What Is Your Quest?
THE FEAST OF ST. STEPEHN
The Rev. Marq Toombs
In the Name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
In the cult comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Artur and a few Knights of the Round Table stumble upon the Bridge of Death. A hideous Bridgekeeper guards the way. He yells, “Stop. Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see.” One by one the knights attempt to answer the Bridgekeeper’s questions. But the question that stays with me after all these years is this: What is your quest?
What are you looking for? Where are you going? Who do you seek? Why does it matter?
Today I want to offer you a word of encouragement – to help you get on track, persevere to the end, and finish well.
What are you looking for in life? What do you want to see more than anything else in the whole wide world? What is the one thing that will keep you going no matter what? What is your quest in this life and the life to come?
When all is said and done, only one thing matters. If you want to reach your destination and find what you’re looking for, you need the comfort and the courage that comes from the hope of the beatific vision – the promise of seeing the face of Jesus Christ.
In his fantastic book, Seeing God, Hans Boersma makes the case that the Beatific Vision is the human telos – the purpose of our life as promised by God throughout the Holy Scriptures and the Great Tradition. For example: Psalm 27 says:
You have said, “Seek my face.”
My heart says to you,
“Your face, Lord, do I seek.”
What is your quest?
Over the past several years, the promise of seeing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ has stirred my spirit and sustained my life and sanctified my soul in more ways than I have time to share right now. Suffice to say for now that this quest started (for me) with the story of Stephen’s martyrdom.
For me, Stephen has become a model of faithful ministry that focuses on the thing that matters most — the face of Jesus Christ.
The Beatific Vision gave Stephen courage –
and that was his only comfort both in life and in death.
When we meet Stephen in the epistle reading he is becoming a martyr. But there is more to Stephen than that. At one point he became a baptized Christian. He was ordained a deacon in the Church. He took care of widows in their distress and he preached the gospel in the church and the world.
It has been said that all preachers want to preach well, but few want to preach as well as Stephen did. His preaching stirred people to take action!
Stephen preached the gospel of Jesus Christ from the scriptures to a people who had co-mingled politics and religion and confused one with the other. Instead of responding to the gospel by repenting their sins and confessing faith in Jesus, they resisted the Holy Spirit and cast their cloaks to the ground and filled their hands with stones and stoned him to death.
It’s hard for us to imagine such a violent response to gospel preaching. But that just goes to show how much the world has changed. If nothing else, Stephen’s hearers took his preaching to heart and responded with passion and conviction. In our day gospel preaching is often met with indifference and set aside with a yawn of the mouth, a shrug of the shoulders, or even the roll of the eyes.
Here, in the final moments of Stephen’s life, amidst the shouts of enemies in his ears and the sight of angry men before his face and the sting of pelting stones on his body, Stephen knelt down on his knees and lifted his eyes to the heavens and found comfort and courage in his time of need.
“Behold, I see the heavens opened,
and I see the the Son of Man
standing at the right hand of God.”
His faith was turned to sight when he saw God in the flesh: scarred from crucifixion, healed by resurrection, crowned in ascension, standing in admiration of his servant.
Once Stephen saw Jesus, nothing else mattered.
Not the rants or rage of other people.
Not the stripping, the shaming, or the stoning.
Once Stephen saw Jesus, nothing else mattered.
As the old hymn goes:
When he turned his eyes on Jesus,
and looked full in his wonderful face,
the things of earth grew strangely dim
in the light of his glory and grace.
At the hour of his death Stephen experienced the fullness of the psalmist’s prayer:
The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?
Though an army encamp against me,
my heart shall not fear;
though war arise against me,
yet I will be confident.
What is your quest?
In his booklet Catechized for Beatitude, Father Boersma asks a penetrating question:
Quote: “Why is the notion of the Beatific Vision so unfamiliar to many of us? Why do so many people today hardly treat the promise of a face-to-face vision of God as the greatest promise ever?”
Answer: “To put it simply: the Beatific Vision no longer fits within the broader framework of our lives...When we set our desires primarily on stuff rather than on God, and when that approach to happiness dominates our cultural context, the notion of gazing eternally upon God doesn’t seem like a plausible description of happiness. And so the doctrine of the Beatific Vision is an ill fit within the plausibility structures of our society.” End quote.
Can you imagine how much your life and worldview would change, how much your human lived experience would be transformed, how much your perspective and practice would change if you started believing that the Beatific Vision relativizes the things of earth and absolutizes the things of heaven?
As Stephen shows you: that’s when the light and life of heaven break through the darkness and despair of your heart.
What is your quest? What is the one thing above all other things that you seek?
Five years ago, my mother was taken to the ER and admitted to the hospital. She had been suffering with a form of leukemia for a few months. After running some tests, her physicians determined that she had experienced a blast crisis. When they finished explaining the gravity of her situation and the finality of her condition, I asked my mother, ‘Do you understand what all this means?’ She smiled and said, “I’m going to see the face of Jesus.” And the very next evening that is what she did. The worst day of my life. But the best day of hers. Like Stephen, my mother persevered to the end and finished her quest.
As you continue on your pilgrimage in this life remember, if we want to finish well and persevere to the end, we need to get on track. We need to re-orient our hearts towards the Lord Jesus Christ who is now seated at the right hand of God.
If you want to persevere to the end and finish well, you need the comfort and the courage that comes from the hope and promise of the Beatific Vision.
Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer this question, ere the other side he see:
What is your quest?
To be successful in life; to make loads of money; to retire and travel the world and see new things; to be totally awesome and enjoy your best life now?
God forbid you should answer like this and end up cast into a real fiery doom like Monty Python’s knights.
The answer given by all saints and martyrs is this:
One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in his temple.
In other words: I seek the Face of Jesus Christ in the House of God.
In his Love and Grace, God does not make us wait until the bitter end of all things to see the beautiful Face of Jesus Christ. In this life, even now, he gives us glimpses and flashes of his Face in each other: in our acts of love and kindness, in our works of faith, in our sacrifices of devotion, even in our sufferings for the sake of Christ.
And we also see glimpses of his Face here in the Church, especially in the Eucharist. For here at the altar, Christ is really and truly Present. The Bread we break is the Bread of the Presence, the Bread of the Face, the Body of Jesus, the Heavenly Food that strengthens our faith, stirs our spirit, sustains our life, and sanctifies our soul as we continue on our quest, seeking face to Face communion with Jesus Christ.
Now, with all that in heart and mind,
let us prepare ourselves to draw near by faith
and come before his Face
and share in his Presence –
in this Holy Communion
with eucharistic love.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
