3rd Sunday after Easter 8 May 2022 Sermon

 3^rd Sunday after Easter 8 May 2022  Seeing God

 In a little while you will not see Me, says Our Lord, referring first to the Crucifixion, and then to   theAscension. And then – for the latecomers like us – the long wait before He comes again.

 But we also shall ‘see’ Him, not generally with the physical eyes, but in other ways. 

 He could show Himself to the whole world and resolve all doubt as to His existence, but He is pursuing another path. 

We would love to see Him physically but we can make do with other ways. It must be for our own good how He sets about things. 

He wants us to have the best that can be had. By not making Himself obvious He is forcing us to dig deeper and we will benefit from doing that. 

He may be invisible to eyes and ears, but He can be perceived by those who love Him.

We can find Him in His works, such as Nature. He is a master craftsman (Prov 8,30) and every day shows forth His work in all its variety and colour. There is great beauty all around, even in a world infested by sin..

But more strongly still we see Him in the great love it requires to save a wayward and ungrateful people. He not only creates; He saves.

We find Him in His teaching and in His manner. He takes us to a new level of morality, unheard of before – forgive your enemies! If we are sensitive enough we will see Him there.

If we do what He commands we will see Him more clearly still, in our own lives and in the wider society. His kingdom will come among us if enough obey Him.

This is what he wants. He wants disciples who are fighting fit, absolutely committed to belief in Him, not hampered by doubt or fear but able to operate as the apostles in those early joyful days.

Because we cannot see Him we are tempted to think we are all alone, but He is always close.

In certain situations we are very careful how we speak because of the company we are in. Well, we should speak and act as though Our Lord were right at our elbow.

We find Him in the encouragement He offers when we feel down and out. He will hear the cry of the poor, of the downtrodden. That can be us sometimes.

It is more difficult when others around us generally do not have much faith. Not seeing God, because not looking, and not sensitive to His presence they go about their business.

But as we see, there are ways of keeping Him close.

He is present in the Eucharist, His strongest presence, and which will benefit us if we receive devoutly.

Then there is His word, His teaching through the Church, and all the inspirational teaching and writing over 2000 years.

Certainly, He is present ‘enough’ that we should not feel abandoned.

Even in our sins and mistakes we can find Him, forgiving and encouraging us, teaching us through experience.

Few have faith strong enough to keep this awareness all the time, but we can grow in our ability to perceive Him.

And there are the prophecies fulfilled … His birth, death, resurrection, ascension – these have all happened and we can draw upon them.

This life is sometimes called an exile; this is not our true home but we make it as liveable as we can. At least let us discard the idea that Our Lord has somehow abandoned us.

We long for the fulfilment of those promises still to come. One day we will see Him face to face, physically. We will be very glad then that we have persevered now.