One of the most common objections to the Faith from those who regard themselves as being enlightened and clever: they say that there’s no real evidence that our Faith is actually true, that it is anything more than a pious legend or a cultural myth: in other words, they want proof.  A sign.  Something definitive to demonstrate to them, once and for all, that God does indeed exist and that our Faith is true.  This is also what the rich man in today’s gospel desires for his brothers.  Having learned the hard way that heaven and hell are real, he wants to save his brothers from making the same mistake, from finding out too late to do anything about it.  He wants a sign to be given them.  He wants them to be hit over the head with some obvious, undeniable demonstration of reality.  Abraham’s response to him is perfectly reasonable: his brothers already have everything they need: they have the witness of the prophets, they have the law of Moses, the activity of God in their lives: what more could they possibly want.  The rich fellow tries to protest and ask for more, and he comes up with the most outlandish proposal he can think of, something that no one could deny or misinterpret: how about someone rising from the dead.  Abraham responds that if these stubborn fellows were not convinced already by the various different ways the Lord was trying to get their attention; if they weren’t convinced already, then nothing would be able to reach them, not even a dead person standing up and going on about his business.  

Well Abraham was quite right of course, and it turns out that he wasn’t even exaggerating.  Because that is precisely the sign that God has given us: the sign of Jonah, the Daystar in the East, the sign of Resurrection from the dead.  Now what more could our world possibly want?  Unfortunately our post-Christian society has become so numb to the proclamation of the Gospel that no one bats an eye if you say that a man rose from the dead.  They reduce it to a myth, a pleasant and culturally significant legend.  A good excuse for a lot of nice buildings and good art and pretty music.  In that case of course, religion is just a hobby for those of us who happen to like gothic architecture and organ music.  But that’s not our outlook at all.  We remember what our world has forgotten.  We remember this incredible rumor that spread like wildfire in Jerusalem so many years ago, the rumor that this so-called King of the Jews who had been executed: had appeared again, had risen from the dead.  Really.  Not a myth, not a legend, but a reality, and a reality experienced by thousands.  We remember what our world has forgotten, that thousands upon thousands of the earliest Christians suffered and went to their deaths because this event really happened.  No one is willing to be martyred for a metaphor, or for a fable.  But many can summon the courage to stand firm for the truth, for a reality actually experienced, and many did.  We know that these first Christians endured horrible suffering, humiliation, and even death, rather than denying what they knew to be true.  They had the integrity and the courage to stand up, not just for a generic, arbitrary belief or a preference, but for a truth, for something that had really happened to them.  They had seen Christ: they had spent weeks with him after he rose from the dead.  They ate and drank with him, talked with him; they received his command to continue his mission in the world; and they saw him ascend into heaven.  There was no way they could go on with their lives, pretending this hadn’t happened.  They knew what they had seen, or what their trusted friends had seen, and they were inspired to make this real experience, the central and defining reality of their lives.  This news spread quickly and soon the world was converted.  

But now our world has forgotten.  The world has conveniently divorced itself from this truth, this sign that was really given, so that people can live as they please, pursuing pleasure and comfort, blind to reality.  But we haven’t.  We remember.  We know that we’ve been given the only proof we need, the Resurrection.  And we allow the memory of that greatest of all truths, passed down with integrity to us through the church, define us, convert us, and save us.  Thanks be to God, who gives us this sign of his victory, who gives us his peace, through our Lord, Jesus Christ.