Look at the life of Jesus. Notice what he did. When Jesus touched the blind, they could see; all the beauty of the world opened before them. When he touched the deaf, they were able to hear; for the first time in their lives they heard laughter and music and their children’s voices. He touched the lame, and they jumped to their feet and began to dance. And he called the dead back to life and gave them to their families.--John Eldredge, Epic
Do you see? Wherever humanity was broken, Jesus restored it. He is giving us an illustration here, and there, and there again. The coming of the kingdom of God restores the world he made.
God has been whispering this secret to us through creation itself, every year, at springtime, ever since we left the Garden. Sure, winter has its certain set of joys. The wonder of snowfall at midnight, the rush of a sled down a hill, the magic of the holidays. But if winter ever came for good and never left, we would be desolate. Every tree leafless, every flower gone, the grasses on the hillsides dry and brittle. The world forever cold, silent, bleak.
After months and months of winter, I long for the return of summer. Sunshine, warmth, color, and the long days of adventure together. The garden blossoms in all its beauty. The meadows soft and green. Vacation. Holiday. Isn’t this what we most deeply long for? To leave the winter of the world behind, what Shakespeare called “the winter of our discontent,” and find ourselves suddenly in the open meadows of summer?
If we listen, we will discover something of tremendous joy and wonder. The restoration of the world played out before us each spring and summer is precisely what God is promising us about our lives. Every miracle Jesus ever did was pointing to this Restoration, the day he makes all things new.
To lose the hope of restoration is to lose everything.
Jon
ReplyDeleteHope I'm not butting in over here, as I'm responding to your comment on Lumberpick. I am intrigued by your take on Christianity. By your following of Christ. I am wondering, as a seeker, what that actually means to you. If I could clarify seeker just a little as through this process of talking (or writing) about it I have come to realize that it is not faith that I lack, just the language to describe it. Unitarians are looking now for what they call a language of reverence. Some solid base from which to come and refer to in matters of the spirit. I believe, for reasons similar to Aaron, but I feel like everyone keeps responding to me as if I am without my star. Telling me why they believe. Why, in most cases, they are Christian. To them those two things go hand in hand. For someone open to the possible options out there, I understand totally the belief, and I feel like a broken record, but I just don't understand the one way part. The Jesus or the highway part.
Thought you might offer something, as your views on scripture in your post and comments following the "in and out" discussion really spoke to me. Kind of off topic of this post, or not. But you seem to enjoy the discussion anyway.
Thanks for the time and your blog. I'm enjoying it.
Or maybe I shouldn't assume you're a Unitarian--you just share the desire to find a "language of reverence."
ReplyDeleteFascinating--here's today's "Daily Reading" from Ransomed Heart:
ReplyDelete--|--
Christ did not die for an idea. He died for a person, and that person is you. But there again, we have been led astray. Ask any number of people why Christ came, and you'll receive any number of answers, but rarely the real one.
"He came to bring world peace."
"He came to teach us the way of love."
"He came to die so that we might go to heaven."
"He came to bring economic justice."
On and on it goes, much of it based in a partial truth. But wouldn't it be better to let him speak for himself?
Jesus steps into the scene. He reaches back to a four-hundred-year-old prophecy to tell us why he's come. He quotes from Isaiah 61:1, which goes like this:
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.
The meaning of this quotation has been clouded by years of religious language and ceremonial draping.
What is he saying? It has something to do with good news, with healing hearts, with setting someone free.
Christ could have chosen any one of a thousand other passages to explain his life purpose. But he did not. He chose this one; this is the heart of his mission.
Everything else he says and does finds its place under this banner: "I am here to give you back your heart and set you free." That is why the glory of God is man fully alive: it's what he said he came to do. But of course. The opposite can’t be true. "The glory of God is man barely making it, a person hardly alive." How can it bring God glory for his very image, his own children, to remain so badly marred, broken, captive?
(Waking the Dead, 50–51)
[emphases mine...]
--|--
[This is actually why I asked you about how personal you want your deity to be. A personal deity would give a rip about us individually, and might do something stupid like allowing himself to be killed for the object of his affection, in order to win its release.]
--Jon
I think I may have found where we diverge. I am not a unitarian, in fact I am looking for a place of worship. I spent the last eight months training in a new age school of bodywork(massage therapy) Learning all the ambiguity that comes with New age philosophy. I have been trained in Reiki, and other forms of healing that incorporate engergy, and do not know how I feel about those. My parents are non practicing Catholics. Scientists and realists mostly. My dad does see God in the natural world. He just doesn't know what that means to him.
ReplyDeleteSo back to where we diverge. I just got this book Inner Christianity by Richard Smoley, it's speaking to me. Amazingly, movingly, awesomely. And in it I he makes a distiction between outer and inner Christianity. Not frequently does he do this but it gives me an idea of what has been missing from that particular faith for me, or the ways I've been offered it in the past. You ask if I want to be known by my diety, loved by my diety. That implies that somehow right now that diety lies outside of me. Is seperate from me. A being of sorts residing somewhere out of me. I don't believe that. I believe the seed of God is within all of us. The seperation of us from eachother, from Jesus, from God, from everything, is the ultimate illusion, the result of the fall. Adam, being all of us, wanted to know both good and evil, wanted to know time and space and seperation but this seperation that we know is just our psyche wanting to think it is distinct, seperate. And that seperation from all, from God, is why we suffer, why we search, why we are in this human condition, both good and bad.
So I think I know why Jesus for you. He has shown you these things, He has shown you that seed that lives within you is light, is god and you only have to believe to know it. so Christianity works for you and it is a wonderful gorgeous and perfect way to God. Like I said though Do you think it is the only way?
I'm reading what christ said, and i think I know why you are quoting why he came. But I am not saying he didn't believe that. What if the lesson that he was teaching was yes, he was sent to teach the way to show the way, but what if you were too. What if he just recognized that he is the light the love, and so are you, and me? If we could see that in him, we could see it in ourselves, and therein lies our salvation. I know this is blasphamy to some Christians, but isn't that just historical fear that authority figures have to granting that much power to the masses. Can't the scripture be read according to this viewpoint and make sense?
ReplyDeleteHere is one thought and maybe this is too systematic theology-y for the essence of this blog.
ReplyDeleteWhy Jesus?
My answer would be atonement.
God is holy, he must be separate from evil and sin. Sin entered into our live through 'the fall'. Without Christ, man has sin, thus separated from God.
We needed redemption-a way for God to be able to live in us and through us. Being sinless, Jesus's blood was the perfect atonement. Not just a good and gorgeous way to God, but as Molly said a perfect (and complete) way to God.
I would disagree that our psyche, by way of trying to make ourselves distinct, asserts to separate us. I would argue that our 'psyche' (soul, spirit) tries to draw near to God and others as a means of finding its distinct identity and distinct purpose. We often ignore those stirrings to draw near and become intimate for fear of being rejected and, as Jon said, being truly known. We humans have ways to defending ourselves from feeling vulnerable.
Christ came to tell us that through his act of redemption and perfect love we can cast our those fears. We are known and loved.
God desired humans be atoned. I believe that the same reason that Christ lived and died is for most of the same reason we live and die. We are able to be the presence (?) of God to ourselves and others because Jesus made that possible.
God designed us to be in perfect communion with him, but sin broke that communion. Only with the atonement through Jesus are we able to dwell with the Holy of Holies.
Gotta cut this short...the kids are all over me :)
Rick McKinley at Imago Dei preaches restoration. I agree with restoration theology. Some would say its open theism but I disagree and somewhere I have the scripture to back it up.
ReplyDeleteTo Molly:
"What if the lesson that he was teaching was yes, he was sent to teach the way to show the way, but what if you were too. What if he just recognized that he is the light the love, and so are you, and me?"
Jesus didn't teach anything "NEW" when he came. Everything he said as it relates to our relationships with God and with each other had been said before. The difference was that he DID it, consistently and flawlessly. If you can do that you can be your own salvation. Most people cannot live as Jesus did, "without blemish", for even a day. I can't. The closest I've seen was Gandhi and he professed himself wicked too.
" If we could see that in him, we could see it in ourselves, and therein lies our salvation."
Because I can see that in him I know who he was and that he is "Salvation", the sacrifice, the one promised in the scriptures that he referred to. He said he was God. He came for the propitiation (absorb the wrath of God) of our sins.
I know this is blasphamy to some Christians, but isn't that just historical fear that authority figures have to granting that much power to the masses. Can't the scripture be read according to this viewpoint and make sense?
Jesus grants power to the masses. Scripture can be read according to any viewpoint. However, history cannot be changed. There is no question that Jesus was a real person with sticky blood and smelly sweat pouring out of him while he bent under the splintery woodiness of the weight of a real cross. History. If he was a good teacher he wouldn't have been crucified. He was crucified for saying he is God, THE one with authority to heal, cast out demons, forgive sins. Rabbi's or teachers did not forgive sins, they offered up atonement, prayers, glad tidings, whatever on behalf of the sinner, but they did not "forgive" people of their sins.
If you want a really sensitive, thoughtful apologetic on why so many should believe that Christianity represents truth you should read Francis A. Schaeffer's "The God Who is There".
I hope you read it. I'd give you my copy if I could but you should be able to find it in most large library exchanges. I read it then I bought it for my own friends and family to read. I went through the same searching you did once and I love that your heart is sensitive to the unknown. You do not have to have blind faith to be a Christian. It is rooted in the reality of our physical world and our history as a people.
the wrath is against sin
ReplyDeleteI'm a psychology major. Influenced by Jungian philosophy.Currently reading a book that quotes him. Astute of you.
ReplyDeleteYou have all given me gifts. Little seeds to ponder. I went to library tonight. Looking for more books. could not find The God who was there but I will keep looking.
Thanks for the defense of your faith. For answering my questions. I need some time to absorb, digest, and assimilate. Don't think I'm not listening or dismissing. The opposite. You've taken my hand and are walking with me.
Thank you so much for the time, energy and patience.
Until I stop spinning....
Molly
I'm having a hard time keeping up here but I've got a question.
ReplyDeleteIs god a being to you? You (Jon) say god collective like it's bad thing. What if the differences here come from semantics, combined with the boxes, categories, whatever, that we as humans must put things into to understand this world? Just our own constraints.
Let me give you and example. I argued with a Christian once, what did people do before Jesus came here? Were they not saved before? So it starts to occur to me, as my concept of the Fall starts to form, that time could be a result of the fall, or our concept of it, so Christ was there since the beginning and is here now, this second? Yes, or No? Does this work with Christianity? Am I too out there to fit in that box? My questions are where did I lose you. Like Cherity responds that the psyche doesn't pull us away but really I agree with her. I believe the psyche, the way I use the word, isn't our soul, our spirit, it is a result of the Fall, a layer of the onion, illusion, that seperates us. Our psyche, though deeper, is just another layer like our ego that we create or was created in some stage, not the essence of us. So yes our soul, (to me our inner "I", our spirit or our seed of God) is drawing us nearer to god, with Christ (to me sort of a concept of christ as well as the man who was jesus) bridging the gap created by the fall.
So I see tons of agreement. Almost in reality the same ideas just different words. Am I right in seeing that though.
So scripture comes in layers, for some it works in one layer, for others, in another, for others in another.
As for Jon, what is another way. I've learned of many other ways and initially my question is similar to the age old, what happens to the child, adult whomever, who has never heard of Christ? Is there hope for their salvation? Do we need to have heard of the man to know the Christ?
Thought I didn't have a response in me yet but as Cherity knows I rarely lack words. Sometimes just the thought behind them ;)
Jon
ReplyDeleteAlso on the particulars. I'm trying to grasp what your getting at there but for someone who goes at it from not having the generality that's, let's say someone raised in a more fundamentalist family would, aren't the particulars the way to God. Like when you say you experience God in love, and your daily experiences like this conversation. Isn't that just taking the particulars and generalizing. Can't I have a general idea, a longing and use the particulars in my own life to reinforce that general idea. I think that what I'm getting most strongly from this search is that I do have faith otherwise I wouldn't spend so much time searching. I'm just looking more for what I said before, a language of reverence. But as I say that I don't know if that's enough. Shouldn't it be enough to just have that faith?
I just think you need to imagine a little what it would be like to come at this journey with no starting point besides your heart. You were given Christianity as a starting point from which to discover. Now someone like me was just given my childlike sense of wonder,(infused with a heavy dose of skepticism) It seems like to me we could be approaching the same truth from two different points, coming closer and closer together as we reach the center of this circle.
As to Sam. I am still looking for that book and reading a little about restoration theology. I'd have questions about what you mean by Wrath. Or what your interpretation of wrath, in the sense that God has wrath. That particular idea has never sat right with me. Maybe because I am thinking it in human terms. It seems to emotional for my idea of God. You've given me starting points (or more than I had) Thanks
Molly,
ReplyDeletemy interpretation of wrath is the Old Testament version. It is what it sounds like. Is God emotional? I would say he is since we bear his image. King David was emotional and God called him "a man after my own heart".
I know where you are coming from jon as far as faith is concerned but nowhere in the Bible does it tell us to have blind faith. It tells us to remember, to read the scriptures, to digest them and there aren't too many instances in the Bible that people were called to have "blind" faith. Abraham told his servant that both he and Isaac would be back when he ascended the mountain to worship/sacrifice Isaac. Moses had the staff and the burning bush, pillar of smoke/fire, manna, etc. The disciples had the miracles of healing, resurrection, etc. Christianity is reduced when we stay camped out in the story of the Bible and don't join in (the epic) and trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit as that "still, soft, voice" but there is also plenty of evidence for the old Scottish "Common Sense" philosophy. If I go out in the rain I'll get wet. I did it every day last week and its raining today so I can be reasonably assured that I will get wet if I go out in the rain.
I agree with you jon. If I hadn't cried out to a mere sense of presence on the side of a road almost 12 years ago I'd have never been on your blog. If the question is asked though, Jesus still makes sense and the story continues with the discovery of the beauty of the ancient, the near-history, and the now as we are sheparded into the ultimate restoration.
Molly, this is doing church. We are worshipping, glorifying God.
I don't exactly know what "blind faith" means. I might actually be close to saying that it does require blindness.
ReplyDeleteYou have to admit, the people in Hebrews 11 did the weirdest stuff, and had nothing to go on to know that "everything was going to be alright."
In fact, they followed the Wild Goose even when it meant choosing death over release from bondage.
That's the kind of faith--irrational, unfounded, no writing in the sky--that I believe we have to return to. No part of my experience as a disciple of Jesus can be proven, or demonstrated, or explained, or rationalized.
It's a flying leap for anyone to believe that this stuff happens:
>the still, small voice
>the wind blowing where it will
>the invitation to follow Jesus.
None of this can be substantiated.
But our wondering eyes can see it all plain as day.
So lovely
ReplyDeleteI just recognized myself as not without a star. Just one of the many on the continuum that is belief. I'm sure I'll move all around on that "line" my whole life.
Jon enjoy your sense of wonder but I think you yourself would realize that you shouldn't get to attached to the "right" way and "wrong" way to believe or worship, or approach God. There may be times in our lives that some way is better than another. Or for different people.
I do realize though that what turned me off the last time I read the New Testament was the preacher teaching my class was really just worshipping at the alter of his knowledge. Not approaching it at all with a sense of wonder. And dismissing those who questioned his "scientific" beliefs about this book.
Thanks for the insights. I'll keep reading your blog and learning a lot. Maybe I meant to say I'll remember to shed some of the scientific approach and trust my innate sense of wonder.
This conversation has been reminding me of this scene from early in the church's history, not many years after Jesus was resurrected and took the throne.
ReplyDeleteThey were still trying to figure out what to make of the whole Jesus thing, and Paul was given some special insight. Here's the scene:
--|--
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.
A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?"
Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.
Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean."
(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said:
"Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:
TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.
"Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
"From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 'For in Him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'
"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine Being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill.
"In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent. For He has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising Him from the dead."
When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject."
--|--
Why Jesus?
Because I'm selfish.
I want to be resurrected. This life on this beautiful earth is too beautiful for me to be satisfied with three score and ten years.
I want the heaviness of this life to fall away, for my vision to be cleared, and to walk in a garden with God, like we were intended to do in the very beginning.
From HIS resurrection springs the hope of my OWN resurrection.
Springtime is God's creative way of telling the same story in His handiwork. So many foretastes in this life. So many reasons to hope.
Molly, I hope you're one of the ones who say, "We want to hear you again on this subject."
Don't be happy casting your worship on the altar TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Jon, in each verse of Hebrews 11 God had revealed himself to his people. God acted. Their faith was rooted in the call or the presence or the voice or the miracles, etc. The question was "why Christians believe Jesus is the only way" and my intentions were that my posts were all pointing toward answering that question. Molly gave us her background. I have many connections to people in the Catholic church and the person that led me to Christ is Catholic. The Catholic church, historically, has not encouraged the study that you have done in your own journey. The fact that you went to Hebrew 11 to prove your point is the same reason I suggested a sensitive apologetic to answer the question.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry I used the phrase "blind faith" but what I actually meant was faith in a myth, like worshipping the personality of the sun or moon or sea or tree.
Then I think we're talking about the same thing and just coming to understand one another's terms. I like it when that happens. I don't mean to come across as disagreeable.
ReplyDelete"Blind" in your mind then has to do with the object of faith (like the altar to the UNKNOWN GOD in Athens), rather than the foundation of the faith.
A lifetime of "inspiration" and "inerrancy" has conditioned me to flinch at suggestions of "certainty" leading to faith. A hundred years ago, when those two words were installed as the foundation of the faith system I grew up with, I believe we began to forget that the Word is alive, and walks among us.
And we built ourselves another altar. Ah, but that's another thread altogether.
Thanks for being here, Sam.
Where can I read something about restoration theology?
ReplyDelete--Jon
Boys
ReplyDeleteI want to hear you again on this subject. I'm in fact still listening (obviously!)
I meant that with a grin. Not in defense. Great story of Paul as teacher. I am one those who wants more of this story.
ReplyDeleteJesus may end up being my hope for salvation too. I am not closed to that possibility. At one time my mind may have thought I was. Feels strange to verbalize that. In a world so cynical about Christianity.
I'm really glad you're going to hang around. And that you're not offended by anything you've heard so far.
ReplyDeleteI offer you another story--
There was a particular moment in time (Exodus 6) when El Shaddai ("God Almighty") introduced Himself to His chosen people using His personal name, Jehovah, which means something like "Lord."
It was an open invitation from God to His creatures to know Him personally and to claim Him as "LORD my God."
I believe He still introduces and unveils Himself to His children in ways like this.
May a day like this come soon for you.
--Jon
Your post about God's name reminded me of a very beautiful message a pastor taught our church several years ago. I can't do it justice but I found a site that does a nice job.
ReplyDeletehttp://devotionals.eph2810.com/?p=204#comment-1483
We are on the same page jon, we just have this stuff, you know? Thanks for your blogging.
Here is a quick powerpoint presentation that I found on what I call "restoration theology". There is also another take on "restoration theology" whereby man is charged with restoring creation - I don't see in the bible where man can restore anything but our own surrender and that is debatable. I'm writing of "all things made new".
http://www.biblicaltheology.ca/blue_files/Act%20Six.ppt#9
molly said...By your following of Christ. I am wondering, as a seeker, what that actually means to you.
ReplyDeleteI was about 16 when I began to think about "there must be something else" I guess disappointment upon disappointment had taken its toll on my young heart. Either way I was crippled in my ability to "fit in" and began to seek. So like a dog (heart) on a leash I (mind) began to follow. I tried eastern mysticism, tarot, crystals, drugs, etc. to see if they were the answer that my heart was looking for. And then I was accosted by the Truth. He was waiting for me. He didn't come to me with an intellectual resume for me to comprehend. He came to my heart. I was following my heart. I didn't know what it wanted or needed, but when it found it I knew it was right.