There have been those who have said that “seeing is believing”. Typically those words are spoken by skeptics – by those who do not believe in the supernatural, who don't believe that it is possible for a god to exist, let alone a god who is active in the universe, let alone a god who created the universe or who cares for his creation. In the minds of such people, even if there was a god we could not know him, because there is no way for us to measure and quantify him; therefore he cannot exist. Unless you see him, unless you reach out and touch him, unless you hear his voice and see his lips move then you simply cannot believe in him. After all, seeing is believing.
Fortunately God’s people are too smart all that. God has given to us the wisdom to know better. We know that we can be confident of things we do not see and measure even if they are not right under our noses. We believe what God has told us, what He has revealed to us, regardless of what someone says they can or cannot measure in a laboratory somewhere.
Yet in spite of our God given wisdom and in spite of our faith inspired savvy, the fact remains that such people have taken away from people of faith something that God has very clearly given. People of faith, and even people of the Christian faith have been duped into believing that faith is little more than a blind leap, a simple matter of the heart. There is no relationship between faith and reason, between faith and knowledge, that Christians should turn off their faith when they step into the classroom, into the workplace, out into public because faith is even something that stands in the way of knowledge. Faith has been reduced to a blind leap - stepping out into nothing and believing that God will catch you. It help you make it through your day, it gets you through tough times, but that is all its good for. Faith is sort of like Dory the fish in Finding Nemo when Marlin asks her how does she know that she won't get hurt or that something bad won't happen. Dory replies, “I don't” and she just keeps swimming. Sadly many Christians have come to believe that is all they've got. Since seeing is believing in the real world, the Christian faith has no place.
Ironically for those who think that believing and seeing have nothing to do with one another, as John the disciple of Jesus and the Apostle of the Church writes our text that we have heard this morning, there is an awful lot of seeing that seems to be going on. If faith and seeing truly have nothing to do with one another, the Apostle John does not seem to have heard about it.
Look at the text:
John tells us that Jesus called Phillip – he sought him out found him and commanded him to follow. Philip obeyed the command of Christ (which is simply another way to say that Philip believed and had faith in Christ (Matthew 28:20, Romans 1:5)). And the very next thing that Philip did was go out and find his friend Nathaniel and tell him that he found the one that Moses and the Prophets had written about and his name was Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
Suddenly faith had an address – it had an object. There was something solid that it was tied down to. You might even say that there was something you could measure. Philip did not say, “Nathaniel, you've just got to step out into nothing and let God take over, Close your eyes and let Jesus take the reigns.” What he did say, was Nathaniel, I found the Messiah. He is a man, flesh and blood, skin and bone and His name is Jesus. He comes from Nazareth. He has a father just like the rest of us and his father's name is Joseph.” Suddenly the promises given by God through Moses and the Prophets had a connection to something you could see and touch; a person who could even be measured in a laboratory. The promises all pointed to Jesus of Nazareth. And Philip invited Nathaniel to “come and see”.
Oh, but Nathaniel... he was a skeptic. We have them in our time, Philip seems to have had one on his hands as well. Someone who says “It can't be. It's too far from the truth to be real. I don't believe it.” Nathaniel was one who heard the Word of God about Jesus and he refused to believe that word.
You know the sort. We talked about the people who claim that seeing is believing. In order to believe in God I have to be able to see him. Usually what they really mean is that they want to see him do for them what they think he should do, what they want him to do. A plane crashes in the Hudson River and we claim its a miracle. A plane is steered into the World Trade Centers and we wonder where was God. It's not so much that they cant see God or see evidence of him or that God has not made himself known. The problem is that they want to see a god who performs tricks for them. God save me from illness, poverty, war, bloodshed, God give me fame, success, power, wealth, glory.” Then I will see for sure. Then I will believe. Seeing usually is not the problem when it comes to faith in God, usually the problem is whether or not God sees eye to eye with you.
Chances are, he does not.
When Nathaniel came to see Jesus, Jesus already knew him. Because Jesus had already seen him. “Nathaniel, Before Philip called you, while you were still under the fig tree, I saw you.” Where else had Nathaniel been that Jesus had seen him? Where have you been that Jesus has seen you? Have you been an Israelite in whom there is no deceit? Or have you been a scoundrel? Have you been a thief? Have you been an idolater, have you demanded from God that if He is to be your God he had better get things right. Jesus saw Nathaniel and Jesus has seen us and the things he has seen in us, in our hearts and in our minds and in our words and in our actions all have been sin. Jesus has seen us and Jesus has seen sin.
A few weeks ago our Gospel text was from Luke 2.22-40. Simeon who had been promised that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah came up to Mary and Joseph in the Temple, took the boy in his arms and said. “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared before all people.” Simeon had faith in the promise of God and his faith was connected to what he saw. He saw Jesus. And Jesus, the baby carried in the arms of the poor mother and father was the salvation for the whole world. The baby was the God/man who had come into the world to die for the sins of the world.
God had seen the condition of the hearts of men. He had seen their sin and so he sent to them his salvation so that they could see it in the person of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God. And what did God permit us to see? God permitted us to see a man who was humble of appearance. A man of sorrows who had no beauty that we should look on him. (Isaiah 53:3) Who was looked down on and rejected so that men would hide their faces from him. When men did look at him it was to gloat over him and to make fun of him as hung naked and shamed on the cross. Men looked at him to pierce him (Psalm 22:16, Zech. 12:10, John 19:37), his hands and his feet, his side. To wag their heads and criticize. He saved others yet he can't even save himself.
And here we begin to see. Here we begin to understand. Scripture says that Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the substance of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1) Scripture says that “We walk by faith and not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7) because what we see is the cross. What we see is suffering. What we see isn't what we want to see; we don't see wealth or honor or fame or glory or power. Jesus doesn't always save us from getting cancer, he doesn't always steer our car out of harms way so that we wind up safely on the side of the road. He doesn't always keep us from insult or injury or harm. But what he does is what is most important. He saves us from sin. He died for our sin. He gives us salvation.
Salvation is seen in Jesus. God gave to us the account of the things that Jesus had done written by those who had seen him – eye witness accounts. People who were there, people who could testify in a court of law as to what they had seen and heard. People who saw him die. People who saw him rise. People who saw him ascend into heaven. Jesus the Son of God is not a myth or a legend. He is not comic book superhero. He is a flesh and blood man who really lived, a historical figure who accomplished our salvation through his death for us on the cross.
When Nathaniel marvels at the words of Jesus and says to him “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” It was because of what he had seen. He had seen Jesus. And because he had seen Jesus he believed. Jesus told him of the things that he was yet to see. He would see “heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” He would see salvation. He would see the sins of men paid for in full so that heaven would be open and so that access would be given to men. Because of what he had seen, Nathaniel was granted the hope of what he would see.
That same thing is true for us. Our hope is not for the things that we see. Our hope is not for an immediate fix to all of life's little problems. Our hope is not a genie-god who fulfills all our wants and desires. Our hope is that because of what God has done for us in Jesus we have the promise that we will see with our eyes what God has accomplished for us on the cross. Job says “I know that my Redeemer lives and in the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has thus been destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me.” (Job 19:25-27)
We have that hope that after our skin has been destroyed, yet will we see God with our eyes because of the fact, because of the eye witness account of those who have seen it and written it down for us that Jesus our Redeemer Lives. He who was crucified has been raised from the dead and He is alive. And He will live forever. And He will stand on the earth and we will stand with him.
Yet like Job we are weak. Like Job, we suffer. Like Job our hearts are faint. And so God gives us salvation and forgiveness and strength that we can see.
On the night when he was betrayed Jesus took bread, he took a cup, he blessed it, he gave thanks and he gave it to his disciples saying to them “Take eat... This is my body... Take drink... This is my blood...” Jesus, who was soon to die and who was soon to rise and who was soon to ascend promised his disciples that he would still be with them, that they would still see his body and his blood and that they would see him as they tasted the bread and the wine and that just as certain as the bread and the wine was in their mouth he was with them and they were with him.
Jesus is with us. He comes to us to be with us so that we can see him. We see him in with and under the bread and the wine. We see the salvation that he has prepared for us on the cross and delivered to us in the means of grace, in the mechanism that he has chosen as the means for the delivery of that forgiveness that he earned for us on the cross. He comes to be with us in his bodily presences on the altar so that with our eyes we can see the salvation that he has prepared for us in the presence of all people.
Some people say that seeing is believing. I say that believing is seeing. Seeing what God has done for us in Jesus on the cross. Seeing what God has done for us in seeking us out and calling us to faith, just as he called Philip. Just as he called Nathaniel. Seeing what God has done for us to strengthen our faint hearts here on the altar in His sacrament. Believing is seeing. Believing is seeing Jesus. And He is a sight for sore eyes.
Amen.
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