Sight unseen

It’s a key scene—perhaps the key scene—in Till We Have Faces, the novel C.S. Lewis considered his best. In a mythical kingdom similar to ancient Macedonia, two royal sisters are torn apart when the younger one, Psyche, volunteers to be the prey of a malicious god. Weeks after the sacrifice, older sister Orual hears that her beloved Psyche is alive, and goes to retrieve her. Psyche joyfully welcomes Orual to her palace, treats her to a sumptuous meal, and raves about her new husband.

Husband? Palace? Orual sees nothing but a brook and a meadow: Obviously her naïve sister is delusional. Her efforts to bring Psyche to reason turn into a violent argument, and Psyche runs away as a storm blows up, turning the meandering brook into a torrent. Stranded on its banks, Orual gazes upward, and for a few fleeting seconds she sees it on the other side: the dwelling of the God of Love.

Then the palace disappears, and she spends her life, until the end, convinced that the glimpse was a vision sent by the gods to mock her.

In October, Warren Cole Smith interviewed Bart Campolo, son of author and evangelist Tony Campolo and a former evangelist himself. In their fascinating discussion Bart spoke frankly about his loss of faith, the devastating effect on his parents, and his current calling as a campus minister of humanism. Why does he no longer believe? The usual suspects: unrelenting evil in the world, the limp-wristed response of faith, and the failure of God to “show up.” The listener detects a hint of wistfulness; Bart indicates he would still be a believer if God had only shown up.

We say, ‘Seeing is believing.’ Jesus says, ‘Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe.’

Impatient Christians (like myself, sometimes) might heave a sigh and exclaim, “But He did show up, Bart—what’s Christmas all about? God with us; If you’ve seen Me you’ve seen the Father; Lo, I am with you always—what more do you want, dude?” Granted, Christmas cheer seems like an oxymoron at times. Even Pope Francis sounded a bit down on the holidays when he pronounced lavish Christmas displays a “charade” for delusional revelers as Jesus weeps “because we have chosen the way of war, the way of hatred, the way of enmities.”

Of course the pope is correct, but what does he expect? What does Jesus Himself expect? He came to His own people, after all, and they rejected Him. Was He surprised, or was that exactly why He came?

Rereading the Gospel of John this month, I am struck by how much of it is about seeing and not seeing. “Come and see,” said Philip to Nathanael. “Unless I see,” said Doubting Thomas. No one has ever seen God; but God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, He has made Him known (John 1:18). An entire chapter tells, in fascinating detail, the story of a man born blind. The miracle itself is only one-fifth of the narrative: The rest is debate, intimidation, naïveté, bewilderment, and eventually faith, ending with a sober warning from Jesus to the Jews: “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.”

In other words, better to remain blind than to see through to a false conclusion. The Pharisees saw through an apparent miracle done in defiance of Sabbath observance to conclude Jesus was a false messiah. Princess Orual sees a fleeting vision through the raging of her soul and concludes it was a trick. Bart Campolo sees through evil and misery and concludes no respectable god would allow them; therefore, no god. Believers and unbelievers look at the same things, but “see” differently. Why?

Jesus (as usual) reverses our assumptions. We say, “Seeing is believing.” He says, “Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe”—Believing is seeing. When faith slips, don’t trust your vision. It’s at the very moment you hurl yourself into the arms of a seeming “illusion” that God shows up.

Email jcheaney@wng.org