Matthew 9:18-20
The Christian faith is different from what the world teaches. The Christian faith is not “seeing is believing,” but rather, “believing is seeing.” We must open our eyes and hearts and see Jesus’s presence in our lives. We need to see him in the places that we dare not to look and dare not to think about. – Grace Ji-Sun Kim
This fall we’ve been “reading” Freeing Jesus by Diana Butler Bass. We’ve considered some of the ways she understands Jesus in order to think about who Jesus is for each of us. We’ve heard about Jesus as friend, teacher, savior, Lord, and way. Each of you may have resonated with one or more of those descriptions. Today we think about Jesus as the presence of God in the world and with us.
There are two key ways in which human beings think about God. We can think about God who is holy, divine, and utterly different from us. That is God as other. God in heaven – mighty, controlling, pure. The word the church uses for that God is “transcendent,” a being that transcends or is above and beyond all that we are. We recognize that God from many Bible stories and church services. The other way to think about God is the God who has chosen to be born in Jesus. This is the God who comes to earth. Immanuel, God-with-us. This is the God who seems near to us when we’re in trouble, when we pray, when we hold a new grandchild, when the world seems full of goodness and light. The word the church uses for that God is “immanent,” a being as close as breath or a heartbeat. We recognize that God from the Psalms and the testimony of both ancient and modern people who speak of God’s love. The immanent God, known in Jesus, is the God of presence. Jesus who said to his disciples, just as he was leaving them, “I am with you always to the end of the age.”
You may be able to tell stories about moments in your life when you felt that presence. I suspect those times are precious to you. People associate words like “comfort” and “hope” and “courage” with those experiences, and they convince us that God’s love is real.
I’ve been preaching about transcendence and immanence a long time, and I want to suggest a further option for you to consider. The transcendent God watches over us; the immanent God draws near to us. I’ve come to believe that God is in us – not just near but a part of the fabric of who we are, of all that is. We’re coming up on Christmas when we’ll be talking about God born as Jesus. Certainly those who knew Jesus said they saw God in him and through him. We consider it a great mystery and miracle that God would come to humanity as human. Ancient Hebrews believed the Spirit of God was a wind or a breath. What if God’s Spirit is in our first breath and every breath we take after that? What if the spark that is our life is the very presence of God? What if when God creates all that is by blowing across nothingness like a wind and speaking the words of creation, the very existence comes from the exhaled breath in those words? God is not just near, but God inhabits our lives and the life of all that is?
I know there’s a lot of evidence of humanity not being at all like God. We could make long lists! But there’s also a lot of evidence that God is truly present in the lives of many folks. We list those signs of light every week! Grace Kim invites us to believe in the presence of God in the presence of Love, and because we believe God is there, we see that evidence all around us. We all know that when we’re looking for things going wrong, it’s easy to see them. But it’s also true that when we’re looking for things toing right, we see those too! A month ago in the middle of my moving process, I realized that when you all asked how things were going, I told you everything that was broken or missing or not happening on time. But the greater truth was all of you were helping me and lots of good things were coming together and I really like my new house. Sometimes we make a choice about what to look for and that’s what we see. Believing Jesus is still living and breathing through us helps us see him every day.
We talk about doing God’s work often. Bass reminds us this: We do not build a kingdom: we participate in creation. Just as God breathed creation into existence, our living, breathing presence in this world continues that creation. When we choose to see God at the heart of it, that’s what we create – a godly, loving reality that gives this world Life.
Grace Kim invites us to look for Jesus every day. We look for him where we dare not: perhaps in the face of the mom whose SNAP benefits aren’t there yet, who has to put groceries back; or the face of those unhoused in our country, those misplaced by war in far places. Jesus tells us he will always be with those in need. But we will see him also when we hand someone a check for a rent deposit, when we fill food boxes, when we speak up for peace.
Believing in the presence of Jesus among us and even in us, gives us courage to hope. Courage to keep trying to right wrongs and stand for justice. Courage to believe that the small acts of kindness we manage will multiply and the cruelty of some will end.
Some folks are waiting for the return of Jesus to bring God’s reign on earth. We say Jesus never left. He’s here with us. And we can see God’s ways breaking through all around us.