By Dr. Lani Wilson
 
Good Day! Keeping you in prayer as we all pray and fast for the Body of Christ locally and worldwide. There are places in the world where Christians who had previously enjoyed the freedom to worship are now being persecuted. We are blessed.
 
The word this week is “invisible.” It’s one of those huge words that seems so self-evident when we think of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God. It’s just….well….HUGE. It’s a huge word, a huge concept because the gist of our belief is built on faith; that thing that is priceless but can’t be bought; that is powerful but has no form; that one has but cannot be apprehended. We believe in something that can’t be seen or proven. So the question is “Is the very heart of our belief visible or invisible?” And more importantly, does it matter?
 
Hebrews 11:3 perhaps gets at the nature of this paradox succinctly:
 
By faith we understand that the worlds were set in order at God’s command, so that the visible has its origin in the
invisible.*
NET Translation
 
(*NET Note 5: “The Greek phrasing emphasizes this point by negating the opposite: ‘so that what is seen did not come into being from things that are visible.’”)
lumina.bible.org
 
Jesus had more to say about what was “visible.”
 
Jesus, grilled by the Pharisees on when the kingdom of God would come, answered, "The kingdom of God doesn’t come by counting the days on the calendar. Nor when someone says, ’Look here!’ or, ’There it is!’ And why? Because God’s kingdom is already among you."
Luke 17:20-21 (TMB)
 
The NET translation says it this way.
 
Now at one point the Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God was coming, so he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is in your midst.* (NET)
 
(*NET Note 65: “This is a far better translation than ‘in you.’ Jesus would never tell the hostile Pharisees that the kingdom was inside them. The reference is to Jesus present in their midst. He brings the kingdom. Another possible translation would be ‘in your grasp.’”
lumina.bible.org
 
What cannot be seen is what we have faith in. We could also say that we believe in that which cannot be seen. Jesus, of course, gets to the rock hard core of what He knew would be the essence of His mission. He is going to make visible that which had heretofore been invisible and somehow, He was going to bring the impossible into the physical world: The Kingdom of God. The Christ was concerned with the Kingdom of God on earth as well as in heaven.
 
And that’s not all. You will have complete and free access to God’s kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is yes in heaven. A no on earth is no in heaven."
Mathew 16:19 (TMB)
 
No barriers. None. Uh huh… Can’t you just picture the disciples shaking their heads, nodding in agreement, as they did so often when The Master said these complicated things that made no sense? But they totally trusted Him and had seen Him do miracle after miracle. After all, they were always fed; knew they were safe with Him; they were doing great things for people; and there were hoards following them: It must all be alright. Even if He told them He was going to leave them, He also said He was coming back for them: It must all be alright. Remember, this is being said before Jesus was tortured, crucified, resurrected, and appeared to them before He ascends to heaven. The disciples are listening, asking questions, feeling perplexed in a vacuum, a vacuum of trust: These are Jews who just know that Jesus is the Messiah (Hebrew and Aramaic), The Christ (Greek), the “one who has been anointed” (lumina.bible.org), the one who has come to free them. Theirs was a belief based on the visible presence of Jesus, before and after His death and resurrection. What is ours based on?
 
If our belief is based on faith, that enigmatic muscle that must be exercised in order to lift ourselves up through human experience, then we should be able to explain how that muscle developed. Jesus said that there would be those who would be blessed because we would believe and not have seen Him in-the-flesh as the disciples did. Yet, so many of us struggle with just exactly Who Jesus is. We talk about a living God, but what do we mean when we say that? And in this digitized world when we can seemingly make things appear real when they are not physically present, just what is real and where does a supposed invisible God fit into this picture, if at all? How can one lead another to talk to a seemingly invisible omnipresent Presence? Try me, some say the Lord says. But try Who? I know, I know. If we try God, God will answer, but what about when God is silent for someone searching for a real response? How do our faith-muscles work for those who don’t necessarily want to come to a building every Sunday and sit and listen? Where exactly is this “Kingdom of God” that this Jesus talked about so much and what does it matter in 2015?
 
During the May 19, 2014 Billboard Music Awards show, Michael Jackson performed for an astonished audience. This is bizarre given that he died on June 25, 2009. The hologram that created this performance took six months to create and was extremely costly (Jefferson, Cord. "Company Behind Tupac Reagan Hologram Now Bankrupt" Web log post. Gawker.com, 11 Sept. 2012. Web. 17 Sept. 2015). The performance can be viewed on youtube.com.
 
"We've been talking about it for the last five months and while we were talking about it they were still inventing the process," says BBMA director and producer Larry Klein. "It was really strange talking about something that did not exist."
http://www.billboard.com/articles/events/bbma-2014/6092040/Michael-
jackson-hologram-billboard-music-awards
 
MJ PF Post opt
 
For the younger generation called The Millennials, it appears that there is reason for concern about their understanding of just what is visible, what is not visible, what exists, what does not exist, and what it means.

A remarkable 25 percent of Americans born after 1980, the group often known as millennials, are not religious, compared with 11 percent of baby boomers and 7 percent of the generation born between 1928 and 1945. It’s not clear that millennials will become much more religious as they age, either. Despite the cliché about people getting more religious as they get older, it hasn’t been happening recently. No generation has become more religious since
2007, according to the Pew data. Baby boomers and the so-called Generation X have become slightly less religious over that time, and millennials have become substantially less. In 2007, only 16 percent of millennials said they were not religious — a sign that Americans born in the 1990s are probably even less religious than those born in the 1980s.
Leonhardt, Dave. “The Rise in Young Americans Who Don’t Believe in God.” The New York Times
[New York] 12 May 2015, The Upshot sec.: n. pag Print.

Perhaps to this generation, it isn’t as important whether someone or something is real or not as much as whether they can see it. If it can be seen, then on some level, it just might be real. Ergo, Michael Jackson may not be dead and Tupac may still be alive. Suspicion about celebrities’ deaths is not a new phenomenon. However, the technological ability to extend the discussion and controversy is. Could it be that our inability, unwillingness or indifference to explain or witness our belief in the Risen Christ might contribute to a decreasing faith in our young people? If our tried-and-true way of helping young people (or anyone, for that matter) see and experience God is by expecting them to come and seek us out when they are in dire straits or psychological or physical pain, we may have the more serious problem. Shouldn’t we be going to them?
 
Jesus was adamant about the Kingdom of God “being in your midst.” He said that He He is that kingdom come. It’s easy to recite The Lord’s Prayer – “Thy Kingdom come” – but do we really know what we are saying? Is His a name we append to the end of prayers like a lucky rabbit’s foot? Do we know to Whom we are talking when we say “in Jesus’ Name?” Do we actually believe we are talking to a Living God when we pray? Do we really believe that God interceded in any given situation or was it part luck and/or coincidence?
 
What percentage of people believe in superstitions? As of 2015, as many as 25 percent of Americans believe in common superstitions, such as the number seven being lucky, knocking on wood preventing bad luck and the unluckiness of walking under a ladder. Forty percent believe in extrasensory perception, and 80 percent believe in a supernatural entity.
ask.com
 
Given the percentage of Americans who believe in a supernatural entity (and this poll didn’t say what kind of entity), there may just be some overlap regarding belief in superstition and belief in God. It is too easy in a visually over stimulated culture accustomed to sound bites, headlines, factoids, and FaceBook scholarship to assume that we viscerally comprehend the depths that the Living God went to make it possible for us to talk to Her/Him. If this current generation of young Americans grew up learning, socializing, imbibing culture and knowledge mostly through digital processes, won’t it take more than giving them religion through social media to explore their invisible God? To this generation, what is on a small screen IS reality, not just a representation of it. Our God is more than a representation; Jesus is not the story and remembrance of a life lived and sacrificed. Jesus is. Now. Our challenge as adult Christians is in living our belief out loud so that those who are impressionable and available can see our faith; that from the Invisible comes the visible. In other words, Hebrews 11:3 is telling people that everything we see, everything that is visible, came from something that is Invisible, that cannot be seen.
 
For this modern world, more than ever before, something has to be visible in order to be believed. It would not have been surprising if after the May 19, 2014 Michael Jackson hologram performance at the Billboard Awards show, there was a spike in suspicions and rumors that he never really died. Interestingly, the same was said after Christ Jesus was crucified. It was also reported that Jesus did not rise from the dead.
 
While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, “You must say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day.
Mathew 28:11-15 (NRSV)
 
Is it a matter of faith? Yes. Are we a people of faith? Sure. Do we participate in faith-based activities to help others? You bet. The kicker is this: Is the object of our faith ourselves: To be healed from illness, to get a better job, to make more money, to get our young into that special college or that special job, to find that special mate, to feel good about what we are doing? Or is the object of our faith adoration of God and absolute hysteria that The Nazarene lives? That He is the Kingdom of God come to earth. That all those things-healing – jobs – mates – finances – education - feeling good about our activities- may come after we find our way to the Source? About 2000 years ago this week Jesus would have been celebrating Yom Ha-Zikkaron or Yom Teruah with His family.
 
The name "Rosh Hashanah" is not used in the Bible to discuss this holiday. The Bible refers to the holiday as Yom Ha-Zikkaron (the day of remembrance) or Yom Teruah (the day of the sounding of the shofar). The holiday is instituted in Leviticus 23:24-25. Judaism101:Rosh Hoshanah
Jewfact.org
 
Jesus was a devout, observant Jew; He was a real, live, visible Jewish man. We believe He was the Son of God and the Son of Man. We believe He did die. We believe He rose from the dead by the power of God. And we believe that He is alive today. He is a Living Spirit Who is active in our lives, Who is visible in our lives, not just a name we call in honor of a prophet who lived and died on a cross 2000 years ago. Our challenge is to make the Invisible One visible.
 
Come, Holy Spirit, come. Forgive us when we meander off somewhere, thinking we are invisible to You when You see all. Thank You for taking us back, for never leaving us even when we leave You. We get wrapped up in the gift of life and get all tangled in knots until we come screaming back to You for relief, relevance, respite. Keep us on Your horizon as markers along the way so that we can be seen by all who need You. Remind us that You are the object of our cheer and choice even as You chose us. Thank You for Your patience, Your mercy, Your grace. Help us to appreciate it, day by day, making the Invisible visible to the world.
 
I serve a risen Savior, He's in the world today;
I know that He is living whatever men may say;
I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer,
And just the time I need Him, He's always near.
 
He lives, He lives,
Christ Jesus lives today!
He walks with me and talks with me
Along life's narrow way.
He lives, He lives,
Salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know He lives?
He lives within my heart.
 
He lives!
 
Amen.