Revelation – the first Disciples
1992 (Year C) 6 January / Epiphany
St Peter de Beauvoir Town
Last week I had to go and see the Bishop. I got there on time but the person before me was still in talking to him, so his secretary sat me outside his office. I sat there for some time, getting bored. Eventually his daughter, aged four, came to investigate this strange man in her house and we began to talk. She showed me what she’d been given for Christmas, her pride and joy was a mug. It was a Winnie the Pooh mug. ‘It’s got Busy Bees in it’, she said and showed me. Sure enough it had. Somehow the sides of the mug had been made hollow and they’d got these plastic bees which appeared to float on top of her drink when the mug was filled. About ten Busy Bees were floating and there were another ten stuck at the bottom. ‘What’s the matter with those?’ I asked. ‘Why do some Busy Bees float and the others don’t?’ She looked at me as if I was just about the most stupid person she’d ever met in her life, ‘Cos dey do’, she said and walked off to get another toy.
‘Cos dey do’. It was ample reason for her and there was no need of any other. Bubbles to any scientific explanation. It really didn’t matter that maybe some busy bees were heavier than others, or that the pressure wasn’t big enough to keep them all up in the air at one time, or maybe that some were stuck. She saw how things were and just accepted that they were that way, why should it be any different. It worked for her and I suppose she thought it was good enough for me. ‘Cos dey do’. I didn’t ask any more questions.
Jesus we’re told, revealed himself in signs and miracles, not in Busy Bees. For the first disciples miracles and signs were enough reason to follow him. It all fitted into the way that they saw things and they needed no other explanation. Something inside them accepted that this man was special, someone on whom they might risk all they had. After all, when he spoke, it was with authority, so they obeyed. ‘Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men’ he said, and they went off to follow him. Something in them responded to him. They didn’t need any other proof, no other reason. Just like the bishop’s daughter that was the end of the matter. Yet for the vast majority it has to be said, that miracles were not enough to make them believe and follow him. Fur them signs weren’t sufficient. Somehow it didn’t add up at all; the right connections were not being made.
Things don’t seem to have changed much. Now. when Christians look at a beautiful evening sky their heart sings and they revel in the glory of God’s good creation and after a particular good time with their friends or family they can thank God for the gift of intimacy and love. They recognise it for what it is, a participation in the love that the Divine has for us all. Even the simplest of things can be signs and revelations of love the Divine Creator has for creation. For others they mean nothing of the kind. Certainly, their heart’s sing at the sunset and they can fully appreciate time spent with family and friends but the connection with all this and God doesn’t exist. They look for explanations, if they need any, elsewhere.
For those of us with families and friends who simply cannot see the things we see or hear what we hear this is a frustrating business. We have a revelation of Divine Love and we long to share it but somehow it doesn’t happen. Occasionally there are gleams; Paul on the road to Damascus; ingenuities of nature, holy lives wonderfully led. But most of the time things seem opaque, no heavenly mind shows through; and many facts, far from revealing God express chaos and disaster. They even force us to ask how God can tolerate them.
Maybe it would help if we were able to remember back to what exactly it was that enabled us to see things for what they are. I guess in most cases it’s been a gradual process, so gradual that we’ve hardly noticed it at all. But there will’ve been points in our lives, not as dramatic as Paul’s journey to Damascus, but certainly as important for us, that the revelation of God suddenly become much clearer. We can offer those as dues to other people. But even then we’ll have to realise that on their own they won’t be sufficient to convince them.
In the end it’s all about committing ourselves, A man called Nicodemus saw the signs and miracles that Jesus performed and hoped to find out something about Jesus without committing himself, so he went to Jesus by night. He was told that he couldn’t see the Kingdom of God from the outside. He must enter it, must live as God would have him live. And he could not do this by non-committal talking under the cover of darkness, He must come out into the light and be baptised. In the end Nicodemus could not find God, except by learning to see and live divinely; and he couldn’t do this, except by yielding to God who had round him. And that’s the truth.
We never know what eventually happened to Nicodemus – whether he did come out into the light and enter the Kingdom. It may be, that like many of our families and friends, he couldn’t make the leap. But one thing is certain for those who have the eyes to see, ears to hear, and that is this. There is nowhere in an of creation, nowhere at all, that Nicodemus could go to escape me love of God and that love would keep following him and keep asking for all eternity, ‘no you love me Nicodemus?’
And so, ultimately I guess, when we’re asked why do things speak to us of God we might well answer looking through the eyes of faith say, ‘Cos dey do’ and that really is enough. Thanks be to God. AMEN