I thought that if I just hid under the coral it would protect me.
Yet, you found me.
I changed the color of my skin so I could blend into the sand below.
Yet, you found me.
Jet away! Release a cloud of inky blackness to confuse you.!
Yet…you found me.
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Where to start…
“It was a dark, stormy night.”
No, no that’s no good.
“It was the best of…”
Oh, shit! That’s even worse!
Yesterday, my heart failed me.
You see, my eyes dragged it to
a place that it hadn’t been
in so many years. A place
that contains feelings of old
memories and longings long
thought dead and buried. Inter’d
within a stone tomb, stain’d taupe
Still, turning to dust.
But, I read your words and saw
Your face and with the sound of
a mighty, rushing wind their
lungs filled and faces flushed full
of new life! The tomb burst open,
the reincarnate walked out
into the sunlight of my
consciousness, mummy wrapped in
musty, moldy cloth.
“But, I thought that you were dead,”
I cried! As my heart began
to break open and the dam
behind my eyes burst. “Why now?
I am old and life-worn. Why
can’t you leave me alone? What
have I done that you who were
dead return to haunt me now?”
“You loved. You died. LIVE!”
The first time that the writer of Matthew noted the actual words of Jesus was when Jesus traveled to the Jordan River to be baptized by his cousin, John. Why this time and this event I’m not sure. Why didn’t the writer have anything to say about Jesus’ younger days? But, except for Luke and his record of Jesus as a 12 year old, the Canon is silent.
John had been baptizing people who came from all over Palestine. He was apparently a simple man. His clothing was common and the food he ate was what he could gather from nature. Even the message that he preached to those seeking baptism was simple, “Repent! For the Kingdom of God has come near!” He freely baptized anyone who came and confessed whatever sins they may have committed. And, John was not afraid to get right up in the face of people who thought that they were oh so pure. He was more than happy to help them ‘discover’ the error of their ways.
Into this strolled Jesus.
He walked down to be baptized. John tried to deflect him by saying, “Whoa! I’m the one who should be baptized by You! Yet, you came to me?” John recognized something about Jesus that apparently no one else did. To John, Jesus was the master and he the student. Masters didn’t do things like this. So, naturally, John “tried to hold him back.”
It’s kind of ironic that John, acting as the lesser of the two, made a presumption about Jesus and tried to enforce it. He recognized Jesus as Master, and then told him, “No! You can’t do that!” Imagine saying No to your boss!
Jesus didn’t respond by saying, “John, John…you simple man. You have no clue what you’re saying. Don’t you realize who I am? Now, stop talking nonsense and do your job.”
Instead, Jesus simply said, “Let it be so now. For this way is proper for us to fulfill all righteousness”.
I can see a smile on Jesus’ face when he said this. In a way he said, “Yeah, I know. But, there’s something going on here that’s bigger than both of us. So, John, please do this.” He did not simply dismiss John and his concerns. In fact, he honored John’s inclusion, “For this way is proper for US…” Jesus, Son of God and all, demurred and humbly asked his cousin to render this service to him.
So, I learned that God has a streak of humility. God doesn’t seem to need to strut into a situation and throw the Divine reputation around. “Hi. I’m God. And, you’re not.”
No, Jesus showed that he needed others in order to fulfill his calling.
What about the rest of what Jesus said? What’s all that about ‘fulfilling all righteousness?
I found at least EIGHT different ways to understand this statement. The text itself only contains 8 Greek words. Yet we have at least that many ways to explain them! (For those who think that a ‘simple’ reading of the Bible is the best way? It’s not!)
One of the reasons states that this baptism was an act that needed to be performed. Jesus was, in effect, checking an item off of his Messiah ‘To Do’ list. But, there’s not a lot of evidence to back that up.
Another was that, like the folks over at the Qumran community, he was performing a ritual cleansing. But, if Jesus was Divine, this was an unnecessary formality. The early Church recognized the doctrine of Jesus’ sinless nature. So, what was he being cleansed of?
There was only one reason out of all the ones I found that seems to fit. It fits Jesus’ humility shown to John as well as his humility to God the Father. It also fits what we may assume was Jesus’ perception of his role as Son.
He was somehow aware of what the Father desired and knew that this was simply the right thing to do.
Jesus acted on a gut feeling that God desired him to go to his cousin, yeah the weird one, and allow his cousin to baptize him.
How much of this act did in fact have some basis in Jewish custom and ritual? Don’t know; don’t care. It’s not important.
What is important, and I think the point here, was that Jesus desired to please God.
So, Mike’s paraphrase of this verse would be something like, “Please, John, do this for me. It’s the right thing for me to do to please God at this time.”
What does any of this have to do with my question, “Who are you God…Really?”
I think that there are a few things here that I can learn.
1) God can be pleased. Or, better, we can do things that make God smile.
2) Jesus revealed sensitivity to both God and John. God must also be sensitive to what we think and say.
3) Jesus was humble. He chose to honor his cousin. He didn’t use the “God card.” He chose to John in this simple act of pleasing the Father.
4) Some things may not be morally or theologically right or wrong. Would Jesus have been less than divine if he hadn’t gone to John? No, I don’t think so. But, for him, doing the right thing was, well, the right thing to do.
One thing that was not mentioned here was that God somehow “led” Jesus to be baptized. I just finished a book by Richard Stearns who has been the CEO of World Vision for the last several years. In this book Stearns wrote again and again how God led him to become CEO. He shared examples of what he understood to be supernatural interventions that guided him from a lucrative position in business to become the head of an international aid agency. But, behind all of that, he wrote about his and his wife’s own passion to be involved in cross cultural missions. They had been involved in various missions’ conferences and had read literature about missionaries and the work that they did. But, his education and vocation didn’t seem to fit. Eventually, he said that he could no longer ignore the ‘signs.’ God was, in effect, forcing his hand. I don’t believe that God’s in that kind of business. Yes, I think that we are each capable of seeing various routes to take and what the various outcomes may be. That is where we discern what may be the best path for us. We may know what would be pleasing to God. But, ultimately it’s up to us to make the choice. Or not. God doesn’t coerce a decision one way or another. God doesn’t stack the deck for us to make one decision over another. We are co-workers with God in redemption. There’s a big world out there with lots of need. God simply asks us what we are going to do. The decision is ultimately ours. Just as Jesus’ decision to be baptized by John was his own.
And, it pleased the Father.
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“Don’t worry! We’ll pray that God heals you!”
How many times have people said that? People who truly believe that.
Then, the other dies.
“Well, God always answers prayer. Sometimes the answer is “No”.
Or, “You must not have had enough faith”.
Or some other rationalization that lets God off the hook.
The Christian Bible is full of stories about genocide and rape; murder, lying, and cheating.
Unbelievably, these things are not only allowed, but in many cases commanded by God!
“Well, you know that God’s ways are not our ways. And, God’s thoughts are way beyond ours.
Only God can see the whole picture.”
Yet, that same Bible contains some of the most tender and intimate love stories ever penned.
And, not just The Song of Solomon.
God is portrayed as a loving parent, lover, and friend.
God defends and encourages.
My own observations are, however, a bit, er, different.
I look around and I see a world in which God is not a leading actor.
God doesn’t answer prayer. At least not in any physical way that can be analyzed and proven
to be a supernatural event.
People are afflicted and they die from causes that are entirely natural.
It really annoys me that a tornado can sweep a city off of the map and a survivor can thank God
that she was spared.
But, her next door neighbor was killed.
Where was God for that person?
There have recently been several cases in the U.S. and Canada where parents allowed a child
to die because their religion states that ‘Prayer alone will heal!’
To that… I call ‘bullshit’.
So what?
My mind has wandered.
A single question has been forming like an image on a piece of film swimming in developer:
Who are You, God…Really?
I ask this because it has become abundantly clear to me that the God I have been taught
about is NOT the God of the ‘real’ world.
The God that I learned about in Sunday school and Communicants’ class and innumerable sermons simply
does not exist. He’s a fake; a phantom.
That God is not omnipotent and is certainly NOT omniscient. That God does not answer the prayer of the sick and needy because that God cannot answer the prayer of the sick and needy.
So, Who are You, God…Really?
Please don’t think that I’m trying to stick it to anyone or their beliefs.
This is a real and honest question that I’m asking.
I truly want to find an answer.
If God truly is God, then there should be no problem with asking.
Questions should be no threat.
I talked to my Spiritual Director about these things.
We both saw the path that I should take.
Jesus told his disciples, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”
So, we decided that searching the Gospels would be a good place to start
looking for an answer to my question.
Now, I’ve pretty much lived in the Gospels for the last 5+ years.
But, even after all of that time, this question still vexes me.
With that in mind, I have embarked on a new journey.
My path lies through the words written by ancient men who created stories
about the one person in history who claims to have seen God. (”I only do the things that I see the Father doing.”)
At the end, if there is one, I hope to have at least an inkling of who this God that I worship really is.
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Oh, God! Rain down on us!
Make a mess!
Then, leave it be.
Leave it be.
Why do we so often use the image of water to describe the way that God seems to work?
“Rain down on us.”
“There’s a river of life.”
“The Spirit flows like a river.”
There’s never a puddle of God.
Nor a pond or lake.
Yeah, there are “still waters” that God leads us beside.
And, God’s love can stream toward us.
Love can even drip on us!
“Drip, drop, drip, drop.”
God’s Spirit may be like a flood that washes away the debris that clutters our heart.
There may be torrents and great, crashing breakers.
But, no “crick full o’ minnows and crawdads.”
God’s water never erodes.
There are no divine mudslides.
Why is there no heavenly glacier?
Ice is water. Hard and cold.
That describes the god of some people.
Glaciers grinding grooves into the bedrock of their lives.
Not the glorious gray grooves of the brain.
Rather, they are gory gashes graven into their heart.
No, not that kind of water.
We only want water that washes and refreshes.
The kind that can slake the thirst of our parched souls.
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The text of Scripture cannot love.
It is not compassionate nor faithful.
Only the Person to Whom the text may point can do those things.
The text is subordinate and subservient to that One.
Reading will not transform. Nor, is it capable of rendering transformation.
That’s not its purpose.
However, those who have Seen God cannot but be changed.
They will metamorphose into something as different as a caterpillar is to a butterfly.
Only those who have eyes to see, and have Seen, can fly.
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It’s a dangerous thing to allow my mind to wander.
I never know exactly where I will end up.
Friday morning, on the eve of my birthday,
my mind found its way through the fog and the brush to a memory.
For those of you who know me, you know that I was put up for adoption way back when.
At 6 months I landed in a loving home with proud Mom and Dad doting on me.
To their credit they never withheld the fact that I had been adopted.
And, I didn’t think twice about it. They were my parents. The only parents that I knew.
That all changed in the 1980s when I found that I had a sister from my birth Mother.
Now, I had a name and a face for that woman who had birthed me into this world.
Over the years we drifted apart. She was never “mom” to me. I already had one of those.
But, from time to time I wonder.
This is a result of that ‘wondering.’
63 years ago…
I wonder what She was thinking and feeling.
Her belly, full o’baby boy!
Had Her parents driven into Her mind that there was no way that I could exist in their world?
Was I already a non-person to them?
Had it been legal, would I have simply been washed away like so much detritus?
Yeah, I think so.
But, Her?
I think that Her anger and grief became the wind beneath the wings that delivered Her
To another world.
A world where She could have Her heart’s desire.
But not here.
Not where She had been coerced into agonizing loss.
How could She give Her son away?
In Her world Reality was a small bubble.
Within its protective shield She could be safe…secure.
I was ripped out of that bubble.
Torn away; kidnapped; sent to Mars.
She could not protect me.
It’s really no wonder that we both wage war against alcohol.
Now, 63 years later,
On the eve of my birth,
I don’t even know if She has died.
Or, perhaps, She never will.
Please use the comments section to share your thoughts!
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The word, “wonder,” is a wonderfully wondrous word.
I wonder about the wonder of this wonderful creation!
I read that Tiggers are wonderful, yes, they are a wonderful thing!
I wonder how people can think that Wonder Bread is wonderful.
I once found myself wonderfully immersed in Wonder at seeing the wonder-inspiring Aurora Borealis.
There are wonderfully, wondrous wonders that we may wander to and wonder about.
Sometimes I wonder things too wondrous for my wonderfully wrought mind.
Did God “wonder” us into being?
Or, did we, in our wondering, “wonder” God?
I wonder………
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That song by Larry Norman had a lot in it about wars and people disappearing. Back in the 70’s when we were singing it the world was still mired in war in Southeast Asia. The cold war looked more and more like it could become ‘hot’ at any moment. There were seismic shifts in Western culture. Young people rose up against the “establishment” while those in power doubled down on their resolve to maintain the status quo at any cost. Many of us listened to this song and read the stories that Jesus told and began to do the math. We were sure that the end of the world was imminent.
One of those stories that Norman used in his song was from the Gospel according to Matthew.
Matthew 24:36-41
36 But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven,
nor the Son, but the Father alone.
37 For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah.
38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day
that Noah entered the ark,
39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all
away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
40 Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will
be left.
41 Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will
be left.
(New American Standard Bible, 1995 update, LaHabra, CA, The Lockman
Foundation.)
Wow! There’s talk about wars. We have Noah and the flood. There’s a bunch of eating and drinking and marriages. Then there’s that bit about 2 people doing something when suddenly, one of them is ‘taken’!
A lot of folks look at these verses and see a graphic description of the ‘End Times’ and the rapture. “Look,” they say. “All that partying and debauchery and nasty stuff. Just like we said! Then ‘poof!’ The righteous one gets raptured! Oh, isn’t that just glorious?”
Well, maybe…maybe not. Just like the passage in Thessalonians, the context here is key to understanding what this writer was trying to say to the people who would read this account. We can’t just ‘snatch’ this passage out of its context and create a meaning that backs up our preconceived ideas of what this text should mean.
I think that there are some questions that need asking. And, yes, we are allowed to ask questions. There can never be too many questions.
The first question that jumps out at me is ‘Why did Jesus even say these things? What sparked this discourse in the first place? I’m sure that he and his disciples weren’t just walking down the street and Jesus said, “Oh, by the way, the Son of Man is gonna show up! And, there’s gonna be a whole lot of weird stuff happening!”
No, there had to be some context to this.
This all took place during what we now call Holy Week. The day before this, Jesus had come to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem riding on a donkey. Yep! Palm Sunday! The events recorded here apparently took place on Monday.
Jesus returned to the Temple to talk with and teach the people gathered there. Some of the Jewish leaders came up to him and challenged him. According to Matthew they asked, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” In other words, “Dude! Who the hell do you think you are coming to OUR Temple and presuming to teach OUR people?”
As you’d expect, Jesus gave them a bit more than they asked for. In fact, the last half of chapter 21 and all of chapters 22 & 23 are devoted to Jesus’ response. And, it wasn’t exactly ‘uplifting’ for the leaders. Chapter 23 records what has become known as the Seven Woes. These are the verses where Jesus says, “Woe to you” Pharisees; scribes; hypocrites; blind guides; blind fools. At the end of this Jesus cried out a lament for Jerusalem itself. These chapters contain some of the most passionate speech by Jesus recorded anywhere in the Bible. He seems to have gotten very ‘worked up.’
So, of course, as they were leaving the Temple the disciples astutely changed the subject. “Hey, Jesus! Check out the magnificent stonework here! Pretty cool, huh?” When I read this I think about a group of guys walking down a street right after one of them went off on someone. They turn to their pal who’s still pretty hot and say, “Whoa! Check out that Corvette!” Totally clueless. But, trying to lighten the mood.
Jesus wasn’t quite ready to simmer down. He responded to them by saying, “You see these buildings? You like them? Well, listen up! There will not be one stone left on another. They will all be torn down!
Later that evening, after everyone had time to cool down a little, (Jesus), the disciples went to him and asked him to tell him when these things he talked about would happen.
Jesus then spent the remainder of chapter 24 and all of 25 explaining things to them. But, he didn’t come right out and give them a checklist of things that would happen. The writer of Matthew recorded a good share of this, including the passage that we’re looking at here using apocalyptic language. It is vital to understand this while reading this. If we don’t, if we read it like Darby & Assoc., we absolutely will come to a conclusion that Jesus never intended. We will wind up with a checklist that Larry Norman can use to write a song. And, we will completely miss the point.
And, that point will be the subject of the next post.
Please leave your thoughts and questions in the comments.
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