Things Invisible - The Secret Working of Goodness

Preached on Sunday, May 6, 2018

Scripture readings: 2 Kings 6:8-17; Mark 9:1-13

A pastor flew to the big city for a convention, and he got into one of the cabs at the airport. Right from the start, the pastor knew that he had chosen the wrong cab.

Driving along Crab Creek, Smyrna and Corfu, WA
March 2018

The cab was dirty and foul. The cabby was dirty and foul-mouthed. He drove like a maniac. On the way to the hotel the cabby ran a red light and the cab was broadsided by a truck. The cabby and the pastor were killed instantly, and they found themselves at the pearly gates of heaven. St. Peter met them there.

Peter greeted the cabby first. Peter knew him by name, and gave him a beautiful silk robe, a golden staff, and a crown. Then he opened those pearly gates and the cabby marched into heaven.

With the pastor, St. Peter had to search for his name in the book. Then he gave him a brown bathrobe, a wooden staff, and a seed cap.

The pastor was upset. “Why are you treating me like this? I’ve served the Lord all my life.  Why did the cabby get all the good things?”

St. Peter gave him this for an answer: “Up here we’re interested in results. When you preached, people slept. When that cabby drove, people prayed!”

The words we have read from the Bible don’t claim to show us heaven, but both of our readings show us something heavenly. They don’t show us the center of heaven, the throne of the Lord, and the joy and worship that never ceases.

They don’t answer the questions of what life would be like in heaven. (God’s word tells us nothing about that, anywhere.) But they show us what heaven is like when it reaches out to us. They show us a bit about how heaven enters our world and touches our lives, perhaps every day.

There is an unseen reality that surrounds us. The servant of Elisha, and the disciples with Jesus on the mountain, were allowed to see with their own eyes something that most of us are only allowed to see by faith.

They were allowed to see what the world is really like, what the world really is, because the earth is the footstool of God (Isaiah 66:1; Matthew 5:35). In the language of the Biblical world, heaven and earth are two parts of one single thing, which is the creation of God.

This world is really the threshold of heaven (or the threshold of both heaven and hell). The most real things in this world are the invisible things. And this is like the difference between a car, as seen by most drivers, and the same car as seen by the mechanic, or the mechanically inclined.

Most drivers probably see their car as a box of metal and plastic that rides on four wheels, and has places to sit on the inside, and a steering wheel to guide it, and a place to put in the gas. And it has an engine that we don’t usually even look at, unless something is wrong and, even then, we don’t know what we’re looking at.

The mechanic spends most of his time working with the hidden machinery inside the box. What to us is a sound or a silence, to the mechanic is something solid that is part of a system of systems that works together to make the car go.

What we don’t see in this world is the stuff hidden deep within the box. This is the stuff that really makes the world run. Inside the secret places, are the armies of angels and the generations of people who struggled, and believed, and have gone into that invisible half of creation ahead of us. And they are not just there minding their own business. And they are not just living their own lives.

They forget about themselves and they get joyfully involved in God’s business.

Many people today have a great interest in the angels, but they have very little curiosity about what the angels are most interested in. The angels (like those people who have gone ahead, before us) are most interested in worshiping and enjoying God and each other. And they equally enjoy life as they serve God, and serving God leads them back to us, to serve us. In Hebrews, it says: “Are not all angels ministering or serving spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” (Hebrews 1:14).

Those who are so interested in angels should realize that angels are not interested in themselves at all. They are too filled with praise and love to be interested in themselves.

There is so much going on, perhaps all around us, all the time. In the world, as the Bible tells it, you might be anywhere, minding your own business, and meet the Lord in a bush, or by the door of your own tent. If you were sleeping out doors and woke up at the right time you might see armies of angels passing by.

Even in the Bible this was very rare, but it was possible because it was the real world as we seldom see it. Jesus said that heaven is God’s throne, and God is everywhere. Jesus is always with us and Jesus shares the throne with his Father. And Jesus says: “I will be with you always.” (Matthew 28:20)

All the generations that have gone before us, and all the armies of angels with their fiery chariots, are as near to us as God is. They are God’s people and God’s army playing their part in the Lord’s plan and purpose. But that is invisible to us most of the time

In the visible world, Elisha, the disciple of Elijah, was a man often in danger, and here he was trapped by the Syrian army. In our visible world, Jesus was a wonder working carpenter; and that’s what everybody saw when they bothered looking at hi..

In our visible world the truth is that things are not always what they seem to be. The unseen reality has always been much different. And yet nobody could see it without special help.

The fact that the Lord is here now, and that the Lord is working now, is usually absolutely invisible to us, but sometimes we are given a gift, and our eyes are opened, and then we can see what we usually aren’t allowed to see. Lord, open our eyes!

We are surrounded by an unseen glory.

Elisha, and his servant, and the disciples of Jesus were surrounded by a glory they did not know how to see.

Jesus was surrounded by a glory he was very familiar with. He was the one shining with glory. The glory came from him. Jesus was the one showing himself to his friends as he truly was.

What he was giving them was sort of a temporarily confidential secret, at least for the near future. What they saw was given to them to help them, because things were not going to get easier for them. It was Jesus’ way of taking care of them before the bad turn up ahead.

It was like a big, deep bear-hug you would give to your child.

As for Elisha, apart from the fact that the chariots of fire were there for his protection, the servant saw them as if God had his arms around Elisha. They were the Lord’s love.

The unseen truth is that everyone you know (or don’t know) is just as likely to be surrounded by chariots of fire as Elisha was. The truth is that, if God had a wallet, he would have your picture in it. God would carry your children’s pictures in his wallet too.

Well, you must realize that God would have everyone’s picture in his wallet. That would make a very big wallet, and that’s probably why God doesn’t have a wallet. He carries everyone’s picture in his heart instead.

We are surrounded by an unseen power.

In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses said to his people, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” (33:27) They couldn’t see it but it was true.

Elisha told his servant the truth, ‘Don’t be afraid, “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”’ 

On the mountain, Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus. Luke’s gospel tells us more plainly what they were talking about. They were talking about Jesus’ departure which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem. But the Greek word for departure in that verse is the same Greek word as the title of the Book of Exodus. They were talking about Jesus’ exodus.

When Jesus’ departure happened, it looked exactly like death by torture on a cross. It was a terrible thing to see. Everything about the cross told the story of Jesus’ failure; Jesus’ utter and brutal defeat.

But all of that horror and pain were only the reality of things as the people around the cross saw it. The visible reality, as they perceived it, made some of the people there laugh, or taunt. Or it made them angry. Or it made them despair. Or it simply made them weep. The visible reality, as they perceived it was not true.

The unseen reality was completely different. The unseen reality was Jesus the pioneer, blazing the trail that all of his people would follow. The exodus trail of Jesus is our way to the promised land. The exodus trail of Jesus permanently divides the red sea of death. Jesus’ trail makes the desert of sin into a valley of springs. The narrow path is a park where manna bread falls from the sky.

Of course, when it came time to happen, it wouldn’t look anything like an exodus. It looked horrible. It looked like a crucifixion: one of the worst ways to die.

Moses and Elijah were talking to Jesus about the cross, and the nails, and the tomb.
The cross was the visible side of an invisible power. The cross is the strategy which Jesus used to capture us and change us: if we would be willing to receive it.

The cross held the invisible power to crack the barriers of this universe, in order to create it new. The cross would make heaven and earth (the home places of angels and humans into new places. The cross would bring heaven and earth together into one place where the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit would dwell with all his creatures.

The cross holds the invisible power to tell us we are loved and there will be no more tragedies, no more sorrows, no more griefs. The cross is the power that fights our enemies: fear, hatred, discouragement, sin.

            The Lord’s gifts to his people are often visible signs of an invisible power and grace. They look like one thing to our eyes of flesh and blood. They are a completely different reality, spiritually.

When we sing and pray and listen to God word read and preached, the grey carpet in this room turns into holy ground. But you’ve also got holy ground at home and, next door, your neighbor’s floors are holy ground: or they can be.

Quiet, with your heads bowed, and with your hands folded or raised, aliens from another planet might not suspect what to make of you when you pray, but the invisible reality is that you are standing around God’s throne singing thanks for God’s answers to your prayers.

The Lord’s Supper looks like bread and juice, the invisible reality is that Jesus is feeding us with himself: with all that he is and with all that he has done for us. It’s a heavenly feast served with unending pitchers of wine.

The water of baptism looks like whatever flows from your faucet or whatever you swim in at the river. The invisible reality is that it is much more like the river of life that flows from the throne of God in the new Jerusalem come down from heaven.

The stories of Elisha and the chariots, and Jesus and the transfiguration sound like miracles, and maybe they are, only they are the rare opportunities that come and allow us to see the real rules of the universe behind the visible, measurable reality that we take for granted. Miracles don’t break the rules of nature. Miracle obey the simple rules of the part of nature we usually don’t see, even though that reality surrounds us all the time and never goes away.

Every human being on this earth is the same kind of miracle. All the human beings who have ever lived, or those who ever will live, have the potential to be more than they appear to be. Even now they may be resisting, or they may be in the process of becoming, like the riders of those fiery chariots. Even more, they may be resisting, or struggling, or in the process of becoming, like our Lord Jesus when his friends could see him shining like tender, loving lightening.

Everyone you know is made to shine, and you are the ones who know the truth. You are the ones who can go to others in your God-given light and be just a little part of a whole choir of light with which the Lord surrounds each and every unknowing, unsuspecting person around you.

You can be God’s gift and serve God’s purpose to make that invisible light and power to come on for them forever. Let’s think and pray to find the ways to work and to live it, and the ways to speak and to share it, that God in his grace can use to make that invisible world visible in this one.