On this third Sunday of Advent, we read about John the Baptist who identified himself as "a voice crying in the wilderness, make straight the path of the Lord."
And I wonder if all of us, despite our shortcomings and insufficiencies, could at least be "a voice," making clear to others what we have seen and heard of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Speaking not so much what we "believe" about Jesus, but rather telling of what we have experienced of Him. I keep going back to Thomas Aquinas saying that man is a "knower," not a thinker. That is, we know what we have seen, tasted, smelled, and touched more than what we have heard about from others.
In his first letter, John the Evangelist says, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched -- this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you may have fellowship with us.
It seems to me that people believe in Jesus at some point in their lives because of what they have experienced of Him. Up to a point, we are Christians because of our culture, our inheritance, or our education. But if we have not "seen with our eyes, touched with our hands," faith eventually becomes an abstraction non-competitive with the things we "know" for ourselves.
And that is where prayer becomes irreplaceable. If our early faith has not drawn us to prayer, we have no relationship with God -- and thus we have not experienced His Presence and action in our lives. And without seeing for ourselves what we have heard from others, we fail to believe and thus to trust. Our faith grows cold for lack of evidence.
C.S.Lewis as an atheist had often heard about belief from his friend Tolkein, but it was not until "the most reluctant convert in all of England" got down on his knees and began to pray that Lewis began to enter into a life-long relationship with God. And as a result of that relationship, "surprised by joy," Lewis himself became a voice crying out in the wilderness, testifying to what he himself had seen and heard of the Divine.
It was the joy that Lewis experienced, the joy for which he had yearned his entire life, that convinced him of the reality of Christ. It was what he himself had seen and heard, had touched with his own hands, that he proclaimed to the world. So with all of us!
