- If I were alive in the time of Jesus, and I got to hear him and see him in person, then maybe I'd believe.
- How do we know he actually rose from the dead?
- What about all those people who lived and died before Jesus came or never knew about Him at all? Are they just damned to hell?
- I'd believe in God if He came to me in a burning bush or parted the sea in front of me or led me by a pillar of fire or talked to me directly...
I love stuff like that. I think those are good questions and are often asked by genuine seekers who simply can't or don't want to leap those hurdles in faith.
My answer to them usually revolves around the reality of our faith today, which becomes sort of distilled version of the definition of the Kingdom of God that I came up with in my thesis.
The Kingdom of God is mystical (felt and known within us), ecclesial (experienced through the Church that Christ established for us), and Christological (found in Christ Himself). And when it comes to the salvation-history, to our consideration of how God has intervened throughout time to interact with humanity to bring us to our salvation, we are living in the era of the Church: there was the time of The Law and the Prophets (up to and including John the Baptist), the time of Jesus' life, Passion, and Resurrection, and the era of the Church, beginning with Jesus' Ascension to Heaven and His commissioning of the Apostles ("[Y]ou will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.)
We live in the era of the Church, united together as the New Israel, as the chosen people of God through our life in Jesus Christ, His Son. We realize the Kingdom of God through our communion with Christ and with one another inasmuch as we look forward to Christ's return to fulfill our Church's faith and hope and make perfect our love through eternal life in Him. Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven." We glimpse Heaven and the everlasting joy of union with God when we do God's will on earth.
The "source and summit" of our faith in the Church is the Eucharist. Jesus told us, "This is my body; this is my blood. Do this in memory of me." And so we do.
And by the power of the Holy Spirit - the same Spirit that came to the Virgin Mary so that God might become man in the Incarnation - Jesus comes among us in the Mass to change the inner elements of simple bread and wine into His Body and Blood. Through the Eucharist, we join in the Lord's Supper with every Christian in every place and throughout all time to experience communion with Christ and one another. By consuming the Body and Blood, we strive to become what we receive: Christ.
And this my friends is the reality: that we do get to see and hear Him in person - in the Word, in the Eucharist, at Mass and in Adoration. We do know that He rose from the dead because He dwells among us still. We experience communion with Christians around the world, and with Christians in the early Church and in the Church-yet-to-come, because the saving power of Christ and our communion with Him through Baptism reach beyond time and space as the loving power of our God.
He may not come today in a burning bush or a pillar of fire or an immaculate ark or write rules on stone by fire. But I think He meets us where we are.
The Israelites toiled through life in a different context. They were a primitive civilization that struggled to find its own land, that weathered the oppression of slavery and captivity, that existed in an era without so much of the technology that even the later Greco-Roman culture of Jesus' time enjoyed. They had less knowledge, cognition, and sophistication. God knew the nature of His people and their hearts, and His actions in that era of salvation-history (The Law and the Prophets) reflected that.
These people needed a God of grand gestures. They had limited intelligence, less awareness, and a more shallow level of understanding, so God interacted with them in incredible ways. He purified desert water with wood; He gave them commands on stone tablets; He parted a sea for their miraculous escape; He rained bread from heaven, and so on. God spared no expense in showing His love and care for Israel, yet people still doubted!
God never intervenes so much as to inhibit our total freedom, to tread upon our capacity to make an active choice to choose love, goodness, and God. He reveals Himself in a way that still requires some faith and some hope.
The same goes for the people of Jesus' time, who needed God to become a man and speak words and make physical actions and walk human steps with them. We need this God-man, too, and we inherit this God-man through our Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church that He began. He comes to us in Word and Sacrament because God has revealed Himself in this way and will continue to do so, until Christ returns at the end of time to gather His people to Himself in the New Jerusalem.
God's interaction with humanity throughout time is a manifestation of His omniscience and omnipotence. He knows everything of His Creation and can do anything He wants for the sake of our salvation. And our God is omnibenevolent. He only acts in ways that will draw us to life and love in Him.
So, let's muster up some new trust in God! He is looking to meet us where we are, to come to us in a way fitting to where He finds us. He is always looking for us, seeking to share His love so that we might receive it and give it away to others.
He fired up a bush to speak to Moses; He parted a sea for the Israelites; He came to Elijah in a small voice after the fire and storms passed; He became man and lived, died, and rose for the first-century people and all of us; and He comes to us in Word and Sacrament so that we might build His Kingdom through the Church.
Take a look around for Him. He's already searching for you.
