love and seek out God, He is manifest all around us: in the glories of Creation; in scientific discovery and logical proof; in the innate capabilities of the human mind and soul. God appears to us in both the mundane and the miraculous, in Word and in Sacrament, by the empty Cross and open Tomb. He is not some genie, summoned when we snap our fingers, but rather we are drawn toward Him. Our love is not unrequited. The sheep will follow the Shepherd because they know His voice and are His own.

But for those who reject God, who would rather worship sex and self, possessions and pride, no amount of proof will prove enough. If they believe neither Creation nor the Scriptures nor even the wondrous and inexplicable in their own lives, neither then will they believe even if a Man were to return from the dead. For those who have faith, there is plenty of proof; for those who do not, no proof could be sufficient. Indeed, the question isn’t whether God exists—for God is Being itself—but whether we want to know and live His love in our lives, hard as that may be. That’s the truth God would have us seek; that’s the faith that runs deeper than fact.

So to return to the question that started it all: Why doesn’t God show Himself to everybody? Well, sometimes He does. And someday He will. But in the meantime it is better—so says the Risen Christ Himself—that when someone seeks out the living God, God sends to that someone you.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.