Imagine you are an intelligent alien coming from the fifth dimension. You occupy space in this universe. Scientists hypothesize that our universe consists of 11 dimensions! Human beings live within a subspace of 4 dimensions only. The earlier sentence means there is a kind of membrane that encloses all of your essence (I am using an analogy of a cell). The surface of this membrane is such that it reflects only ultra-violet ray and absorbs all others. This means that you are invisible to the naked human eyes. Since you exist in the fifth dimension, you pass through our world without being detected, much like neutrino. Imagine too that you speak with supersonic frequencies. Again, this means that you are inaudible to unaided human ears. You want to communicate with intelligent beings in this universe. We humans are legitimate candidates. How would you communicate with us? We are unable to see you with our eyes, hear you with our ears or even touch you with our hands because they simply pass you through unobstructed.
So, you decide to 'downgrade' part of yourself to lower dimensions in which we exist. We don't know how you manage to do it. But this part of you appears in human form in a short duration of our time, in a particular location on earth and start telling us about yourself. This part of you befriends some of us. Their lives are never the same anymore. They are transformed. After your departure, they write down your story in books we call Gospels. One of them is called John. To this day, we are still trying to decipher your story in the Gospel of John. Now, how does the plot above help us understand Jesus' words we read today?
And Jesus cried out and said, "He who believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And he who sees me sees him who sent me (John 12:44-45).
When we believe in something, this belief will change our life. When we believe that Vitamin C improves our resistance and makes us healthy, we start taking Vitamin C which will change our body. When we believe that English helps us prosper in Hong Kong, we start learning it, using it and getting more opportunities to climb up the social ladder. When we believe that there is life after death, we will care more about our behaviour towards others so that we will not doing any stupid things hazardous to our future. We will be more considerate, more generous and merciful.
If any one hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world (John 12:47).
Jesus does not compel us to believe in him, to follow his advice. He does not pass judgment. He simply wants to save us from this fallen world. He respects our freedom. The choice is ours. We have only ourselves to blame at the end of the day. This is his advice.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another (John 13:34).
My sweet Jesus, You took all the trouble to reveal to us Your love. Because of this great love, You refuse to pass judgment on us. You respect and cultivate our sense of responsibility. We are lazy creatures encrusted in our comfort zones. Summon us like Lazarus out of our tombs so that we may see light and life. Strengthen our feet to come close to You. Amen.
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