Visible Signs of the Invisible
“He who has seen me has seen the Father... “He is the image of the invisible God... for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible...and in him all things hold together.”
July 13, 1980
Definitions from Morgan's Very Abridged Dictionary: VISIBLE - something that is real but you can't exactly see or touch. INVISIBLE - something that is real but you can’t exactly see or touch it, maybe feel it but certainly not like something visible you can hold in your hand. Examples of "visibles": houses, dogs, tomato plants, and people. Candidates for the "invisible" list (the list is not invisible but the things on it!): love, fear, a word, God.
Ever since I read Frederick Buechner's little book entitled The Alphabet of Grace several weeks ago, my mind has been spinning trying to connect the visibles of life with the invisibles; trying to make sense of those two categories. My imagination has been tickled, teased, and prodded by my trying to decide what is most real: stuff you can taste and touch like money, bananas, cars, and doorknobs; or that which you can't tie a string around for the life of you like joy, God's love, your love for me, my love for you.
The visibles and the invisibles: I hadn't thought much about them before, at least in that way. Yet like hearing a word for the first time or new idea, after Buechner got me percolating about those two realms of reality, I have found indications and intimations of them all over. Like a new word you hear and then encounter two or three times the next week, I have found serious reference to the visible-invisible business of life all around, but only now noticed by me. Our Bible passages from John's Gospel and the Pauline letter to Colossae show that two thousand years ago humans were trying to make sense of the visibles and invisibles of life. They proclaim that Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ, was and is the visible expression of the invisible God. That life force of love and power that has made there be something instead of a dark cosmic nothing here in this boondocks corner of the universe, that unseeable force, has shown his face and nature in Jesus. Furthermore, the writer to the Colossians says that all things seen and unseen hold together and make sense in Jesus Christ.
In what follows, I want to struggle with this relationship between the visible and invisible in life. I believe it is the invisibles of life that make it worth living BUT only if we learn to see and give VISIBLE signs of that invisible reality that wraps us in life and love.
First, we will begin with the visible signs of the invisible with ourselves. To do this, you need to picture on the movie screen of your imagination your face. You are looking in the mirror at yourself. It's your face; that's you. Because of that face, people know it's you instead of someone else when they see you coming. Look at your face. Like it or not, it probably shows your age. Some of you aren't as old as you want to be while most of us feel the opposite. If you are lucky, there are one or two people on earth who are brought joy by the simple sight of your face.
Yet your and my visible faces are just tiny tips of who we are. You can count my freckles, measure my nose, and pull my ear, but you will never know me very much, indeed I will never know me very much, until the invisibles behind that face are considered. Behind my face is the invisible world of me. In that world are countless feelings and ideas. In that world of me, invisible but very real, are some hurts, some fears, some hopes, and some dreams. There are memories of things I have done of which I am proud, memories of things I am ashamed of. There are memories of faces I will never see again on this earth and will therefore grieve for until I die. Behind my face are invisible drives and forces: the need to love and be loved, the urge to make a difference in the world, the thirst to experience God, and the questions about God, myself, and others that are my constant companions. Because of these invisibles and more that will not mention here, I often say things I don't mean, often mean things I can't find a way of saying. And so it goes.
Your face and my face are visible signs of immense invisible realities. Thus, treat me and treat yourself with delicate care, for there is more to us than meets the eye.
Second, let us take a look at the connection between the visible and invisible in our relationships with others.
In Antoine de Saint Exupery's fantasy classic The Little Prince, a little boy prince who lives alone on a very small planet travels to many other planets to explore what goes on on them and to meet their people. On his own planet is one solitary rose which the little boy waters, protects from the heat, and guards against the caterpillars. He patiently listens to the little flower when she grumbles and complains. During his travels, he learns that there are thousands of roses who look just like his. He begins to wonder why he bothers with that one common, ordinary rose on his planet. After all, she is so much trouble. With the help of a talking fox on one of the planets he visits, the little prince discovers why the rose is so important. She is HIS rose. Visibly, she looks like a thousand others but the invisible tie between him and her is that they belong to each other. The fox teaches the little prince with these words: "...here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
As we think about the seen and unseen here regarding relationships, a little later in reference to God, I want to affirm what the Little Prince learned. It is right that the invisible ties between us and those we love make so much difference in life. BUT and here is a BIG BUT...BUT only when we learn to express our invisible ties and love in visible ways. The way the little prince showed his flower that invisible tie of belonging to each other was by his watering her, protecting her, and listening to her.
Think about this matter of the visibles and invisibles at your house. How many times do we make excuses for failing to do the visible acts of love with the line: "Oh, Honey, you know I love you.” And most of the time we do know that the other person loves us, and they know that we inside, invisibly love them. Yet what I need, you need, and they need however are visible expressions of that invisible love that we know is present. I don't need to know you love me as I need to experience your love, to have visible, tangible evidence of those invisible ties that bind us to one another. Visible expressions of powerful unseen love range from the simple to the profound: hugs given, meals cooked, clean underwear in the drawer, compliments, someone who listens even when they don't feel like it, someone who stays with you even though they have a right to leave, someone who says NO to you when you need it, paychecks earned, and garbage carried out.... Visible signs of invisible love to me are another way of describing how we make love to each other. To my mind the X-rated physical activity we usually mean when we speak of making love is not making love per se. Those sexual sharings between a husband and wife are at their best the result of and the celebration of the way they make love to each other in a dozen little ways each day, some of which I just listed.
We need visible signs of our invisible love and bonds to each other at your house and at my
house. Furthermore, we need to realize something about houses and homes. In our area I find a higher concentration of people than I have ever known who spend so much on their houses and the stuff that goes in them. We need to stop and realize that what makes a house a home is not the stuff that goes in them but the fact that people who love each other and show it live there. You can have your house so full of classy stuff that you can't move, yet if the people there are not visibly making love to each other every day, then your house is empty and will not be able to protect you when the storms of life's hurts, curves, and tragedies come. Indeed, if we spent more time with our families and less money on stuff then we would have a lot more to give to those in the world who have no roof over their head.
Thirdly and lastly, today, we need to struggle with this riddle of the visible and the invisible with God. Perhaps, one of the greatest quests in our lives is to find visible signs in us and around us that the invisible God is real and not just a product of human wishing and imagination. I think that this need for a visible, touchable expression of God was going on when the writers of John and Colossians wrote to their people about Jesus being God's face in the world. We need a pair of "God glasses" that we can put on so we can see the signs.
It may seem inconsequential in a way, but to me the little garden Dianne and I cultivated in our backyard this year has been a visible sign of God's invisible presence to me. What I knew about gardening could have been written on a postage stamp. Yet with more advice than I could remember, two dollars worth of seed, and a borrowed tiller, we planted a garden. And just this past week we have begun to eat out of it. If I think I made those plants grow I deceive myself. By accident and beginner's luck we may have done the right things, yet that they in fact grew was not in my or your control. We could call in a botanist to tell us about the growth process, the stages, and the chemicals present. But educated him and plant know-nothing me cannot tell you why this process works, why when these conditions are present green beans grow. That mysterious life force coursing through gardens and human bodies is what we call God. That it provides life and the means of life is a visible sign to me of its invisible presence, indeed a powerful and loving presence and power.
Some of you may be thinking now, "Hey, Bill, you don't need God glasses on to show you visible signs in the world that seem to say the opposite. Senseless pain and premature death in people we love, those wrenching life happenings, seem to be visible signs that this invisible God is a hoax, or if he is real then he is either a demon or a weakling. I don't intend to try to explain away the mysterious questions of how there can be a loving God and such visible signs of undeserved pain in the world. All I can do is tell you about a way I came to deal with it. When malignant cells grew in my father, when they twisted his body in pain, and pushed the life out of his lungs, I went through a period of grave doubt. How could God let a hardworking 47-year-old man die? That event seemed to say that whatever invisible power there is, if it is, isn't much. But then with the help of Job, it occurred to me: isn't 47 years of life in the first place a sign of someone or something. Isn't that we have life at all, even though it is shorter than we want it, even though it hurts more than we want it, but that we have it at all when so many things work against it a visible sign that God is real and loves us?
God knows we need visible signs of his invisible reality, presence, and love. That's what excited John and Paul: the invisible God showed his face in the visible Jesus Christ on earth. You want to know what God is like, they asked, then look at Jesus. The invisible God came alive in the visible Jesus. And do you know the greatest miracle is that God still comes alive in human flesh. Even in you and in me! Not always, but often when I needed a hug, forgiveness, a shoulder, a kick, or some encouragement, someone has been there. never saw a halo on those folks, some of them could be real demons at times, but God getting through to me through them.
In the Reformation, Martin Luther made a big splash with his teaching about the priesthood of all believers. We have often misunderstood the meaning of this thinking that Luther was saying no one needs a priest to pray for us or to intercede for us, that each person can represent himself before God. That wasn't Luther's point. His point was that each Christian man or woman can be a priest for his or her neighbor. God uses each of us to be his ministers, to be a visible expression of God's love to each other. In other words, Luther taught on strong Biblical grounds that each Christian is called to be a Christ to others. We are to bring God's love, forgiveness, and help to others in our efforts to love, forgive, and help each other. If you are looking for a visible sign of God's invisible love for you today, then you better be careful. Careful, because your visible Christ today may be a runny nosed kid, a cantankerous spouse, or a Christ with gray hair and wrinkles.
The much loved minister Carlyle Marney once told about getting the artwork done for a book he was about to have published. The title of the book was The Suffering Servant, suffering servant being a term from the Old Testament book of Isaiah that has been applied to Jesus. He said that he wanted an artist to paint his or her conception of Jesus as the servant of God willing to suffer to get his love into the world. A young woman artist who happened to be deaf and mute was commissioned for the art work. What she drew was a self-portrait, a picture of herself.
So, as we close today and we try to make sense of how we can find visible signs of God's
First, look around; in the guise ...visible love and presence, I bid you to do two things. First, look around; in the guise of some unlikely person you may find your visible sign of the invisible. Second, with God's help try to be yourself a visible sign of God's love to someone.