One day a pair of twins in their mother’s womb started talking to each other. One said to the other, “I wonder if there’s more to life that this?” “Why would you ask,” the other twin replied. “We have everything we need right here. It’s warm and cozy. We are always being fed. We have total freedom. No one is telling us what to do. We can take a nap whenever we want. Why would you spend any time thinking about anything else?” The first twin answered, “Oh, I’m quite happy hear, but I wonder. You know sometimes when the walls start pushing in on us and the pressure gets a bit painful? I wonder if that’s preparing us for something else, something outside of this world.” The other twin said, “Yes it hurts sometimes, but that’s just the way things are.” The first twin interrupted, “I wonder if there is a different world out there, you know, a world of light.” “What’s light?” “I don’t really know, but something tells me that we aren’t seeing all there is to see. I wonder if, one day, we will be able to see who is taking care of us, the one who has given us this place of warmth and nourishment. I wonder if we will see her face.” The other twin thought for a moment and said, “Go suck your thumb.”
“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God . . . what we do know is this, when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” It seems as if a child in the womb waiting to be born penned these words, and it is in a way, because we are all children of God living in the hope of communion with God and the resurrection to come. It is remarkable that the author of 1 John says that we will see God as he is because we never see anything as it is.
The other night I saw a PBS show titled, “The Fabric of the Cosmos: What is Space.” It was a fascinating program. Of course, I get goose bumps when thinking about the universe and all of the amazing things God created. I think one of God’s most interesting creations was his first: light. It’s all around us. It allows our food to grow and our eyes to perceive the world around us. Light is the only constant in the universe. Throughout space, it always travels at the same speed; however, as powerful as light is, we still cannot see the world as it is.
What we see and feel and hear is always in the past. I’ve talked about this before, but let me explain. You may think that you are hearing me in real time, but it takes time for the sound to travel from the speakers to your ears and then it takes time for your brain to make sense of what is being said, so the words you are hearing and perceiving were actually said a fraction in the past. It’s hardly noticeable here, but experience a fireworks show. You see the explosion, and then a beat later you hear it. So, you are hearing what happened in the past. But the same also holds true with light. What you actually see happened a fraction of a second in the past because it takes time for light to travel to your eyes. Look at the night sky. The stars we see are so far away that it takes thousands of years for the light to travel to us. Because everything in the universe is moving, the stars we see aren’t actually where we see them to be. We see them as they were thousands of years ago. Now, this may seem a bit silly and pointless, but the truth that we never see or hear or feel anything as it is, is mind melting. “We will see him as he is,” is astounding, and it’s something that the world simply cannot offer. This is good news.
Today we gather to remember. We remember our loved ones who are in communion we God. We gather around the table to remember Christ, and here’s the mystery. When we gather around the table, time stops, so to speak. Our faith tells us that when we gather around the table we experience Christ in a real and present way. Our faith also tells us that when we gather around the table we are dining with all of the saints in heaven. Sometimes we say that we hope to see our mother again or our brother again. The truth is that when we gather around the table . . . we do. When we gather, Christ promises to be present; therefore all those who died in Christ are present as well. Remember, our eyes, our ears, our hands are always working in the past. The world knows no other way. When we gather around the table, we taste the bread and we drink the wine, but we experience hope. Hope remembers the past, but it is a present reality, which points us to the future. Through God’s grace, God has given us the gift of hope. It is the one thing in the universe in which time has not affect. With hope we remember the past, we hold it in the present, and it points us to the future. “All who have hope purify themselves, just as he is pure,” our scripture says today. In other words it is this hope which allows us to see God as he is: the one who took on flesh and died so that we might live and follow his way.
We remember our loved ones today with light because light is a symbol of our hope. After all, light is the only constant in the universe. I wonder if that’s what the author of 1st John means when he says in chapter 2 that God is light and we are children of that light. Life may be as confusing as this sermon, but what we do know is this: We will see him as he is. Amazing! May you be filled with the light of hope this day and forever. Amen.