The Uncommon Faith

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     For a long time I have been pondering how limited is our concept of what the Word really accomplished when he took off the robe of divine equality and hung it up in the heavenly vestry, and donned the slave garb which made it possible for him to share with the earthborn ones. The first infant cry in the stable was the signal that God was with us. The great gulf between the divine and the human had been spanned. This whirling sphere became the visited planet, and like any other visited planet it would never be the same.

     The power of heaven to reach man where he was, and as he was, became a fact rather than a prophetic dream. And this manifestation transcended and culminated all previous exhibitions for these were but signs pointing to the Great Sharing. So majestic and sublime was the divine breakthrough that it challenges our puny intellects, and some must still seek for reassurance in lesser demonstrations. These are hailed as proof of faith. They are really symptoms of doubt. They betoken the longing of troubled and distraught minds to know that God is still with them.

     To the man of unadulterated trust there is no need to ascend into heaven and bring Christ down from above, for faith says that the word is near, even in the mouth and in the heart. From the moment the Son touched the earth with his feet, the earth itself became the sphere of God's influence and everything that God had made bore eloquent testimony to the divine purpose. It was not in vain that the Lord summoned the common things of nature to testify.

     Once upon a time God spoke to Moses from a burning bush on the slopes of Horeb, but it is not necessary for me to journey to such a special spot. Every bush and flowering shrub now speaks eloquently of the difference between created and inherent glory and the artificial adornment which is external. "Behold the lilies of the field...even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these." The rose blooming in my backyard is God's "burning bush" for me.

     Elijah was fed by the ravens which brought him flesh to eat, but my soul is daily nourished by the birds which flutter about my feeder. "Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?" "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? Yet one of them shall not fall to the ground without your heavenly Father knowing it." The mockingbird, the bluejays and the cardinals are God's ravens sent to feed my spirit with providential manna.

     Our real problem is that we are still dull of hearing. We are yet "fools, and slow of heart to believe." We find it easier to walk by sight than by faith. Caught up in the human predicament, sinful and unable to forgive ourselves, haunted by the specters of our past evil deeds, we are afraid to trust the testimony of the ages. The divine outburst of love was so powerful it staggers our guilt-soaked imagination. We want to believe it but we are forlorn, frightened and suspicious.

     In this state of mind we eagerly seek for some new proof that He has not withdrawn. The Visit was too long ago. It was then and there. We must have some-

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thing here and now. Faith, which was intended to span aeons is running out in our generation. We want a discernible tug on the chain reaching into the gloom, to know that the anchor is still there.

     Then let this be my personal testimony that I have no desire or inclination to seek additional proof of his love and mercy. My faith would be no stronger if I saw someone raised from the dead. I need not see a withered arm straightened to know that His own arm is not shortened that it cannot save. It is not necessary for me to spend long hours in agonizing prayer for another tongue. I have not yet finished praising him in the language wherein I was born. It is not a divine eloquence I seek, but the ability to share more fully the depth of my human gratitude for his forgiveness. With me, it is not that I speak, and therefore believe; but rather that I believe and therefore speak.

     The voice of heaven is all around me, for "to him who, in the love of Nature, holds communion with her visible forms, she speaks a various language." Once, when He was here as a Servant he came to his frightened followers and said unto them, "Why are you troubled and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?" I shall not forget those words now that He is Lord!