Seeing the unseeable
It seems like a total oxymoron: ‘he persevered because he saw him who is invisible’. How can you see what you can’t see? Some commentators have tried to say that the burning bush incident made tangible to Moses what is generally invisible. That amazing experience must have been seared into his memory, so that, in the toughest of times, he could look back and remember: the invisible God had broken into his time/space world.
But ultimately the writer to the Hebrews is bringing us back to the truth that was stated at the very outset of the chapter, namely, that faith is something we place, not in the tangible and touchable, but in the invisible Kingdom and the invisible God of the Kingdom. How do we see? By developing a sense of spiritual perception each day: as we talk to God in prayer, as we nurture ourselves in the truths of scripture, as we celebrate what we believe to be true in the festivals and feasts of the community of God, the Church, so we make touchable what is untouchable, and seeable what is invisible. Paul speaks of this dichotomy of faith: we fix our eyes on what is unseen....because what is unseen is eternal.