At first I feel inspired! I walk in, smell the coffee, and feel significant. Knowledge everywhere, to make me more! And people's etchings and screeds, means (subconsciously) that they are, that I, therefore, am, and now can be more...
And then after a while, from gimmicks to gizmos, bonsai kits to self-destruct guides, coffee gone and sun going down... I feel kind of inane. Lost in a sea of more knowledge and people and vantage points than I could ever, ever assimilate. And if I can't know it all (be like god), how can I be at all? So the one tree that we could not eat of, was the 'tree of knowledge...' (Genesis 3:5-6) We were warned that this was the portal to death. The devil told us it was the portal to 'be like god.' We ate, eyes were opened, life destroyed. Now every man, woman and child is marked by death, from the day we celebrate their life. And here is the neglected reality of the 'sting of death' (1 Cor 15): it is not just in the body, but in the spirit, the mind, relationships, the earth (Romans 8), the animals, history and annals and legacies. It is against this backdrop of the truth of the dark, that the truth of God's light means so much. It is against the backdrop of the crucifixion, and all that died with it, that the light of the resurrection is so bright, and all that lives in it. Bookshops elate me because God made every man, woman and child unique (Gen 1:27; Psalm 139), and Jesus treated every man, woman and child as unique. And the truest essence of any individual - in book form or otherwise - is to tap the spirit of God's unity in himself, and with us, his offspring. Jesus himself challenged and stretched us by quoting scripture and saying, 'You are all sons of god...' (John 10:34; Psalm 82:6). But he stretched us about the nature of our own 'deity', so that we would be in no doubt about his. (John 10:36)
0 Comments
Jesus changed everybody's names (Saul to Paul, Simon to Peter, John/James to Boanerges, etc.). Their new name had nothing to do with their past or heritage, and everything to do with who they were in regards to Jesus.
One verse that I find powerful and freeing is in Revelation 2:17. Jesus, through the prophet John, admonishes a church to 'persevere' in the face of much trial and tribulation, and says that if and when they prevail, he will give to each a 'new name written on a white stone, that is known only to them'. There is so much in this, but one factor of interest is that the name comes at the end. Jesus calls us to action first, to know his name most clearly here and now, and to act on it. And we will be given our truest, deepest name as a result of this. This gives us something to shoot for, most definitely, but also frees us from having to be 'clear' about who we are at this time. We need to be most clear about who he is. Who we are, will be made clear by him on that final day. (1 Corinthians 13:9,12; 1 John 3:2; Hebrews 4:11; Philippians 3:12-14) You will fail and fall under a cause and king - the question is which one?
'I can't take it anymore!' - These were the words of a great prophet, to God himself. (Elijah, 1 Kings 19:4) Not only did God tenderly concede help to Elijah, but he 're-issued' him (so to speak!) in the person of John the Baptist (Mt 11:14), and also called him forth to appear with Jesus and Moses in the 'transfiguration'. (Mt 17:3) Some people's greatest victory is finally falling to the ground, like Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, the last moments of eternal breakthrough. There is a crumbling under the weight of truth and life, that is different from crumbling under our own folly and dissipation. Men of God, over and over, weary of the battle between light and darkness, fell to their knees and 'could not take it anymore'. These men, dear fighters, will rise to greatness. (Hebrews 11; Exodus 33; Matthew 11:1-11; Luke 12:8-9) Whose battle do you fight with all your vigor? Whose cause is your life's cause? 'Jesus said, 'The greatest commandment is this, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.’ (Matthew 22:36-40) We strive! We ache to escape. We swim upstream every hour of every day, against all things 'decay'. It feels like scaling up a mudslide. What exactly are we reaching for? Peace? Safety?
It's legit'! Jesus himself not only sanctions this scramble, but frames it from Genesis to Revelation in much more stunning intensity, intentionality, realism and relentlessness, than we do in any genre of literature or tragedy. His own instruction to us is to pray, 'your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...' (Mt 6:9-13) So what does God's kingdom on earth look like? Many things. Ineffable spirit. 'New heart and new spirit.' (Ez 36:26) Forgiveness in all directions. Repentance. But one thing is also true: heaven on earth makes heaven look so far from earth! Let me explain... When Jesus floods your senses (Jn 7:37-38) and your spirit (Eph 1:14) and mind (Romans 12:1-2), and you do experience the peace of 'laying down in green pastures' and by 'streams of water' (Ps 23), and he changes your water to wine... well, here you taste, you feel, even for just a breath, a split second, what sinless, eternal streets of heaven are, and your yearning intensifies. Paul says, when considering to live or die, 'I would prefer by far to depart and be with Christ...' (Philippians 1:23) I lived on a ship, Logos, for 2 years, 1979-1981 (4-6 years old). The ship ran aground in 1988 in the Beaggle Channel, South America, middle of the night. No one lost their lives of the c.150 people on board, and the ship is still there today as seen in this photo. This morning my mind's eye glimpsed a small boat, a row boat, at that moment when it just lifts off the stony bed of a lake or seashore. When the scrapes on the bottom of the boat go quiet, and the still becomes motion, and the horizon opens up before you. Left and right dissipate into 'everywhere' and 'anywhere', and light skips like stones off the water in and out of your eye, your heart. Two Scriptures meet me here: 'He has put eternity in the hearts of men.' (Ecclesiastes 3:11) And Jesus' words, 'Anyone who believes in me, streams of living water will flow from within him.' (John 7:38) We idolize 'self-awareness', and then travel the world to 'lose ourselves'. In Greek mythology the river of forgetfulness ('Lethe') bordered heaven ('Elysium'). Or we might 'read', heaven is an impossible state without forgetting our lives here on earth.
More recently, GK Chesterton (1874-1936) wrote that 'everything we call bliss or ecstasy or spirit¼ only means that for one awful instant we remember [or become aware of] that we forgot.' A state of forgetting what? Everything that life was never meant to be, and resulted in man killing man, and man killing God. (Genesis chapter 4, Mark 15) We were made to be fully aware of God, and aware of anything else in different measures and moments as an overflow. This mirrors what Jesus said was the 'greatest commandment', i.e. 'To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.' (Matthew 22:36-40; Deuteronomy 6:4-5). And what overflowed from that, or what was leftover, Jesus called us to direct toward each other. (Leviticus 19:18) We are called to be 'God-aware', and aware of our neighbor. Let God be 'you-aware', and tell you what that really means and 'is', on that final day. (Revelation 2:17; 1 Corinthians 13:9,12; 1 John 3:2) I've done it, and it's been done to me. Someone - 'with malice in their heart' (Ps 5) - will say something 'true', so that you will get caught up in your own lie.
For example, smiling, half in jest whole in earnest, the jealous man says to you, 'You don't deserve that new car!' You feel the dark cloud descending on an otherwise sunny day, and you scramble to save the sunshine; you say, 'The year I've had, I do deserve this!' Proverbs 26:4 tells us to not answer a fool according to his folly, 'lest you become like him.' What happened in above scenario is the fool spoke 'truth': you don't deserve it; we don't deserve anything. We should never speak on this level about anything we have, or anything others have. Paul writes in Corinthians, 'What do you have that you have not been given? And if you have been given it, why do act as if you have not?' (1 Corinthians 4:7) Perhaps the most extreme example of the deepest truth masking the deepest lie, is when the devil himself speaks 'truth' to Jesus. Jesus, weary and hungry, is approached by the devil and challenged. The devil tests him not by lying, which is his native tongue (John 8:44), but by the other extreme of his strategies, i.e. dressing to look like 'an angel of light'. (2 Cor 11:14) The devil quotes the bible to Jesus, and, on the surface, correctly. He quotes Psalm 91:11-12, messianic Scriptures to the Messiah. You can read about this exchange in Matthew 4:1-11. Note, when Jesus had so purely walked in wisdom, and the Spirit of truth, the devil shows his true motive – which was for Jesus to worship him, the devil. (Mt 4:9) We won't unpack it here, but suffice to say, truth is not 'word-deep'. Truth is spirit, and words - even words from the Bible - can be a cloak of malice. Two things make us feel small and insignificant. One comes from the brokenness 'upon' us, the other from the brokenness within us.
Everything about mortal life puts everything in a morbid light. Where life has a 'finish line', we scramble to make everything mean something between the 'start' and 'finish'. That's a lot of pressure. That's very little time. And then there is the terrifying analogy of 'making beds in a burning house', in the event there is nothing in the hereafter. We aim for the (American) 'dream', because reality is just too dark. Every grown adult, interestingly, speaking of pursuing the 'dream', when we chastise children for living in a dream. Faith we mock, and yet dreams we live, cheat, steal and die for. Cutting to the chase here, let's 'hear' the report: God made life perfect, and made mankind in God's own image. Man and woman, are 'like' God, so much so that Jesus silenced some onlookers by quoting Psalm 82:6 and saying, 'You are all gods.' (John 10:34) When we the created reject(ed) the Creator, this rebellion is deep, dark, no floor, and all things unholy; it presents and expresses on different levels, but the same spirit. This world is of this 'spirit' and we live in it (brokenness upon us). This spirit is also from and within us (brokenness within). Taken together - the devil's report and our pride's appetite - we feel insignificant to God. If you read through the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), you will find that God became man, Jesus Christ, and set you back in your rightful reality with God: a spiritual, meaningful, God-imaged individual. Jesus took every man, woman and child, not only in their own right (or 'name'), but beyond that to an even truer, redeemed 'name'. He often changed people's names, to make them even more unique, express that they were 'forgiven' and 'set apart' by him, now and forevermore. (Revelation 2:17; Mark 10:21; Mark 14:1-9) Aristotle writes that the chief good or 'end' is happiness (Ethics, page 3). I'm thinking clear skies, smiles, safety, all things good.
So what about tragedy? Is there no 'place' or presence or redemption in the depths of darkness? Is the only way to be 'happy' - or at peace - to get out of, away from, all things dark and bad? We paddle, scramble, run and claw ourselves away from the dark; but to relax, relent or be blindsided is to slide back down into the pit... Are you exhausted? Me too. Is there no place of dependable peace, despite circumstances, like peace in a storm? There is a trapdoor to another dimension, another realm. Jesus said, 'I am the door...' (Jn 10:9) Jesus also said that he gives a peace that is different, not the vulnerable type the world gives. (Jn 14:27; Mt 7:24-25) Jesus says we can here and now be 'hidden with him, in God'. (Col 3:3) 'He is kept in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on the Lord.' (Isaiah 26:3) There's a 'real' me somewhere. I just know it. I pursue it almost relentlessly. Very little else actually drives and wearies me. Red eyes, squinting to see self.
Eyes are the window to the soul. You see others through yours, through theirs. I was looking in my daughter's eyes yesterday, 5 years old, and I could hardly see past my own reflection in her pupils. It's like God made your clearest you, in looking deep into another. The clearest 'self' you will ever discern, is the self you see when gazing into the eyes of God. Jesus said, 'The eyes are the lamp of the body. When the eyes are good, the whole body is full of light...' (Mt 6:23). What are your eyes set on? There you will see your reflection. '...we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.' (1 John 3:2) |
AuthorPeter Walker. I hope you enjoy these reflections. Please feel free to comment!:) Archives
February 2024
Categories |