How many saw the fireworks display last Thursday in downtown St. Petersburg? It was one of many celebrations of the Declaration of Independence, signed in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.
Philadelphia brings to mind a story about Archbishop Fulton Sheen. He was scheduled to speak at the Philadelphia Town Hall and decided to walk from his hotel. Sure enough, he got lost. He asked some teenagers for directions which they happily gave him. One of them asked, “What are you doing at the Town Hall?’ and Archbishop Sheen said, “I’m giving a lecture on how to get to heaven. Do you want to come along?” The teenager replied, “Are you kidding? You don’t even know how to get to the Town Hall.” So much for directions.
Today’s word of God takes us back to the sixth century before Jesus: a catastrophic time for ancient Israel. Babylonia destroyed the three pillars of Hebrew life: the king was dethroned, the temple was in ashes, Jerusalem was a pile of rubble and many Hebrews were deported to Babylonia, what we know today as Iraq. Yet in the aftermath of this disaster, the author of Isaiah speaks about a bright future. Jerusalem, like a mother nursing her children, will prosper and flourish again. A miracle!
Centuries later in Jerusalem, Jesus inaugurated new purpose in life through his horrendous death and glorious resurrection. Jesus Christ is gloriously alive. And because He lives, we live—another miracle!
Yes, our citizenship is in heaven. The author of Isaiah may be asking whether our lifestyle and behavior reflect this citizenship.
Paul, in his letter to the Christian community in Galatia (central Turkey today), proclaims that through the death of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection from the tomb we have salvation, life eternal. And so, Gentile Christians don’t have to observe Jewish practices. Paul argues that God through the life-giving waters of baptism has transformed us into “new creatures,” living temples of God, alive with the breath or life of God within us.
Paul preached that the power of God enabled him to endure all kinds of hardships for the sake of the Gospel (daily crosses, so to speak). That same power of God enables us to practice a life of virtue—for example, self-discipline, honesty, responsibility, integrity, courage, friendship, compassion, and above all, faith in God.
In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus sends forth seventy-two disciples to continue his saving and healing work. They are to “travel lightly” and trust always in God's unconditional love for them. And they reported back how they witnessed to the power of God with healings of the sick.
Now what does it mean to witness? I’m a witness not simply by seeing something or saying something is true but if I actually experience it. I testify to what I myself experienced. For example, I ate veal marsala. I heard Beethoven’s Fifth. I kissed the Blarney Stone.
The disciples were witnesses to Jesus in that sense. They walked with Jesus, talked with him, ate with him, and prayed with him.
Peter, for example, reached out for Jesus’s hand in the Sea of Galilee. Doubting Thomas put his finger into Jesus’s side in the Jerusalem upper room. The disciples were with Jesus after he rose from the dead; they watched as he was lifted up into the heavenly realms. And so Peter could preach, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses.”
We too are called to be witnesses to Jesus Christ, gloriously alive. Every Sunday, in the creed, we testify to our core Christian beliefs: the triune God, the incarnation, the death/resurrection of Jesus, the life-giving Spirit, the global community of disciples, life eternal. But what people look for in us, expect from us, is some visible sign that we have experienced what we believe.
We evangelize effectively if we are a sort of sacrament, a symbol, an outward sign of God’s grace/presence within us. We mustn't simply know about God; we must experience God.
The heroes and heroines of Christianity not only knew about God but experienced God in their daily lives: Augustine, Francis and Clare of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, and many more. We touch people powerfully if we have already experienced God’s grace/presence within us.
God gifts us with faith in Jesus Christ so that we can be witnesses to Him. We are by nature believers. Think about the ordinary things we do. We turn on the car and expect it to start. We turn on the house lights, and voila, there’s light. We live by faith if you think about it.
Our Christian faith is a gift from God that empowers us to have a right relationship with the triune God as creator, redeemer, and sanctifier. Faith is richer and deeper than belief. Faith empowers us to enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ, to follow Jesus, our way to eternal life, our truth who sets us free from falsehoods, and our light who illuminates the darkness around us as we journey toward our heavenly home.
Faith is about connectedness to Jesus. It’s about our relationship with God that we nurture, especially through the Eucharist. Belief, on the other hand, is a statement about the essential truths of our faith that we proclaim every Sunday (e. g., in the fourth-century Nicene Creed). From faith comes a confidence about life. Why? Because we trust in God's unconditional love for us, a God who is always near to us, closer to us than we are to ourselves.
This confidence comes from realizing we have a purpose in life, and that's why we nurture our relationship with God, hold on to our beliefs, take risks and build up an arsenal of small successes— and some failures. Successes convince us that it is possible to succeed in the future. Our failures tell us it is possible to survive and go on. Both are absolutely necessary in developing that sense of assurance that, in the end, things are going to be okay.
We call this divine providence. All of us are in the hands of an all-good God. And with a positive can-do, faith-filled spirit, we can work through, yes triumph over, the many challenges we face in life. Why? Because God loves us unconditionally, because God is always near to us and because God ultimately will achieve His purpose for us and for this universe. And to this divine providence, and to Jesus Christ, gloriously alive, our way, our truth and our life, we joyfully witness in our daily lives. Amen.
