|
Topics
Jesus and WIMPs:
On "seeing" Jesus
By
Jerry Truex
In John 14:8, Philip said to Jesus,
“Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Philip’s voice is heard
in all generations. For example, Albert Ellis said, “When the New York
Times reports the existence of God, then I’ll believe.” Similarly, we
hear people say, “If I can’t see it, I don’t believe it.” In this way,
Philip’s voice insists that God is nowhere.
First, there is
Jesus
What did Jesus say to Philip? It’s a
mind bender, so brace yourself. The writer of John’s Gospel has Jesus
say, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us
the Father’?” (Jn 14:9). For early Christians, like the writer of John’s
Gospel, Jesus was remembered as if “God lived among us” (Jn
1:14). John’s Gospel invites you to walk with Jesus from Cana to
Jerusalem, to hear his voice in long metaphorical monologues, to feel
his calloused hands, to see his remarkable feats and, finally, to remain
faithful even as Jesus is captured, tried, tortured, and executed. And
on your journey, if you receive and believe (1:12), Jesus’ voice will
break the divine silence (3:34), light will dispel the darkness (8:12),
awe will push you backward (18:6), and you will gasp with Thomas, “My
Lord and my God!” (20:28). In John’s Gospel, Jesus and God are one, yet
not the same, for no one sees God (1:18). But, if you walk in the light
(12:35), seeing Jesus is enough! Enough to know God is a palpable and
present.
Of course, you and I haven’t seen
Jesus physically. Still, historical Jesus scholars are helping us see
more clearly the Jesus who really walked the dusty paths of Galilee and
Judea. Like John’s portrait of Jesus, scholars are discovering a
remarkable figure. Think of Mother Theresa (a healer unafraid of
suffering), Albert Schweitzer (a brilliant teacher and physician),
Mahatma Gandhi (a nonviolent social prophet), and the Dali Lama (a holy
man without guile). Now take these individuals and wrap them into one
peasant hero from Galilee and that is my vision of Jesus. And when I see
Jesus, awe pushes me backward and I gasp with Thomas, “My Lord and my
God.”
Then, there are
WIMPs
WIMPs are Weak Interacting Massive
Particles. Here is another mind bender, so fasten your safety belts and
put on your helmets. According reputable cosmologists, what we ‘see’ in
our universe accounts for only about 15 to 20 percent of the ‘matter’
that is really there. In other words, we cannot see 80 to 85 percent of
the universe. This “dark matter” consists of WIMPs and despite their
massive size, they pass right through visible objects from planets and
persons. (See Timothy Johnson, Finding God in the Questions,
2004:35).
What would cosmologists say to
Philip’s demand, “Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied”? On the
issue of God, cosmologists might remain agnostic. But regarding seeing
in order to believe, they would insist that most of “what is there” in
the universe can’t be seen. With the writer of John’s Gospel, they might
say, “Blessed are those who have not seen [WIMPs] and yet have
believed” (cf. Jn 20:29).
Now, there’s one final point I want
you to ponder. Many of life’s most important realities cannot be seen:
WIMPs, gravity, neutrinos, moral values like justice and goodness, love,
and God. In fact, to think God can be seen or empirically verified is a
category mistake. A category mistake is a type of faulty reasoning,
which assigns something a property that belongs to another category. For
example, if I said, “Love is blue,” I’ve made a category mistake. Love
has no color. In the same way, just as cosmologists think it is a
category mistake to think we can see WIMPs, biblical authors insist that
it is a category mistake to think we can see God (Jn 1:18; 1 Tim 6:16).
So, if you hear a voice saying,
God is nowhere, I encourage you to look at Jesus, ponder the
universe, open your inner eyes, and consider the possibility that God
is now here.
Teaching |
