6th Sunday of Easter 2026

Sermon: 6th Sunday of Easter 2026

Texts: Acts 17:22-31; John 14:15-21; 1 Peter 3:13-22

Grace, Peace, and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

In 17th century France, one of its greatest philosophers and thinkers was a man by the name of Blaise Pascal. If you’ve ever heard the proposition of “Pascal’s Wager” (which says it’s better to live believing than not believing, for if true, the end result of believing is eternal life), I’m speaking of the very same Pascal. Listening to our reading today in Acts, with Paul addressing the crowds of Athens, reminded me of a famous statement that Pascal wrote for himself. One night, the wise philosopher had a powerful experience of God, so intense that he wrote down the moment as a memorial. And this page of writing he sowed to the inside of his coat, as a personal reminder of the experience. Nobody knew about this until his death, when they found the written memorial among his clothes. Pascal had written the following:

The year of grace 1654,

Monday, 23 November, feast of St. Clement, pope and martyr, and others in the martyrology.

Vigil of St. Chrysogonus, martyr, and others.

From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight,

FIRE.

GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob

not of the philosophers and of the learned.

Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.

GOD of Jesus Christ.

My God and your God.

Your GOD will be my God.

Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD.

He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.

Grandeur of the human soul.

Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.

Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.

I have departed from him:

They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.

My God, will you leave me?

Let me not be separated from him forever.

This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ.

I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified.

Let me never be separated from him.

He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospel:

Renunciation, total and sweet.

Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.

Eternally in joy for a day’s exercise on the earth.

May I not forget your words. Amen.

I’m always moved by this prayer, for in it, the great philosopher reached the limits of his mind, to experience by grace within his whole being the greater knowledge of who God truly is. It was not about reason, it was not about philosophical propositions or formulas, however important and useful these might be. God became for Pascal, no longer unknowable, no longer a proposition, but Someone beyond his imagining. God became fire that consumed him, revealing Himself intimately as one seen in the name Jesus Christ. Revealing Himself in a way of living and seeing found in the Gospel of this Jesus, an infinite mystery that allows itself to be glimpsed by human beings in the love of this Jesus to which the Gospel testifies to. And this God is no property of the

learned and the philosopher, He is not bound by the categories we set, grasped and boxed in by our reason. He is the One who, as Paul said to the curious Athenians: “ for whom we fumble about for him and find him–though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’”. God is the fire of our existence, our grandeur, the breath of our breath, the ground of our very being. Pascal’s experience of grace, that God let Himself be known in Jesus Christ.

Such a grace as Pascal experienced is what I think Paul offered to the Athenians in his discourse in the Areopagus. Paul’s efforts, his evangelism, if you will, all center of weaving together all the different strands of humanity into knowing the unknown God. Indeed, as Paul described, humanity is spiritual. We are entranced by that feeling of “more” in the world, that everything we see is more than meets the eye. Indeed, human beings are seekers, looking to understand the world and our place in it. In that altar to the “unknown god” that Paul saw in Athens, we can see a humanity stretching its hands beyond the confines of its knowledge for the god we have not discovered in its fullness. And thus comes Paul to this great city of philosophers and poets, of great academies of thought, and brings the Gospel into what many would call today the “market of ideas”. Paul was probably not the only preacher among the crowd. There were probably many arguing for their ideas, putting forth different avenues to get at this reality of the unknown God. Paul was unequivocal, in the man raised from the dead, in the life of Jesus Christ, God has made Himself knowable. A radical claim. The one who made everything that exists, is not found in the crafts of human hands, nor in the monuments we build, nor in anything bound. God is made known in the living

witness of Christ’s risen life, unbound from the borders of one land or language or culture, and present for every human being to be known in the life of Jesus. We are given the Fire of God, to live according to our purpose. God has made us to live according to the Gospel, that means that human existence is meant to be lived out like Jesus lived, an existence for others, an existence that builds others up in love and mercy. Jesus is the measure that was unknown to many, but that now has been made clear as the noonday sun.

In the marketplace of ideas today, I believe we are once again in a moment where there is an altar to an unknown God, and we are seeing different attempts to get at who God is. Many are saying today, the unknown god is the one that sanctions war and violence and destruction. Many are peddling today that the unknown god is the one that crowns the strong against the weak. Many are peddling today that the unknown god is the one that blesses greed and money over the uplifting of the poor and the downtrodden. Many are peddling that the unknown god is the one that promotes unequal relationships between us, that this unknown god somehow blesses racism and racial supremacy, or that men and women are not equal, or that people of different identities are not embraced by God.

Indeed, God is beyond any encapsulation from our reason. But the gospel by which the church lives is the joy and struggle of living in the reality that God is the love manifested in Christ. Like Pascal, we wager our whole being, that God is love, that everything that exists pulls into the risen life of Christ. That Christ is the Way that humanity is meant for, that our fulfilment rests in the heart of this Jesus that has defeated sin and death for our sake, that He is the measure of true humanity. If Jesus

is the revelation of the unknown God, then that means that love and mercy are at the center of existence. That all those things in the marketplace of ideas today, all those constructions of human waywardness, all those monuments to human sinfulness that are the weapons of war, the systems of greed and inequality, the schemes to rob people of their dignity, worth and voice, are then rendered void. If Christ is the face that is revealed in that altar to the unknown God, then indeed we are called to a passion for the least of these, we are called for a passion for justice and inclusion, we are called to a passion for equality and dignity of every human being, for indeed as Paul said to the Athenians, we are, meaning everybody is, God’s children. We hear the voice of Jesus say in the gospel: “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.

In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.” Because God is known in the face of Christ, the church, the body of Christ in this world, is called to be a living icon of His presence in this world. Because He lives, we also live. And as we live, we embrace the world in the name of the God that has made Himself known, so that the world might also live a new life. “Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace. GOD of Jesus Christ. My God and your God.” Let us live in the spirit of this truth about our God, and wage everything on this love, that we might give account for this hope that is in us, for the sake of building up the true image of humanity, like Paul, weaving together the different strands of the human family into one diverse yet unified strand, one that lives with a love like Jesus. Let us then pray: