Fire on the Mountain

Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence -- as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil -- to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence!

When you did awesome things that we did not look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. -- Isaiah 64:1-3

This is a variation on a post I did a year and a half ago.  

We expect an answer when we pray, or we should.  Even if our prayer is simply to understand, we may be shocked when our eyes are opened.  We are apt to find that the world is not nearly as neat and predictable as we thought.  And that is not true only for those who suddenly become enlightened from materialism.  The religious are often just as surprised to find that the hermeneutic track they have been following so carefully leads them to a place where the bridge is out.  

In fact, I think it is possible that the journey does not really begin until the well-trod path ends.  We need to follow the signs and markers left by those who have gone before us.  We need a path to follow, but it will take us only to the jumping-off place.  At that point we will find that most of our maps are of limited value.  What we need is a guide, someone who knows the unknown country.  Jesus pointed out to Nicodemus, “No one has ascended into heaven except He who has descended from heaven.”  Only the Spirit of Christ is able to take us where we need to go.  There are saints we will meet along the way, teachers, some still in this world, some already in the next, who will instruct us and, perhaps, point us in this direction or that, but there are no paths in that country, for each individual must reach the destination by his or her own course.

I am not sure how to express this, but I will start.  It seems to me that as it is usually presented, Christianity is lacking in wildness.  I almost want to say manliness, but that’s too limiting.  It is just too tame, too civilized.  The reality of Christ is raw and primitive in blood and pain and joy.  I can hardly bring myself to write the word “surrender” in relation to our obedience because what God is looking for is more of a wild, ecstatic abandon.  Compared to the simpering model of modern Christianity, the real saints are spiritual berserkers.  I can think of a few Christians in the last hundred years who might fit the model – Bonhoeffer, John Paul II, and Solzhenitsyn immediately come to mind, perhaps Chuck Colson.  Alas, we have too much of the church following in the footsteps of nice guys, like Joel Osteen – not to mention the idiots, con-men, and charlatans. 

I am not suggesting clubbing people over the head with Gospel, being annoying or obnoxious.  I just think when God comes into our lives it is much more like “the mountains quaked” than “isn’t that special”.  The presence of God is mode-shattering.  You cannot continue to look at things the same way when everything around you that you thought was solid is melting like wax.  The reason God is not doing “awesome things that we did not look for” is that because, as soon as He starts, we start worrying about whether the neighbors think we are crazy or if they will kick us out of the PTA. 

I would never have been teaching Sunday School or doing Wednesday night Bible studies back in the old days if I had been off in the unknown country.  First, I had to reach the end of the road, and as long as we are on the road, we have to follow the rules of the road.  Nothing wrong with that.  But once you are off in the bush, the only rule is listening to the Guide, especially when the bushes are all burning.