Seeing the Invisible

Nehemiah 2: 13-18     2 Corinthians 5: 1-10

 

 

          Don’t you love to be around people who can cast visions! People who can look out into space as if they see something, and as they begin to describe what they see, it isn’t long before you can begin to see it too.  I remember as a college student hearing Robert Kennedy use these words as the theme for his 1968 Presidential bid: “Some men see things are they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.” Just to be fair, he was quoting George Bernard Shaw, but he claimed those words as his vision. Or there was Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech delivered in 1963 in the March on Washington.

          Both these men died casting their vision. They died, but their visions lived. Both these men were vision casters. They looked out into the nothing and they saw not what was, but what could be. Without dream casters, where would we be? They see the invisible. They give it a taste of reality for us.

          We’ve been talking about the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah is like Kennedy and King. He has even better vision. From his vantage point in King Artaxerxes Persian palace, he can see Jerusalem, a place he has never lived, in a country in which he has never set foot. And his vision of what is there is so real that it brings him to tears.

          I’m thinking that Nehemiah had two visions. The first one was a vision of what Jerusalem looked like. He had the capacity to see in his mind’s eye the ruin and devastation that was there. He could see the broken down walls. He could smell the burned gates. And in this vision, scripture tells us that Nehemiah wept and mourned for days. He fasted and he prayed. He remembered the teachings of his elders and of scripture that if they would return to God, that God would again gather them and bring them to his chosen place.

          It is a powerful testimony that even though seventy years had passed, even though Nehemiah had grown up in a mixed culture where he was constantly exposed, and was successful in, the Persian way of life, he still was profoundly influenced by the power of God. Even though he has climbed the ladder of success, even though he has no physical connection with Jerusalem, he does have this incredible, almost instinctual, connection with his homeland. He knows it is in trouble and for all practical purposes destroyed. It makes him hurt. It brings him to his knees. But this is only the first vision.

          But Nehemiah begins to pray again. You know this is dangerous. When righteous believers begin to pray about something, things happen. Prayer is powerful. We are reminded of that over and over in scripture. What does James tell us? Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective [5:16].

          So Nehemiah prays. And in that prayer, another vision is born. This time, Nehemiah does not see the description of Jerusalem as brought to him by certain men from Judah. This time, Nehemiah sees a different vision. This time, Nehemiah sees Jerusalem rebuilt. He sees the walls rebuilt. He sees the gates restored. He sees the temple as a center of worship. He sees the people no longer as the scattered, but rather coming together to worship as the gathered people of God. Nehemiah sees what to everyone else is still invisible.

          And in that prayer, Nehemiah is emboldened. He is so emboldened by that prayer that he goes to the Persian King and asks for permission to go home and rebuild. Right before he makes this crazy request, he prays again. If you read Nehemiah, you can see a pattern. The man doesn’t go off half-cocked. He is always going to God in prayer before he does or says something big. And it works.

          So Nehemiah sets out to the home he has never known, to the people who are his but know him not, to rebuild a city where no one wants to live. Why? Because Nehemiah has seen the invisible. He has cast his vision for God.

          Hold that thought, the thought of seeing the invisible, while we now turn to another form of vision and another form of re-building. While Nehemiah was concerned with an earthly home, the apostle Paul in 2^nd Corinthians 5 was concerned with a different kind of home.

          Paul calls our bodies our earthly home. He compares them to a tent in which we live, but only temporarily. He talks about being uncomfortable in a way. It’s as though we know that there is something more, something better, but that is in the valley of the not yet. In the now, we groan and carry our burdens, sensing more, but unable to see that which is promised.

          Paul says in verse 6 that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. In verse 5, he says that we have the guarantee of the Spirit until life, life in God that is, swallows up our mortality. Now this is high theological cotton, and Paul is apparently trying to reassure us that when our mortal bodies are separated from our souls, we need not fear, for God in his time will reunite them. But this seems also to be a teaching moment. For me, to be at home in the body is not to be away from the Lord, but to be in community with the Lord through the power of the Holy Spirit. No, we are not yet ready for heaven, but yes we are already in communion with God. I don’t disagree with Paul. I’m just noticing another thing that God teaches me in this scripture.

          But here is what else Paul says. And here, he joins with Nehemiah. Paul says: we walk by faith, not by sight. Paul is reminding us that we too are called upon to see the invisible.

If you can see it with your naked eye, then you don’t need faith, do you. You can rely upon your eyes. If you can feel it with your hands or taste it with your tongue or hear it with your ears, you don’t need faith any more. But if you can’t, then you need faith. You need faith to cast a vision. You need faith to see God in his presence. And you need faith to place yourself in that presence.

          And what is God’s presence? I am God’s presence. When I stand here in faith, talking about what God means to me, I am God’s presence. You are God’s presence. When you rise to sing a hymn, bow to pray, hold the hand of another in Christian love, you are God’s presence. Think about it. You can’t do any of that without faith. And that’s precisely how you see the invisible. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, says the writer of Hebrews.

          What is it that you can see? What is that invisible reality that God has shown to you? Kennedy and King and Nehemiah and Paul all had something in common. They saw a world or a place or a people with the eyes of God. Then they set out to get others to see it with them. Your job is no different. What do you see? God has given you eyes for something special. Pray about what you see. Then share it.