In this long slog that I refer to as my Jacob-time, I have been trying to determine what about my faith I believe, and what are the things that are causing me to wrestle with it. During one of my walks I recently was able to identify and contemplate one of the problem areas.
Like many others through history I struggle with the apparent dichotomy and paradox of a monotheistic faith expressed as a plurality. Three in one. Separate and distinct, but all one. Confusing. More than that, I have struggled with the fundamentalist approach to faith that seems to slight not only the Spirit but God the Father as well through a singular focus on the "person of Christ" to the near exclusion of the other two members of the Godhead. This has bothered me.
Along with that, and clearly related to it, there is the focus on Jesus being the "Son". That God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. But yet..... the Son and Father are one, aren't they? The Word was God and with God. So wouldn't that mean that God give himself as a sacrifice, not someone else? How then does this work?
And then it occurred to me. Perhaps we have the whole "son" thing wrong. Are we taking a term literally that was perhaps best used then, and now, as an analogy and as a historical reference point? Maybe it was intended to describe in terms that humans could understand a relationship that was not gong to be comprehensible to them any more than the concept of God taking human form is comprehensible to us. As we do perhaps too often, maybe it is an issue of taking literally a term not intended that way.
It struck me, how would the idea of God assuming human form and human nature, be expressed to a primitive people? Maybe the best analogy of it is a son. Part mother (human nature and body) and part father (divine nature and infinite life), a son takes attributes from both and combines them. In human terms, the mother and father unite to generate a totally new and distinct person. That explains the human nature from Mary, the Divine nature of God.
Where the analogy breaks down is that in human terms the son is totally separate and distinct from the father. A son's life is a life of it's own unconnected physically to the father (or mother). As a sacrifice story, it hearkens to the story of faith that the Jews would understand, the story of Abraham and Issac. Faith. Sacrifice. Relationship. Key elements. The story of Abraham and Issac....one of the classic stories of faith
and which has a father sacrificing (or being willing to sacrifice) a son. If God
talked to the Jews in relation to that story, it's a story that they
would certainly understand. Combined with the cultural issue of sons
and family, the word works.
As an analogy this fails in the area of life ownership. On earth, a son has a life independent of any other; once born the son has relationship with the parents but his life...the beating of his heart, the pulsing of his blood...is his alone, untied to the parents. The theological challenge for me is that using the earthly analogy, one can give only their own life. I can not offer anyone else's life and have it be the same as me offering my own.
This is why it seems to me that perhaps this is an analogy. The Lord our God is One. He came to earth and assumed the human nature and human body, but did so while still God, still infinite. In that form He offered up himself as a sacrifice to cover our sins; His human nature covering the human sin and having human death, His infinite nature providing the infinite blood for all the sins that ever happened. The part of God that became corporeal was offered up, died, and rose again. The blood was divinely-human blood, human enough to cover us, infinite enough to cover for us.
I know. Maybe it's heresy. Maybe I'm nuts. But it makes sense to me. It clarifies in my head the things that I struggle with...the singular focus on only one-third of the Godhead, the issue of one offering up another who is not them. And maybe it gets me out of my obstruction enough to move on in the struggle.
I'm hoping it's the latter :)
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Monday, August 24, 2015
Still.....
I have been in this parched, withering, God-forsaken wilderness and God-search mode for so many years I no longer can remember a time when I was quiet and still with my faith and beliefs. For so many years now, there have been so many struggles so much angst and pain....and yet still no solution. I feel like David in his worst times....How long Oh Lord will I struggle so, will you let me flail around looking for you while all the while remain quiet and hidden? I have even (finally?) started to question why I question, to impugn my own motives. While I originally started with the question of what I was, was to do, was to become after the divorce, it has become more. That much was, perhaps, the inevitable outcome of the divorce and the apocalyptic dissolution and desolation of my world, my expectations, my past, and my future. Looking for reasons and a path forward would be expected.
But I never found that new world, that undiscovered, uncharted land. I still seek to have connections with God....and to find another partner for this life. The questions have grown, and have grown deeper, perhaps more cynical. Questions about the trinity and our singular fixation on the person of Jesus to the exclusion of the two parts of the One who is the One, the I AM. Questions about why certain sins are viewed as anathema, while others are accepted without judgment and condemnation or ostracism. Questions on how scripture written 2-3000 years ago is to be read and interpreted in these times, and how/if the OT impacts us today if at all. What "spin" have we put on Scripture in 2000 years, adopting church-made terms and phrases and perspectives as though they were actually what was written.
And yet, I still seek God, still yearn to love Him and to be loved by Him. I have learned in the past six or eight years that despite my "feelings" I must posses a strong-ish faith of some type, or I'd have just walked away and given up by now. I recently (finally) came to realize that God knows my particular, specific, debilitating sins/sin nature and isn't repulsed, doesn't cast me into a particular circle of hell for it. But I haven't realized the grace of that knowledge He has.
I know that who/what I am has changed over these years, not enough perhaps but at least noticeably. I care more about others, I give more, I accept more. Do I love more? I don't know; I think so but I'm not able to really know. I still don't "feel" His presence and His Grace. I still 'feel' like I belong tossed into the trash heap of worth and relations.
But I plod on .......still....still.
But I never found that new world, that undiscovered, uncharted land. I still seek to have connections with God....and to find another partner for this life. The questions have grown, and have grown deeper, perhaps more cynical. Questions about the trinity and our singular fixation on the person of Jesus to the exclusion of the two parts of the One who is the One, the I AM. Questions about why certain sins are viewed as anathema, while others are accepted without judgment and condemnation or ostracism. Questions on how scripture written 2-3000 years ago is to be read and interpreted in these times, and how/if the OT impacts us today if at all. What "spin" have we put on Scripture in 2000 years, adopting church-made terms and phrases and perspectives as though they were actually what was written.
And yet, I still seek God, still yearn to love Him and to be loved by Him. I have learned in the past six or eight years that despite my "feelings" I must posses a strong-ish faith of some type, or I'd have just walked away and given up by now. I recently (finally) came to realize that God knows my particular, specific, debilitating sins/sin nature and isn't repulsed, doesn't cast me into a particular circle of hell for it. But I haven't realized the grace of that knowledge He has.
I know that who/what I am has changed over these years, not enough perhaps but at least noticeably. I care more about others, I give more, I accept more. Do I love more? I don't know; I think so but I'm not able to really know. I still don't "feel" His presence and His Grace. I still 'feel' like I belong tossed into the trash heap of worth and relations.
But I plod on .......still....still.
Sunday, May 31, 2015
d-o-g and G-O-D
It has been a long time since I've blogged here. While some it was due to winter and depression, a major portion of it was due to my just being bone-tired of the constant battle and discourse going on inside me about God, faith, church and me. I've been wrestling with God for years now. Too many years perhaps but at least a number of years and I'm still doing it. Maybe the past few months have been the resting time, the re-grouping time, or the re-configuring. I haven't figure it out yet.
Today a friend said something that sparked an image for me, and maybe that image helps me understand where I am and accept it. He quoted Augustine, church father and man of severally chequered past. In his writing, Augustine famously said that "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."
Restless heart.
Yup.
The image that I formed was that of an old dog. Ever watch a dog get ready to lie down and take a nap? The go around in circles, first one way and then the next. They lay down, get up again, circle again, and the dance continues until they finally have it just so....and then they're out.
I think I'm a dog with God.
I keep going around and around, trying to get comfortable, to find my spot. There are so many things that confuse, trouble, perplex me. From the Godhead (if Christ is God made flesh, why do we so emphasize him being Son, wasn't that a figure of speech we've gotten too literal about?), to what it takes to be saved (call on Jesus? Confess and repent? Believe? Demonstrate fruits? What?) to the "rules" of life (it's grace, it's works, it's both, it's neither).
I'm seriously thinking that my former love was right. She said, with all her flaws, struggles, hurts, that it was really simple. " God is love. Dont'' be a schmuck". Maybe she's on to something. I doubt that I'll stop my ruminating, but maybe if I just hold onto it, I'll be okay.
God is love. Don't be schmuck
Maybe this is what this dog needs to see about God.
Today a friend said something that sparked an image for me, and maybe that image helps me understand where I am and accept it. He quoted Augustine, church father and man of severally chequered past. In his writing, Augustine famously said that "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."
Restless heart.
Yup.
The image that I formed was that of an old dog. Ever watch a dog get ready to lie down and take a nap? The go around in circles, first one way and then the next. They lay down, get up again, circle again, and the dance continues until they finally have it just so....and then they're out.
I think I'm a dog with God.
I keep going around and around, trying to get comfortable, to find my spot. There are so many things that confuse, trouble, perplex me. From the Godhead (if Christ is God made flesh, why do we so emphasize him being Son, wasn't that a figure of speech we've gotten too literal about?), to what it takes to be saved (call on Jesus? Confess and repent? Believe? Demonstrate fruits? What?) to the "rules" of life (it's grace, it's works, it's both, it's neither).
I'm seriously thinking that my former love was right. She said, with all her flaws, struggles, hurts, that it was really simple. " God is love. Dont'' be a schmuck". Maybe she's on to something. I doubt that I'll stop my ruminating, but maybe if I just hold onto it, I'll be okay.
God is love. Don't be schmuck
Maybe this is what this dog needs to see about God.
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Mountaintop.....or plain
It was an interesting challenge from a friend in my Bible study group. I had commented on how I had envied his mountaintop conversion experience, and with it a certainty of salvation and faith in God. And the close, emotional connection to God that came from it. For me, who has wrestled with faith for so many years (and never "feeling" it), it seemed the preferable path over my slow, laborious , plodding search.
What I hadn't realize, and what he challenged me on, was the burden that came with the mountaintop. He looked at the mountaintop as being a challenge, a standard he need to meet. Saved "from" he understood; saved "for" ...that was what he struggled to grasp and realize. He felt a burden to live up to what he saw as the exceeding expectations of the experience. I, on the other hand, struggled with the lack of a definable experience, of feeling somehow that the plebeian, pedestrian path I plodded along lacked purpose, promise, portent...and passion.
Two different events. Two different vantagepoints. Yet both of us struggling with our self-imposed expectations and inadequacies. What we know, and yet still need to know, experience and embrace, is the unconditional love of God who loves each of us no less than he loves Himself, for He gave Himself for us.
We both struggle with where our lives are, and how those lives are so, so different from what we wanted and expected from our faith. He, struggling for his very life itself in the face of a relentless onslaught of cancer, when he fully expected to use his life to reach to others (and had already started doing so). Me, a life unalterably changed by divorce where I lost family and future in one swoop, leaving me to face a life alone and unloved on earth.
In the last couple of days, I have wondered if God gave my friend the mountaintop because He knew he would need it. That in facing death at such an early age, and so new in faith, he was given a passion, a depth of that experience to draw on that others wouldn't need.
Neither of us dreamed this would be what our Christian experience would be.
What I hadn't realize, and what he challenged me on, was the burden that came with the mountaintop. He looked at the mountaintop as being a challenge, a standard he need to meet. Saved "from" he understood; saved "for" ...that was what he struggled to grasp and realize. He felt a burden to live up to what he saw as the exceeding expectations of the experience. I, on the other hand, struggled with the lack of a definable experience, of feeling somehow that the plebeian, pedestrian path I plodded along lacked purpose, promise, portent...and passion.
Two different events. Two different vantagepoints. Yet both of us struggling with our self-imposed expectations and inadequacies. What we know, and yet still need to know, experience and embrace, is the unconditional love of God who loves each of us no less than he loves Himself, for He gave Himself for us.
We both struggle with where our lives are, and how those lives are so, so different from what we wanted and expected from our faith. He, struggling for his very life itself in the face of a relentless onslaught of cancer, when he fully expected to use his life to reach to others (and had already started doing so). Me, a life unalterably changed by divorce where I lost family and future in one swoop, leaving me to face a life alone and unloved on earth.
In the last couple of days, I have wondered if God gave my friend the mountaintop because He knew he would need it. That in facing death at such an early age, and so new in faith, he was given a passion, a depth of that experience to draw on that others wouldn't need.
Neither of us dreamed this would be what our Christian experience would be.
Monday, May 19, 2014
"Talents" thoughts, Part 2
The parable of the talents in Matthew 25 raises a question for me. Every sermon I have heard preached on it covers one aspect of it the same way.
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
The master is always viewed as God. Numerous are the references that I've heard to us wanting to be the "...good and faithful servant..." who gets to share in his master's happiness. But....does this analogy really work? The part that bothers me (on a couple of levels) is
“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
28 “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. 29 For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
The master is a hard master, who invokes fear in the heart of the servant. When the servant doesn't improve his master's wealth, he is punished not just by having the small amount in his possession removed from him, he is thrown out into the darkness as well.
If the master is indeed God, does this mean that if we fail to improve His wealth (in some way, whether it be improving funds, or gathering souls) that we will be cast out into darkness and abandoned? This doesn't seem to jive with the perspective of Romans 8:38-39 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." While that doesn't explicitly say that God Himself isn't able to separate us, it would surely seem that His Grace and Mercy would not condemn us for a failure to perform. Ah. Failure to perform.
At the heart of my struggle, here and in general, is the failure to perform. A failure to live up to the standards, to be less than perfect. I have struggled for years to believe the precept of grace, that Christ's death covers my sins, and that nothing I do can bring me closer to God that what Christ has done. I found a note in some old musings this weekend, that reminded me that God does not love me any less than He loves Christ Himself (not because of anything I have done, but because " If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Rom 10:9) If I believe that Christ is God, that should mean that my vacillations in prayer life, in Bible study, in the application of His Word to my life....none of those cause me to be condemned anymore than any of them cause me to be justified in His eyes.
Maybe there's a difference in the attitude of the three servants. Perhaps the third one isn't acting out of love, but out of fear. Maybe the other two gave themselves whole heartedly to their master, in a desire (rather than an obligation) to improve the master's lot. But ...does being fearful constitute a condition that would separate us from God? Perfect love casts out fear (I John 4:18) (but is that His love casting out my fear, or my accepting His love casting out my fears)? If I'm a servant but still fearful does that mean I'm too flawed to be saved?
Perhaps I read too much into the parable. Maybe the understanding trails back to the end of Matthew 24. There, the disobedient servant is hypocritical (as well as lazy) and abuses the master's materials while He is away. 48 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ 49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. 50 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. 51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That would seem to be consistent, the failure of the servant with one talent was his hypocrisy. He abuses the power and responsibility.....abuses grace by willingly sinning and figuring that there is no need to obey the master. But if that, then are there an awful lot of Christians who would be cast out because they are not living up to the life God desires for us? Or does that go back to work and performance?
Maybe reading ahead into Matthew 26, the answer is tied to the audience. It was after these teachings that the religious leaders began to plot to kill Jesus. Was it because THEY were the hypocrites that Jesus was talking about, the chosen people who were squandering the blessings of God? The ones who lay burdens on the people and drove them away from the Law of God into their own Law of regulations?
<Sigh>. These are some of the reasons I struggle. God, please open my heart to Your Love, to Your Spirit. Grant me wisdom enough....no, grant me faith enough...to love You and listen to You when my spirit leads astray. Thank you Father that in some aspects of my life, I am doing better at doing Your will.
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
The master is always viewed as God. Numerous are the references that I've heard to us wanting to be the "...good and faithful servant..." who gets to share in his master's happiness. But....does this analogy really work? The part that bothers me (on a couple of levels) is
“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
28 “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. 29 For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. 30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
The master is a hard master, who invokes fear in the heart of the servant. When the servant doesn't improve his master's wealth, he is punished not just by having the small amount in his possession removed from him, he is thrown out into the darkness as well.
If the master is indeed God, does this mean that if we fail to improve His wealth (in some way, whether it be improving funds, or gathering souls) that we will be cast out into darkness and abandoned? This doesn't seem to jive with the perspective of Romans 8:38-39 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." While that doesn't explicitly say that God Himself isn't able to separate us, it would surely seem that His Grace and Mercy would not condemn us for a failure to perform. Ah. Failure to perform.
At the heart of my struggle, here and in general, is the failure to perform. A failure to live up to the standards, to be less than perfect. I have struggled for years to believe the precept of grace, that Christ's death covers my sins, and that nothing I do can bring me closer to God that what Christ has done. I found a note in some old musings this weekend, that reminded me that God does not love me any less than He loves Christ Himself (not because of anything I have done, but because " If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Rom 10:9) If I believe that Christ is God, that should mean that my vacillations in prayer life, in Bible study, in the application of His Word to my life....none of those cause me to be condemned anymore than any of them cause me to be justified in His eyes.
Maybe there's a difference in the attitude of the three servants. Perhaps the third one isn't acting out of love, but out of fear. Maybe the other two gave themselves whole heartedly to their master, in a desire (rather than an obligation) to improve the master's lot. But ...does being fearful constitute a condition that would separate us from God? Perfect love casts out fear (I John 4:18) (but is that His love casting out my fear, or my accepting His love casting out my fears)? If I'm a servant but still fearful does that mean I'm too flawed to be saved?
Perhaps I read too much into the parable. Maybe the understanding trails back to the end of Matthew 24. There, the disobedient servant is hypocritical (as well as lazy) and abuses the master's materials while He is away. 48 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ 49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. 50 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. 51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That would seem to be consistent, the failure of the servant with one talent was his hypocrisy. He abuses the power and responsibility.....abuses grace by willingly sinning and figuring that there is no need to obey the master. But if that, then are there an awful lot of Christians who would be cast out because they are not living up to the life God desires for us? Or does that go back to work and performance?
Maybe reading ahead into Matthew 26, the answer is tied to the audience. It was after these teachings that the religious leaders began to plot to kill Jesus. Was it because THEY were the hypocrites that Jesus was talking about, the chosen people who were squandering the blessings of God? The ones who lay burdens on the people and drove them away from the Law of God into their own Law of regulations?
<Sigh>. These are some of the reasons I struggle. God, please open my heart to Your Love, to Your Spirit. Grant me wisdom enough....no, grant me faith enough...to love You and listen to You when my spirit leads astray. Thank you Father that in some aspects of my life, I am doing better at doing Your will.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
"Talents" thoughts, Part 1
During a recent sermon, my pastor made a reference to the parable of the talents in a way with which I had not previously connected. I have always viewed the story from the standpoint of the ending, of how many talents each was able to earn for the Master. But I got a different insight when the minister emphasized the start of the story:
" To one he gave five talents of gold, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability" (Matt 25:15).
I hadn't seen it before. They started off differently. It was a decision of the Master to give differing amounts to each servant. Maybe the importance for me is not in what they ended with but what they started with. I have struggled with my faith for years now, coming up on at least a decade. I have looked at those in church who sing and lift arms to Him in praise, those who sway to the music; these are things that don't come to me. I have looked at those for whom faith has been solid, firm, straightforward, clear and compelling; for me it has always been full of questions, sidebars, ambiguity, and doubts in my journey. I've always wondered why there are those who can clearly show and experience the love of God, the Joy of the Lord, and ....then there's me, an Eeyore in the Hundred Faithful Woods.
I suspect that I have talents in varying degrees in different areas of my life (some would say "well d-u-h" but they aren't clear to me). Some of them may be 5 talents sized skills and abilities, some of them one talent sized. Maybe in the area of faith, I've been given one talent...or a penny (for which two sparrows are sold). A single talent. Maybe it has just been my allotment to have a smaller starter amount than most others. The amount of talents given were not determined by the servants, and not based on any feature we can discern, but given by Him based on abilities as determined by the Master.
So perhaps I should learn to rest with the single talent size of faith that I have. Perhaps I should just acknowledge that the I AM who made me, granted to me the life long challenge of dealing with my Thomas faith, my Jonah attitude, my Gideon courage.
I just....I just feel so poor sometimes.
" To one he gave five talents of gold, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability" (Matt 25:15).
I hadn't seen it before. They started off differently. It was a decision of the Master to give differing amounts to each servant. Maybe the importance for me is not in what they ended with but what they started with. I have struggled with my faith for years now, coming up on at least a decade. I have looked at those in church who sing and lift arms to Him in praise, those who sway to the music; these are things that don't come to me. I have looked at those for whom faith has been solid, firm, straightforward, clear and compelling; for me it has always been full of questions, sidebars, ambiguity, and doubts in my journey. I've always wondered why there are those who can clearly show and experience the love of God, the Joy of the Lord, and ....then there's me, an Eeyore in the Hundred Faithful Woods.
I suspect that I have talents in varying degrees in different areas of my life (some would say "well d-u-h" but they aren't clear to me). Some of them may be 5 talents sized skills and abilities, some of them one talent sized. Maybe in the area of faith, I've been given one talent...or a penny (for which two sparrows are sold). A single talent. Maybe it has just been my allotment to have a smaller starter amount than most others. The amount of talents given were not determined by the servants, and not based on any feature we can discern, but given by Him based on abilities as determined by the Master.
So perhaps I should learn to rest with the single talent size of faith that I have. Perhaps I should just acknowledge that the I AM who made me, granted to me the life long challenge of dealing with my Thomas faith, my Jonah attitude, my Gideon courage.
I just....I just feel so poor sometimes.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Empty Easter
I had a thought the other day about the emptiness of Easter, and the significance of it.
The emptiness of the Cross was what first caught my attention. On Friday, the Cross was filled with Christ. It was filled with His suffering, and with the enormous cesspool of human sin. But at the end of the day, He was brought down and buried. The cross had been full. Full of God Himself, full of blood, full of sin being drowned in the blood. Full of Him emptying Himself out for our salvation. Poured out, and then....it was over. That evening, the cross was empty, and would not ever be filled again. His sacrifice covered us, once, for all.
That day the Temple was emptied as well. The Mercy Seat of God, the I AM who sat in the presence of His people in the Tabernacle, and then in the Temple, was now empty. God no longer dwelt in the Temple. The veil that separated the Holy God from the chosen people was torn, the doors thrown open by the quake. What had been living there, now was going to live in us. So the Temple was emptied.
Sunday, the Tomb was empty. Having gone to mourn, gone to weep, the women arrived at the tomb to find it ....emptied. The body they had expected to find was not there."Why do you look for the living among the dead?" (Luke 24:5) "You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised." (Mark 16:6) Death had been defeated. Separation from God had been defeated, proven by an empty tomb.
So then..... what does the emptiness say to me? It says God, in the person of Christ, has emptied my cross of sin. It says God has emptied the useless Temple-like sacrifices I make to Him, and opened the Temple of Himself to me. It says He has freed me from a tomb...even if so often I feel like Thomas in needing to feel the wounds in order to not feel so empty myself.
God, grant me rebirth. Grant me fullness in you. Fill me with Your love, for the greatest of these is love.
The emptiness of the Cross was what first caught my attention. On Friday, the Cross was filled with Christ. It was filled with His suffering, and with the enormous cesspool of human sin. But at the end of the day, He was brought down and buried. The cross had been full. Full of God Himself, full of blood, full of sin being drowned in the blood. Full of Him emptying Himself out for our salvation. Poured out, and then....it was over. That evening, the cross was empty, and would not ever be filled again. His sacrifice covered us, once, for all.
That day the Temple was emptied as well. The Mercy Seat of God, the I AM who sat in the presence of His people in the Tabernacle, and then in the Temple, was now empty. God no longer dwelt in the Temple. The veil that separated the Holy God from the chosen people was torn, the doors thrown open by the quake. What had been living there, now was going to live in us. So the Temple was emptied.
Sunday, the Tomb was empty. Having gone to mourn, gone to weep, the women arrived at the tomb to find it ....emptied. The body they had expected to find was not there."Why do you look for the living among the dead?" (Luke 24:5) "You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised." (Mark 16:6) Death had been defeated. Separation from God had been defeated, proven by an empty tomb.
So then..... what does the emptiness say to me? It says God, in the person of Christ, has emptied my cross of sin. It says God has emptied the useless Temple-like sacrifices I make to Him, and opened the Temple of Himself to me. It says He has freed me from a tomb...even if so often I feel like Thomas in needing to feel the wounds in order to not feel so empty myself.
God, grant me rebirth. Grant me fullness in you. Fill me with Your love, for the greatest of these is love.
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