All that is, seen and unseen

 Fifth Thursday after Pentecost

The Nativity of John the Baptist--Color: White

Lectionary Texts:

Thursday

1 Samuel 27-28

Friday:

1 Samuel 29-30

 

The Daily Office Lectionary of the Order of St. Luke has gone a little wild on me this week. I listed the readings in one line today. The lectionary lists them in two lines, separate lines for each chapter, no NT reading. I don't really like this. I'm going to check one or two other daily lectionaries to see if they have the same thing. In my view, a daily lectionary should have an OT reading and an NT reading for each day.

 

Today commemorates the birth of John the Baptist in the Episcopal calendar. Why today? If I recall correctly John the Baptist was born six months before Jesus was born. Today is about six months before Christmas. Why is the color white? Remember, red is for martyrs; white is for saints who were not martyred. John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod Antipas. Why would that not count as martyrdom? Any ideas?

 

Today we're looking at the fourth line of the Nicene Creed. God is "maker...of all that is, seen and unseen." This phrase has a different meaning for us than for the Nicene Fathers. For them the question which the phrase answers is--did God create both the spiritual realm of good and the spiritual realm of evil, i.e. hell, or was hell created by Satan. If you believe the latter, as many Christians did at that time, then you have a cosmic dualism in which Satan has creative power and is real competitor with God for the ultimate outcome of the universe. Will God/good triumph in the end, or will Satan/evil triumph. The Nicene Fathers wanted Christians to understand that God created all, and can control all, including the entire spiritual realm, including hell.

For us today it's an entirely different question that this line of the Creed answers. In our modern, predominantly secular world, the question is whether there is anything "unseen," as the Fathers understood it. Is there such a thing as a spiritual realm, inhabited by angels and perhaps other invisible beings, such as powers and demons?

 

Science has probed all sorts of invisible things completely unknown and unimagined two centuries ago. I'm writing this on a machine that will transfer it intact to you on invisible waves somehow moving through space at the speed of light. There are also all sorts of other invisible things we have discovered: x-rays that can penetrate the skin and show pictures of the bones, CT scans, MRIs, infrared and ultraviolet light beyond the ends of the spectrum that we can see. Eagles can see more the infrared spectrum than we can. Dogs see less. But then dogs can smell things far beyond our capacity to smell. 

If we now know so much of the things unseen in the physical world, why can we not accept that fact as an analogy to the spiritual world, a world of things unseen, except on rare occasions when they reveal themselves in our realm, in the realm of the seen, such as when the angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary? Or an angel appearance, Christ appearance, or Mary appearance--to someone today?

O Maker of all things, seen and unseen,

Guide us to deeper understanding of all things, seen and unseen--all things that science can determine, and more things in the spiritual realm. In the name of the Risen Christ. Amen. 

Faithfully,

Christian