EVERYWHERE
Author: Fr. Michael Byron
April 04, 2021
In the old Baltimore Catechism of the Catholic Church, the
one that many older adults may remember memorizing as children, there is a very
concise answer given to the question, “Where is God?”
The answer is, “God is everywhere.” That’s a nice & tidy response, but is it
true? And more importantly, do we
believe it?
That’s a pretty easy answer to throw out there in the
abstract, but it is tested in the circumstances of real life.
- Is God
to be found in a viral pandemic?
- Is God
present to situations of senseless violence, racism, and oppression?
- Dare we look for God in
situations of human hatred, greed, abuse?
- Do we
rightly expect to find God in the midst of global terror, chronic homelessness
& displacement from one’s country, in starvation, disease
and despair? What about in mass shootings? Or tornadoes & floods?
It’s so easy to say that “God is everywhere” so long as we
live in ignorance or indifference to the circumstances of people’s lives, as
long as this remains merely a pious answer to a theoretical question.
But that bold statement – “God is everywhere”- properly
understood, is heroic and astonishing. It can only be the gift of solid faith that allows people and
communities to look out over the state of our world, such as it is, and to
state with absolute conviction, “we know that God is here-yes even here somehow, because “God is everywhere.” This we know.
But there is still one place where even the most trusting
among us may be tempted to despair of God’s presence, namely, in the cold and
darkness of a tomb. How could God be
present to what is dead? And why would he be? What is there for God to do or to be amid
bones and ashes and life that is no more?
Well…how about raising it up and in such a way that it can
never be subject to lasting death ever again? This is exactly the proclamation of Easter: God lives even in the tomb. God re-creates life not only in the midst of
what is destructive and tragic in this world, but God does exactly the same in
the midst of what is dead. Not merely
apparently dead, but dead. Jesus was
really dead. For as St. Paul tells us,
if he didn’t really die then he wasn’t really raised up. And if that’s true, then our Easter faith is
foolishness. Where does God live? Everywhere-even in the grave. Not only the grave of Jesus, but in the
graves of every person who has ever lived and died in his love-our ancestors,
our loved ones, the saints, and yes, one day, ourselves. What happened to Jesus at Easter is a promise
to all who live in faith. To us.
In the gospels, the faithful followers of the Lord stayed
with him through all kinds of suffering, disappointment, confusion, and sorrow
because they knew that God was with him. But when it became clear that the tomb was in sight, most of them dropped
away, because surely God has no business or purpose inside a grave. God can be everywhere, yes, …but not there.
It is only the women on Easter morning who felt that they
yet had some unfinished ministry to offer to their dead Savior, and so they came
to the tomb. But even they weren’t expecting what they found there, which is why
they hurried away in fear and awe. Can
God truly be everywhere? Even present to
the dead? Can this be? God can. And God is. Which is how the dead
Jesus is now raised up in glory.
At first it seems like such a simple question, accompanied
by an almost thoughtless and childish answer: “Where is God? God is everywhere.” Do we have any idea of the depth of what we
profess here? Easter requires us to
ponder it- and more importantly, to act upon it in the way we live.
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