Abounding In Things Not Seen

Abounding in Things Not Seen

Hebrews 11:1-12

Do you believe that we are surrounded by things unseen? Consider these comments that I have either said or heard at one time or another: Mom, where are my socks? Hey Dear, have you seen my car keys? I could have sworn there was leftover pizza in the fridge, but I swear I can’t see it now? Where is that blasted tv remote?

You know, we are surrounded by things unseen! Sometimes the things unseen are right in front of us, but for whatever reason our focus doesn’t let us pick them up.



Earlier in the summer I was involved in planning for a service that would be accessible to people who are blind, or severely sight impaired. Have you known someone personally who is blind, or perhaps someone who has lost the ability to hear? The amazing thing is that often times when someone loses the use of one of the five senses other senses become more acute, to compensate. A person who has been born blind, may have learned to pay more attention to other senses. I have tried letting my finger tips move over the bumps of braille letters. I can feel the bumps but I cannot make out the number of them or their configuration. My finger tips are not so sensitive, so well trained as a person who has had to depend on that sensation. Likewise, I do not hear the sound of my footsteps echoing in the hall to let me know how close I am to the doorway or a turn in the corridor.

When I was in my early twenties, I was at Camp Montgomery as a counselor. There was a group of deaf students from the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind that had come for a retreat. One evening, I heard music coming from the dining hall. These students were having a dance! How can deaf people hear the music in order to dance? They don’t hear the music so much as they feel the vibrations, particularly of the bass. They could dance just as well as most of the teenagers I had ever known. So, sometimes our perceptions are limited by our attention. How well do we focus on details that our senses are able to pick up? We focus well enough to gain the information we need, but there is so much more that we don’t see, don’t hear, don’t smell, don’t feel. The world is abounding in things we cannot see.

One of my joys is to read the National Geographic and watch the Science Channel or the History Channel. Yes, I can be a bit of a geek. Most of us have never actually seen the cellular structure that makes up our bodies. When I was a kid, my parents bought me a microscope that came with a set of pre-made slides with things like onion skin. After a bad sunburn, I took some of the skin that pealed off to take a look. A bit of blood was good, and a sample of stagnant water from a can in the yard was fascinating to view. So with some help we can see things that we can’t normally see. And then there is the internal structure of the cell. Don’t ask me to name the parts. Cell’s are essentially made of complex molecules, various proteins and things. Molecules, as we all know, are made up of atoms, the basic elements listed in the Periodic Table: things like Nitrogen, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and the ever popular Carbon. Scientist have described the atom as looking something similar to our solar system, a nucleus, like the sun, with circling bodies of electrons and neutrons. The center of the atom was believed to be fairly simple, until they were able to look more closely, and now they see that among the protons there are other matter called quarks. My knowledge here has been totally exhausted, so, let me leave this field by simply saying that the smaller we go the less we are able to see even with the best microscopes. In fact, scientists will theorize about smaller particles and matter or energy based on the effects that they see.

Let’s take this into another direction. How many of the planets around our sun have rings around them? One? Saturn? That is what I was taught, growing up. But astronomers have found evidence that Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus each have rings encircling them. In some cases they have actually seen the rings with the Hubble telescope or with a space craft flying by. But other times, they will study the planet with a hypothesis and look for evidence to prove or disprove, such as the light from distant stars that get faint when they pass at a certain point near the planet. And by the same token they can “see” planets around other stars, other suns, if you will. They don’t actually see the planets but they can see the affects of the planet’s presence. And what about Black Holes? By nature we cannot see a black hole. But we can see the affects of the black hole being present. It is incredible when we consider how the world abounds in things that we cannot see.

We know that there are some things we cannot see because of our limited ability to focus our senses, to pay attention. There are other things we cannot see because they are beyond the ability of our senses to detect. They are too small, or two big or two far away, or even outside the spectrum that our senses were designed to detect. Would it surprise you at all to know that some people, particularly people who are close to death, report seeing people in the room with them that others cannot see? Are these visiting angels, or people who have already died and are present in a spiritual form, or are they the hallucinations from lack of oxygen or from too many drugs? The reports, in my experience, are consistent enough that I would tend to believe that these visions are the result of the dying person having a sharper vision, seeing what is always around us, but we are too distracted by the material world to see. The world abounds with things we cannot see.

Now, let me ask you, can you see love? Think about it. Can you see love? You can see the goofy grin on my face when I’m thinking about the special person that I love. You can see the tenderness of a new mother as she kisses her first born child. You can see anguish on the face of a person who has just buried a long time partner. You see community of folks who are reaching out to another community, ministering with food, with clothes, with respect, with kindness. You see the affects of love, but love, itself, is invisible to our eyes. It’s like seeing the wind. You can see the trees swaying in the breeze, you can see the tree move, but you can’t see the wind.

There are those who would say that God does not exist, that God is the figment of human imagination. In many ways the human imagination shapes the way we think about God, that is clear. For instance, we sometimes  think of God as a kindly old man sitting on a cloud dispensing gifts like Santa Claus, keeping track of those who are naughty and nice. On the other hand, you could say that it is the very things that we cannot see that are the most real. The sub-atomic particles are the building blocks, the legos of everything that we see, yet we cannot see them. Love is the foundation of lasting relationships and the glue that holds a community together, yet we cannot see it. God is the very ground of our being, as Paul Tillich would say, yet we cannot see God.

Abraham did not see God but Abraham trusted the one he could not see. Abraham had faith in this God-he-could-not-see when he felt compelled to leave the land of his family to go to a new land, a land he understood was promised to him and his descendants. Abraham had faith when he lived in this land as an alien, an illegal alien by some reckonings. Abraham had faith when he understood the promise that his children, his heirs, would be as numerous as the stars in the sky or as the sand on the beach, and he and Sarah who were childless, were already far beyond the age to have children. And yet, Abraham would become a father and Sarah would give birth even in their advanced age. Abraham trusted what he could not see, he had faith, and this trust was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Do you believe that there are things around you that you cannot see? Do you believe that there are cells in your body, that molecules and atoms and sub-atomic particles do indeed exist, even though you cannot see them? Do you believe that there are other galaxies in the heavens, that other stars have planets around them, that more planets than one in our own solar system has rings, even though you cannot see them?  Do you believe the exchange of kindness and trust and compassion is based in this thing called love, even though you cannot see it? Do you believe that all this marvelous world, the sub-atomic particles to the most massive galaxy or expansive nebula were all created by the God we cannot see? Do you believe that when your life takes an unexpected turn and you are caught in fear or despair about the future that the fear and despair are based in our limited vision, vision that is made more limited by the fear and despair that we are experiencing, and that there is something more, something better, some aspect of love or some presence of God that we cannot see?

One day as I was enjoying some time at the beach, I found myself looking out across the ocean. I saw some ships passing by in the distance. One disappeared out of sight. If you believe that the earth is flat, and you see the ocean falling off in the distance, it would be natural to imagine that there is a place that is the end of the world, where, if you were to sail beyond that point you would disappear and never return. But we know that the earth is round, and in the distance there is the horizon, and the horizon is nothing except the limits of my sight. If I were to be raised up higher than I could stand then I could see further into the ocean, my sight would be extended. Over the past several weeks as first I had to prepare myself for major surgery, then I began recuperating from surgery, I had lots of folks who were praying for me. I had friends sending cards. Several people called. A few folks came to visit. In each case I found that I was being lift up a little higher and I could see a little farther. My sight is still limited, but I believe that the world abounds in things that I cannot, yet, see.

The book of Hebrews affirms faith as the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things unseen:

I believe that this marvelous world was created by an even more marvelous God.

I believe that God is the essence of love.

I believe that God and God’s love are always and forever in us, around us, and in all that is.

I believe that as we lift each other up we help each other to see a little further, a little more clearly.

I believe that our world abounds in things not seen.





Jess McCrosky