OU, DEAR READER, most fortunate one, be alert, for standing before us is a new gateway into theology! In order for this mysterious gateway to be revealed to the reader it must be known that it is Christ himself who says so!

The glory of God became a vision, and the vision conveys the revelation. The vision is of the coming resurrection. It begins with the rising of Lazarus from the dead after having decayed in the tomb for four days.

The astounding thing is how quickly Martha replies: “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God”![1] The Lord transcended her initial and foundational faith in him Jesus Christ as the Son of God and added “your brother will rise from the dead”! The woman accepted this, and waited! She waited for it to be fulfilled by Christ, and it was!!!

The important thing, dear reader, is to draw from this what we aim of today, that faith is vision. Yes, vision!! In order to engage your alert mind, in normal circumstances I say, as another said, “If I do not see with my own eyes I will not believe.” However, this here is faith itself, if we raise it to the level of pure vision, and pure vision is God himself.

Faith truly is vision of the truth, and the one truth is God. In the end, you will believe in God if you see God; so faith in God requires vision.[2] Martha’s faith is certain, built on her sincere faith that Christ will raise her brother from the dead, and on a larger scale that God will raise the dead in general. Christ here speaks from his reality, for he spoke, and what he spoke happened, that he would rise from the dead on the third day, as happened with Martha in the case of Lazarus. With her own eyes, Martha saw her brother rise from the dead after four days buried in the tomb!! So then, Christ did not demand of Martha a vision of the glory of God on the basis that in the future she will see the resurrection from the dead with her own eyes.

Resurrection from the dead, as the Gospel teaches us, is by the glory of God, for Christ rose from the dead by the glory of God,[3] and the glory of God was openly revealed to man; not only that but also we know by faith and with certainty that Christ died in the flesh, and we know for certain and with faith that we the church are his body; for we really did die with Christ, and we really did rise in his resurrection, and so we live by his resurrection. If we are living by the resurrection, by the glory of God and his power, is not this resurrection, or faith in the resurrection, in fact a true and fundamental vision? Beware, the fundamental vision is not seen with the eyes because it is a vision of the truth, and the truth is not seen with the eyes!

Here we arrive back at the title “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” Christ was perfectly right because Martha really did see the resurrection with her own eyes. She believed in her heart, and the vision of the eyes transformed into fundamental vision, because when Martha, with her brother, lived the resurrection, she truly lived the truth, and she arrived at the summit of the vision, to the glory of God!!

September 25, 2005

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