Clear and Convincing Evidence

Epiphany is the season immediately following Christmas when Christian people celebrate the way God’s living presence among us became evident in Jesus Christ. All our beliefs about Jesus emerged from the experiences and insights of people who had the opportunity to meet him personally and found their lives completely changed by that encounter. Simply put, people who met Jesus saw clear and convincing evidence that when they were in his presence they were in the presence of God. It was something about the way he spoke and acted. It was something about the way he accepted and welcomed all sorts of people, even the sort that most of us would find excuses to reject, reproach, or ignore. It was something about the way his whole life centered upon responsiveness to God. It was something about the way his faith, hope, and love were always translated into action. People may not actually have shouted “Immanuel!” when they met him, but many in his presence experienced the powerful feeling that the word expresses: “God is with us!”

It’s not really possible to prove God’s existence beyond the shadow of a doubt, let alone to prove God’s presence at any given time or place. Doubt casts a pretty big shadow, especially when God’s very nature as an eternal Spirit is so at odds with our customary way of receiving and verifying reality through our physical senses. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus won’t prove God’s presence among us beyond the shadow of any doubt, but he certainly offers clear and convincing evidence of God’s existence and of God’s presence. That’s part of the reason we celebrate Epiphany. But a problem remains if the epiphany we celebrate is only about the evidence of God’s presence during the earthly life of Jesus, who lived a long time ago in a land far away. Epiphany is a halfway celebration if it only proclaims the evidence that God was present in the past. People need clear and convincing evidence that God is present in the present.

That’s where we come in. One of the things that the Apostle Paul means by describing the Christian community as “the Body of Christ” is that we to offer evidence of God’s continuing presence. People ought to be able to look to the followers of Christ for evidence that God is still with us. The depth of our faith and our attentiveness to cultivating a rich spiritual life is a part of the evidence we offer. People of deep conviction who spend serious time and effort enhancing our relationship with God are far more convincing than those whose spiritual values and practices are more of an after-thought than a core concern. But sincere belief and diligent observance of religious practices alone can’t convince others of God’s presence. Our belief in God and our participation in activities that honor God are not, in the final analysis, sufficiently compelling evidence that God is real and present unless accompanied by a transformation of who we are and how we live.

The clear and convincing evidence of God’s presence in the world is still today what it was in Jesus’ days on earth: the evidence of how our lives have been changed by God’s presence within us. God’s inward presence always creates outward change. Incarnation causes manifestation. It’s true in our lives as it was true in the life of Jesus: When God is on the inside, it’s evident on the outside. When God is within us, there’s no need to prove it because there’s no way to hide it. Those around us will all know it. Some of them will recognize exactly what’s causing it, and others won’t know what it is for sure, but they’ll want to find out what it is for themselves.

Welcome to Epiphany, the season when God’s living presence in the world is reconfirmed with the clear and convincing evidence of people whose lives are changed by Jesus Christ.

Gary A. Batey, Pastor