Foreshadowed

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.  These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.  -- Colossians 2:16-17

You know Plato’s allegory of the cave, with those in the cave trying to determine that which they could not see from the shadows cast upon the wall which they could see.  Christ cast the shadows that are seen in the Law and the Prophets, in the rituals and festivals of Leviticus, and in the history of Israel. 

More than that, His shadow falls across all lands and peoples.  The myths, legends and folktales of every human tribe, clan, and nation carry glimmers and glimpses of the truth seen in the dancing shadow of the Word.  We can only take all of these things seriously when we recognize their limitations.  We understand that there are not many truths but One to which all the shades, reflections and fragments point. 

In place of “the substance belongs to Christ”, the KJV will say, the body [is] of Christ.  If we go out in the sun, as our bodies come between the sun and the earth, they throw a dark image upon the ground.  Apart from mirrors, photographs, still water, or some shiny surface, this is all a person may see of himself or herself.  We can determine the general shape of our bodies, but most of the details of our identity cannot be ascertained.  So it was with God. 

We had a very rough, very dark, approximate idea of how He was.  Then we saw, as it were, His face in Christ Jesus.  Truthfully, I do not know what the Lord looked like physically, but I know Him through His life, His words, and His works.  We know His love, His willingness to give Himself up for our sakes.  

One final thought:  imagine for a moment that a child walks out into the sun to play near the base of a statue.  For a time, his shadow is visible, but as the position of the sun changes, the shade of the statue falls upon him, and his shadow is swallowed up.  Is he now a captive of the lifeless idol above him? 

At times in life, we seem to be caught up in things, captured and held in thrall by the idols of this world.  Their dark shadows overwhelm us.  They loom large between us and the light, filling our near vision and causing us to fear.  All we have to do is step out into the light.  Once again we will see our image on the ground, and it will look like Christ. 

Bearing a Torch

Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. -- Matthew 5:15

Why do we turn on the lights?  Do we light a candle because the candle can’t be self-actualized unless it burns?  A lamp does not burn for itself, but for the one who lights it.  As the Gospel of John opens with its description of Jesus, the Apostle says, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men (John 1:4).”  The light in us is the light of Christ.  God wants to light the world.  We are it.

I am sure some people really are called to stand on a street corner with a bullhorn, hold up “John 3:16” banners at football games, hand out tracts in the mall, and knock on doors.  I’m not.  I have an acquaintance, a lady who does face-painting.  She goes down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, sets up on the street, and paints people’s faces. When someone asks her how much she charges, she replies, “I just want a chance to tell you that Jesus loves you, and, since I’ve done that, the painting is free.”  In a way, I kind of like that. 

Nevertheless, I hate to be “guilted” into anything.  It’s too close to gelded.  Thus that “do unto others” thing precludes me from using guilt to get my way.  I figure most people feel bad enough at least part of the time or in flashes about their lives.  I don’t have the heart to add to it.

My plan comes in part from George MacDonald who said in one of his sermons that “to let our light shine is to be just, honourable, true, courteous, more careful over the claim of our neighbour than our own, as knowing ourselves in danger of overlooking it, and not bound to insist on every claim of our own.”  Live right.  Treat other people well.  Try not to express my irritability. 

I suspect most of us get plenty of opportunities to “witness” for Christ.  People pay more attention than we are apt to think.  We aren’t invisible.  We aren’t on mute.  The Lord knows I’m not.  As my wife says, my voice “carries”, especially when I get agitated. 

We have to remember, too, that it is not our light.  When we read about Gideon, back in Judges 7, we learn that he had his three hundred men put torches into clay jars.  They surrounded the camp of the Midianites, and, all at once, broke the jars so that the torches suddenly blazed out.  Paul says that … we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us … so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh (2 Corinthians 4:7-11).

The light I am supposed to give is not a function of my ability, my own brilliance, or my intellect.  Sometimes it is in my brokenness that the light shines brightest.

Traps and Snares

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.  -- 2 Corinthians 11:14

If we saw the devil for what he is, or if he told us the whole truth of what he is doing, we would reject him without a thought. 

The lies that entrap us always have a false front of truth and beauty.  Even those of us who have fallen prey to the deceiver are not immune.  The old lines and the old lies have a certain comfort and reassurance.  We manage to convince ourselves that it will be different this time.  MacDonald depicts it well by way of his “Maid of the Alder “ in Phantastes.  Even after the protagonist had seen the hollow, empty ugliness within, he still acknowledged the beauty of her face when she turned toward him. 

Despite being an old cynic and knowing that there is a valid reason for something sounding too good to be true, my heart may still jump just a little when I hear the pitch or glimpse the lure.  I’ve gotten off that hook before with just a sore jaw.  I mean, if there really is a hook this time.  It could be what it seems to be. 

Paul, of course, was talking about false brethren and religious error.  The flock would flee the predator if they saw him as a wolf.  Red Riding Hood would not have conversed long with the fiend who had devoured her grandmother if she had seen through his guise.  If Elmer Gantry confessed that he was just in the game for the money who would listen to his hypocritical sermons?  There are always some, who, even after their noses have been buried in the gross reality, will defend the devil.  I have seen it in person.  

Bob Tilton was still making a living the last I heard.  Jim Bakker is prospering and in health not far down the road from me.  Barack Obama’s approval rating is right around forty percent.  There are still people who think that government is the solution rather than the problem and that we have a free market economy.  And so on. 

We always have to be on guard.  Watch and pray.  We have to understand that the wolf always hides behind a sheepskin.  Sometimes he hangs it on his wall.  The trap is always baited.  The lure always looks so sweet. 

The lady glided round by the wall from behind me, still keeping her face towards me, and seated herself in the furthest corner, with her back to the lamp, which she hid completely from my view. I then saw indeed a form of perfect loveliness before me. – Phantastes, MacDonald

Or New York City

But Abraham said, Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. -- Luke 16:25

In the folded and tortured land of Appalachia, there exists a group of people known as Primitive Baptist Universalists.  The adherents are few in number, perhaps less than 2000, and geographically isolated.  I thought Ralph Stanley was your basic Primitive Baptist, but Wikipedia lists him as a well-known Primitive Baptist Universalist.  The interesting thing about the PBU to me is that they are derisively called ‘No-Hellers’.  Yet they do not deny that hell exists.  Their doctrine holds, rather, that hell is confined to this life. 

I can see where that makes sense to people living a hard life under harsh conditions.  The transition that comes through death would be seen as a release from what amounts to purgatory.  Here we are tested and tried and suffer to make us fit for heaven. 

As I write that, I’m having trouble seeing where I disagree.  I often say something like that, because, at times, this world is so wicked and perverse, I don't see how it could not be hell's extension center, at the very least.  It is not until you have to deal with people who have an easier life, who do not appear to suffer despite the evil that they do, that holes begin to develop.  To those who go to heaven, this earthly sojourn will appear as a period of learning, development, and correction.  If you are a Universalist, I guess that’s the end of the story.  If, like me, you are sympathetic to Universalism and have a Universalist hero like George MacDonald, yet remain uncomfortable with the idea, what do you do with all the idiots who don’t ever learn a thing? 

George Carlin once asked, if we are here to help others, what are the others here for?  We could ask similarly, if suffering purges and cleanses us, what of those who do not suffer?  MacDonald would probably have said that those who cling to their illusions and love this life too much will go through something like a second death where they are freed from their delusions and the grip of self in pain and anguish.  You can see where reincarnation had a logical appeal for those of a Transcendentalist, Universalist bent. 

 

There is coming a judgment, as Revelation 20:12-15 describes:  And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.  Those whose names are not found in the Book of Life suffer a “second death”, being cast into “the lake of fire.”   

The road we take is a part of our destination.  We may take detours and scenic routes, but eventually our path must lead to an end, and the end determine the path.  The life we live is our path, and when we get where we are going, it will have been, in that sense, heaven all along or hell everyday. 

In the end, these sorts of things leave me baffled.  I can sense the truth being present, but I cannot get at it, like trying to grasp a stream of water in my hand.  The weak are as successful as the strong. 

The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things

If heaven ain't a lot like Dixie, 

I don't want to go.

If heaven ain't a lot like Dixie, 

I'd just as soon stay home.

If they ain't got a Grand Ol' Opry,

Like they do in Tennessee,

Just send me to hell, 

Or New York City,

It'll be about the same to me.

The Thing in the Attic

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. – 2 Corinthians 3:18 (KJV)

I said yesterday that we should smash the mirror and that’s not right.  I got carried away with my own line.  What we should really do is pass through the mirror. 

I gazed with a strange mingling of awe and pleasure: the wide expanse of garret was my own, and unexplored!

In the middle of it stood an unpainted inclosure of rough planks, the door of which was ajar. Thinking Mr. Raven might be there, I pushed the door, and entered.

The small chamber was full of light, but such as dwells in places deserted: it had a dull, disconsolate look, as if it found itself of no use, and regretted having come. A few rather dim sunrays, marking their track through the cloud of motes that had just been stirred up, fell upon a tall mirror with a dusty face, old-fashioned and rather narrow--in appearance an ordinary glass. It had an ebony frame, on the top of which stood a black eagle, with outstretched wings, in his beak a golden chain, from whose end hung a black ball.

I had been looking at rather than into the mirror, when suddenly I became aware that it reflected neither the chamber nor my own person. I have an impression of having seen the wall melt away, but what followed is enough to account for any uncertainty: -- could I have mistaken for a mirror the glass that protected a wonderful picture? – George MacDonald, Lilith.

All mirrors are magic mirrors as MacDonald elsewhere explains, and as Robin sometimes illustrates.

Being weary and busy, I think I’ll let the canny Scot himself round it out:  

"I did not come through any door," I rejoined.

"I saw you come through it!--saw you with my own ancient eyes!" asserted the raven, positively but not disrespectfully.

"I never saw any door!" I persisted.

"Of course not!" he returned; "all the doors you had yet seen--and you haven't seen many--were doors in; here you came upon a door out! The strange thing to you," he went on thoughtfully, "will be, that the more doors you go out of, the farther you get in!"

I'm so lazy I even stole my title from James Blish, but it seems appropriate.  Always be careful when exploring your own attic.  It's a dangerous place.