These thoughts are my own. I do not claim to have any special wisdom and certainly no divine revelation. Although I use the word “God” in what follows and with the pronoun “He”, I do not like the word. I think it stands for something/someone that cannot be defined. If the extent of the known universe is beyond comprehension, then “G-O-D” must be even more so. Jesus used the word “Father”, so I prefer to use that simple image.
I am intrigued by Jesus. I no longer have an orthodox Christian faith, but I do believe there is something more to human beings than the chemical, biological and physical processes of our bodies, complex though these are. The "something more” concerns our moral being, our ability to love sacrificially and the sense we have of a spiritual dimension just out of reach - what Emily Dickinson refers to as the “tooth that nibbles at the soul”.
Jesus’ baptism
Jesus was about 30 years-old when he began his brief teaching ministry. There is one story recorded in Luke of Jesus at the age of twelve conversing with scholars in Jerusalem but otherwise nothing is written in the New Testament about the first 30 years of his life.
Luke also records that Jesus’s mother, Mary, had a cousin Elizabeth who gave birth to a son a few months before Jesus was born. The son was named John. It is almost certain the two boys knew one another as they grew up. Both young men would have attended the synagogue and would know the Jewish scriptures. They were both radicals and discontented with the status quo. It is likely they discussed these things together, so much so that John recognised in his half-cousin someone exceptional. When John could no longer stay silent, he began preaching against the authorities, calling for repentance, and baptising people in the River Jordon.
Account in Matthew’s Gospel:
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’” Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptised by him. And John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I need to be baptised by You, and are You coming to me?” But Jesus answered and said to him, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him.
When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Man shall not live by bread alone
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the Tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’
Jesus must have been shocked by the voice he heard at his baptism. To Jews the God of Israel was remote and fearful. They did not speak his name. He was Almighty, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The closest image was that of a shepherd and his flock. But Jesus hears himself called, "beloved son". This is unheard of and Jesus needs to get away with no distractions and think what this means, so he heads to a wilderness.
He is in a place of conflict; two Kingdoms were vying for supremacy in his mind, the Kingdom of The World, materialistic and self-seeking, and The Kingdom of God, altruistic and sacrificial. To follow in the footsteps of his carpenter father, having a wife and children, or to follow the voice he heard at his baptism. For 30 years he had lived a normal life among his neighbours. Later, when he preached to them ....
“,,,, they scoffed, “He's just the carpenter's son, and we know Mary, his mother, and his brothers—James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. All his sisters live right here among us. Where did he learn all these things?” (Matthew 13:55-56 New Living Translation)
In the wilderness Jesus distanced himself from the world and fasted, prayed and meditated.
“Beloved Son” - was that really the voice of God?” “Has He spoken to me as he did to Samuel”? “What does it mean?” “What am I to do?”
He began to understand the road that lay ahead and the message he needed to preach. But as the days passed and he became weaker, another voice began to nag him. “If you are the Son of God…“The word “If” casts doubt. How can you be sure that was God? Perhaps you are deluded? Is there a way to be certain. Perhaps there is.“If you really are the son of God, you must have creative power; those stones can be turned to bread. God will surely feed you just as he sent ravens to feed Elijah and manna to feed the tribes of Israel in the desert.”
So clear, so logical, but so wrong!
The Word is Now
One of the biggest mistakes believers make is to use the physical world as the model for the spiritual world. The first runs according to logical, undeviating physical laws. If A and B are true, then C will follow. In the Kingdom of God this way of reasoning does not apply. If A prays for B and B is healed, it does not follow, if C prays for D then D will be healed. This is a cause of endless frustration to believers who accuse God of being inconsistent or capricious when He does not dance to their tune. “My ways are not your ways”, He says, “neither are my thoughts your thoughts”. C.S Lewis echoes this in the Narnia books, “Aslan is not a tame lion”. Jesus knew that the voice of God in the past, whether it came to Elijah, or the Children of Israel is not for him now. Those words, once living are now dead. The past is not a blueprint for the present.
I AM
God’s name revealed to Moses at the burning bush is translated, I AM – not I WAS, or I WILL BE. He is God of the here and now; God of the living not of the dead. Jesus understood this. What God said to others in the past was not food for his spirit now. John preached, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come near”, and Jesus sought the nearness and the now-ness of that Kingdom. He rejected the nagging voice telling him to do a conjuring trick with stones and listened instead for the now-voice of his Father.
What is that to you?
A second mistake believers make is the desire to emulate someone else. Perhaps they’ve heard a story of prayer, or healing or faith, or read an inspiring biography and believe their own faith is deficient. They want to be more like those who seem to have a greater experience of God. Instead of walking their own journey they want to tread in another’s footsteps. At the end of John’s Gospel Jesus gives an important warning about this:
"Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, “But Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me." (John 21:22)
What is that to you? This man’s journey is not yours. Follow me, not him.
Jesus spoke different words to different people; the woman at the well heard something very different from the rich young ruler. In the parable of the Prodigal Son the father had different words for his two sons. It’s the parable of the lost sheep, not the lost flock. The word is personal not plural.
CS Lewis in his biography Surprised by Joy, speaks of incidents in his life which led him step by step into faith. A toy garden made by his brother when Lewis was only six; a fairy story by George MacDonald picked off a second-hand book stall in his late teens; an Oxford bus journey, conversations with friends and through them all, the same quiet insistent voice was speaking to him. But it was his journey, not ours.
What 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous saw and heard on 11th February 1858, in a grotto near Lourdes was for her. Even those who witnessed her kneeling before that barren rock did not see or hear the lady who was so real to her, and neither have the thousands of pilgrims who have flocked to Lourdes since.
Churches and denominations fail because they herd cows, sheep, pigs, starlings, reindeer, rooks, adders, tigers, ladybirds and the whole human animal kingdom into their carefully constructed barn and feed them all the same food in the hope they will all turn into swans.
You shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. The word is personal and the word is now.
"He who has hears to hear, let him hear."
0 comments:
Post a Comment