Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr Philip Pfatteicher at The Church of the Advent,
Sunday, December 30, 2007, the First Sunday after Christmas

“We have seen his glory.” [S. John 1:14]

We are not permitted to see God. The sight is too pure for mortal eyes.

The Bible makes that very clear. You remember the wonderful and amusing story of Moses on the mountain [Exod. 33:13-23]. Moses was known as “the friend of God”, and God said nice things about him. “You have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” It seemed the right time for Moses to ask God, “Show me your glory.” God answers, “OK, but,” he warns, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.”

God in his goodness as well as his holiness gives Moses something of a compromise. “I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.” The direct clash of mortality and immortality would cause a light too great for humans to bear.

All religious cultures know that. In old Japan, the Emperor was not to be seen by ordinary people, for he was believed to be divine. After World War II, after the de-divinization of the Emperor, older people, as in the old days, would keep their heads down and their eyes averted as they lined the streets when Hirohito would pass by. They did not dare to look at him.

Some sights are too pure for mortal eyes. With that in mind, we listen to the Gospel of the Incarnation, and there we hear the remarkable assertion, “We have seen his glory.” St. John declares that he and those around him have done what they ought not to have done: they have looked at God.

Some mortals living then (2000 years ago) and there (on the other side of the globe) actually did what even Moses, the friend of God, was not permitted to do. They saw God. They looked him in the face as they looked at this Child. They saw God with their own eyes.

Elsewhere, in one of his letters [1 John 1:1], St. John says, “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes . . . the word of life - this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it. . . .”

The words of the text hang in the air over the crèche with the stunning affirmation, “We have seen his glory.”

Here we are two millennia later, long after Jesus’ ascension, his last appearance on earth. We were born too late and too far away to see with our own eyes. We are able to boast that some of our race did in fact see God, and we revere their testimony as the Church’s precious treasure. They saw, but we cannot literally see him.

Some of us remember the children’s hymn “I think when I read that sweet story of old.” That hymn had us sing,

I wish that his hands had been placed on my head,
That his arm had been thrown around me,
And that I might have seen his kind look when he said,
“Let the little ones come unto me.”

The hymn then offers the consoling promise, “If now I earnestly seek him below/I shall see him and hear him above.” Not now, but later, in heaven, I will see.

Hearing the old words is like looking at photographs. We get a good sense of the place or the person, but still we’d like to see for ourselves, to see with our own eyes, and see those things that photographs cannot capture or reveal. If we cannot see we seem to be at a disadvantage.

“We have seen his glory,” St. John declares. We can read his words; we can believe his testimony that he actually saw. But it seems impossible for us who are so far away in time and so far removed in space, to see, to see with our own eyes.

But then, when we think about it, we may realize that just seeing may not be enough. We can see but not understand. We can be like tourists following their guide, seeing each site that is pointed out, yet understanding none of it. Just laying eyes on something is not enough. The unresponsive tourist may look but not actually see.

The fast-moving tourist may look at the interior of St. Peter’s in the Vatican and be awed by the immense size of the space and the richness of the marble, be impressed with the bluish cast of the interior of the great basilica, and never grasp what it is all about. The tourist may look but not understand that deep beneath the high altar is - almost certainly - the grave of St. Peter, and high above the altar, around the dome are the words of Jesus, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” In the opulent basilica we see the fusion of art and architecture and worldly power and religious continuity and spiritual strength.

Seeing with our own eyes may not be enough.

The question remains. “How can we, now so far off, see? How can we share the experience of the shepherds and the Magi and the Apostles?

It is from St. John that we read the Gospel today, and John has his own distinctive definition of what it means to “see”. For him, to see is not just to look with our own eyes. For him “to see” means to see with the eyes of faith. Many thousands saw Jesus when he walked the paths of Palestine, but only some of them believed and followed him.

St. John is a careful writer. At the beginning we hear his declaration, “We have seen his glory.” At the end of the book that Holy Child, now grown to manhood and crucified and raised from the dead, says to St. Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” [20:29]. Believing, penetrating beneath mere physical appearances, is the key to seeing as St. John understands it.

There is more, and the Psalmist shows us the way: “Taste and see that the Lord is good” [34:8]. We taste the bread and wine of the Holy Communion, and in that eating and drinking, in that most intimate act and most personal encounter, our eyes are opened to see and to understand and to believe.

We do more than taste with our tongues. We obey the Church’s invitation, “Taste and see,” and we come to know that this tasting does wonderful things. Eating and drinking the Holy Mysteries enlivens all our senses, our spiritual sight is enabled, and even we, so very long after the birth of Christ, can declare with his holy mother and St. John and all the Apostles, “We have seen his glory.”