Chesterton pictures the martyrdom of an imaginary prophet:
…If we see what is the real trend of humanity, we shall feel it most probable that he was stoned for saying that the grass was green and that the birds sang in spring; for the mission of all the prophets from the beginning has not been so much the pointing out of heavens or hells as primarily the pointing out of the earth.
Religion has had to provide that longest and strangest telescope – the telescope through which we could see the star upon which we dwelt…
This is the great fall, the fall by which the fish forgets the sea, the ox forgets the meadow, the clerk forgets the city, every man forgets his environment and, in the fullest and most literal sense, forgets himself…It is a strange thing that men…have actually spent some hours in speculating upon the precise location of the Garden of Eden. Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed.
(Introduction to the Defendant, from In Defense of Sanity, p. 2).
Does he overstate his case? Yes. It’s hyperbole. But the point is well taken, or at least should be.
One thing that has always set apart the great voices of Christianity, particularly the great preachers of the past 400 years, was their skill in doing precisely what Chesterton is writing about. They shine great lights on the earth. They have the power of the telescope that can magnify the earth. Jesus himself magnified the sparrow and salt and the vine and seeds and dirt and trees. The prophet can magnify the beauty of the earth and make you glad that you live in such a wonderland. But he can also show the ugliness of this world in striking ways. He can see the signs of the time. He can see the subtle sins and trends.
C.S. Lewis once pointed out that a fish doesn’t feel wet in the water. It is his world. It is all he knows. And in the same way man does not recognize his own situation. He thinks that it is what it is and can be no other. But the job of Christianity is to see the water amidst the water. To see the flood amidst the sea. To see materialism amidst a sea of materialism. To see technology worship as he looks at his iPad.
The problem is that we must look through our own eyes. If you want to examine yourself you have to look at yourself. But it is hard to look at yourself when you are within yourself. That would be like a telescope looking at itself.
We therefore need new eyes. And Jesus provides those eyes.
Persecution arises as one fish starts telling the other fish that they’re all wet. They think he’s crazy. But he’s actually right. And so they try to throw him out of the water.
