“NOT SEEING IS BELIEVING”
Saint John 16. 16-23
Jubilate - The Third Sunday after Easter: 7 May Anno Domini 2006
Fr Watson
There's an old adage: "seeing is believing." That's not true. There are mirages, sleights of hand, illusions, masquerades, deceptions and impersonations. As Pharaohs' magicians were able to visually "duplicate" several of Moses' miracles, so too Paul tells us that even Satan can "appear" as an angel of light. Because the eyes rather "play tricks" on people they are unreliable.
Trust the Lord: not seeing is believing!
Eve didn't see her Redeemer but she believed the word of the Lord that her Seed would bruise the head of the serpent and win back Eden for her and her wayward spouse. Abraham did not see the Promised Land when he left Ur at the behest of the Lord's word. He did not see His descendents as the sand grains on the seashore; He did not see Himself and his post-menopausal wife having a baby; He did not see a way to be Father of Nations when he raised the stone dagger to slay Isaac. No one saw anything "kingly" when they looked at David the shepherd boy.
This of course is one of the "themes" of the Old Testament. Since "looks are deceiving" the Hebrews were told to trust the Word of the Lord. The Israelites were to have faith in God's Promises.
The reason you sin all the time is that your "Old Adam" is just like Adam; it desires to "see" the "goods." If it doesn't "see" it thinks God must be holding out. You pray for health or a brief respite from suffering and when you don't "see" it you doubt the Lord.
Repent.
You don't see the bloody crucifix upon the hillock Calvary where your sins were atoned for, but you believe by the Word recorded and preached. You don't see the broken body of the Lamb or the blood flowing from His holy wounds of Redemption and Peace, but you believe by that same Body and Blood eaten and drunk as a pledge of undying fidelity.
Take comfort that you are now in the "Company of the Blood and Water," i.e. you are New Testament Disciples just like the original band of 12 to whom the Lord addresses: "A little while, and you will not see Me, and again a little while, and you will see Me." Jesus was visibly with His little flock for three years. Jesus would leave their sensory field of sight and sound for three days of death and entombment. During the last part of Good Friday, Holy Saturday and well into Easter Sunday they did not "see Him." When He later came to them on the evening of that First Day of the Week, He upbraided them for their hard hearts and slowness to believe all that the Scriptures had said; and all that He had said about His having to suffer and die and then rise again. When you doubt Him He also chastises your stiff necks and weakness which demands "sight," which requires proof.
Repent and believe the word. As Paul instructed the Romans: "For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for?" [Rom. 8.24] You will see Him too in a "little while." You will see Him under the humble means of Bread and Wine. In Judea His own saw God in the Flesh in the humble Man from Galilee, the Man from the Virgin's womb. In Kansas this morning you will see Him, for He is with you too: "Peace to you."
Will you see the Savior with your eyes? Yes, you will behold the "°pierced One" with your own eyes (as Job testifies; Job 19.26) at the great resurrection of the dead at the final trump.
But for now, for a "little while," you live by faith and not by sight. Your faith is not your own work, striving, or effort; it too is a gift of God. As the letter writer to the Hebrews states: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." [Heb11.1] Yes for a "little while" you will have sorrows, set-backs, hurts, and deep valleys. You will many times feel like abandoned traitorous cowards locked up in a little room of sin and despair; but take heart, take the beating, pumping, blood filled Heart of Christ and drink deep from His chalice of Love, for He sees you now in His Word and Meal, and He will see you again in all His visible fullness before you know it, and your heart will rejoice! The Apostle speaks truth by the Spirit: "we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." [2 Cor. 4.18]
Trust the Lord: not seeing is believing!
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost