Another Listening Post

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. -- John 1:1

God spoke all into existence, and His Voice is speaking still.  Everything He says is true, and the true is – that is, the true and the real correspond perfectly.  Living as we do in a derivative material world, we have lost the connection between speaking and truth and existence.  In Genesis 2:19, God brought all the animals to the man, not yet fallen, that he might name them, and whatever Adam spoke was what they were called.  Adam was not merely labeling but affirming and “recreating” in cooperation with God.   This is not affirmation in the silly sense that people sometimes use it.  We can’t affirm something that is contrary to the truth – that’s bearing false witness.  We can, however, like Adam, be active participants in God’s creative process as agents, speakers and witnesses, affirming in our lives – thought, word, and deed, the truth He reveals in and to us.     

Once God was silent, and there was a void.  Even His silence is creative.  Into that void, He began to speak and energy boiled through the nothing, laying out and forming the matrix of time and space that will be charged with holding what is to be birthed.  And what He speaks coalesces into matter, dust swirling in the emptiness to form individual bodies, clusters, some ignited with molecular fires that will burn on for billions of years, sparks of life spreading light.  We wonder that there is life in the universe when God’s voice is life?  God spoke ultimately in Christ who is the Word – the Way, the Truth and the Life – the Word wrapped in flesh, walking around in the dust and mire and confusion of human existence. 

It's like what GB was talking about yesterday with regard to the birds and life, ongoing vibrations of the Word.  I started to say that’s all it is, but the too common human view is the restrictive and limited one.  It’s seeing the relationship between life and God’s voice that is the expansive one.  Instead of that’s all it is, we should say, it’s all that -- more than we can comprehend.  At least we are on the right track.  That which will someday be born stirs within the cosmic egg, developing into something more like Christ.

I think God still has His prophets.  I hear people who claim to be prophets talking about “what I saw.”   I don’t pay much attention to them.  I listen for the ones who sound more like poets.  Their words may not be pleasant; they may drop like great hailstones, cold and hard.  They may burn white-hot as lightning and flatten me like thunder’s hammer.  But they are real and alive.  As a hungry traveler may catch the fragrance of quickened bread baking and know he is nearing home, we catch the aroma of life and know we are near the truth.  To the careful hearer and seeker, the voice of the prophet may be separated out from the cacophony of everyday chaos and turmoil.  

So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. (Genesis 2:19)

Dare Base

The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 4:5b-7

We talked about being content in what we have, yet worry and doubt may still dog us as we consider that what we have may be insufficient or may be taken from us. Even Paul's assurance that the Lord is near may not quiet our worries. We may know God watches. The question is: Will He intervene on our behalf?

There are two returns from that query. The first is what do we mean by "on our behalf"? If we think somehow that we will be exempt from trials we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. It would be akin to the recruit thinking he might somehow be exempt from PT in boot camp. It's why we are here, to be trained and equipped for the Real Adventure™.

But the second, more positive reply is simply, Yes. God dwells with us in peace, and He will maintain that peace as a fortress around the heart and the mind. The image that comes to me from this passage is of a child learning to walk and explore the world, adventurous and bold — so long as he knows his mother is near at hand. He runs back to her frequently to touch her and reassure himself that she has not left him on his own. He cannot yet begin to imagine the force that would be necessary to drag her away. Our prayers, in this context, really are a means of "touching base" with God, tagging up before we take off to do those things that are needful.

To grasp how fully God is invested in us, it is important to remember that He is in a covenant relationship with us. This new covenant is established by the Father (not by us) in the very lifeblood of the Son (Luke 22:20, 1 Corinthians 11:25, 2 Corinthians 3:6). The biblical covenant is not a light thing. When God made a covenant with Abraham (see Genesis 15), Abraham took sacrificial animals, killed them and cut them in half, laying the two halves out opposite one another. After darkness fell, Abraham saw "a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces" (v.17). In a way, it is a picture of the Incarnation, for as He passed among the dissected carcasses, He was, we might say, "in meat".

When we enter into covenant with God through Jesus, He so identifies with us that He takes on our weaknesses. He takes on my frailty and your frailty as His own. He even takes on our death upon Himself. In turn He offers us identification with Him. He takes our death; we take His life. He allows you and me to take on His strength, to live His life in His power and with His resources. He walked "in meat" so we may walk "in Spirit". If we need a clue, this is why faith is so important. We are asked, in light of all that Christ has done, to believe that it was done on our behalf to create this relationship that is both spiritual and physical, both loving and legal – you know, sort of like marriage.

As an aside, our loss of faith in the symbols and rituals of tradition are not political tragedies so much as spiritual ones. Those who reject any reality except the purely physical have no reason to cling to forms and ceremonies, though they may experience a vague sense of unease as the forms are cast aside. They attribute this unease to inculcation by society and religion, often rebelling against rituals in the name of reason. They consider rituals as artifacts of the early attempts of humans to work together in groups for the mutual good.

I see a ritual like marriage as a dramatic presentation of a spiritual truth which required a material enactment to allow it to be brought into language. The spiritual could not go immediately into words without being made concrete in some way. In the beginning was the Word, but the Word had to be made flesh in order for us to begin to understand it. Marriage is making flesh the covenant between God and His people.

Through the rent flesh of the Christ, our Father has opened the way into His presence. He invites us to come, to speak to Him about our anxieties, to touch Him and to feel His hand upon us. We can hear Him say, “I’ll be right here. Run.”