Perspective

So I arose and went out into the valley, and behold, the glory of the Lord stood there, like the glory that I had seen by the Chebar canal, and I fell on my face.  But the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and he spoke with me and said to me, “Go, shut yourself within your house. And you, O son of man, behold, cords will be placed upon you, and you shall be bound with them, so that you cannot go out among the people.  And I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you shall be mute and unable to reprove them, for they are a rebellious house.  But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ He who will hear, let him hear; and he who will refuse to hear, let him refuse, for they are a rebellious house. -- Ezekiel 3:23-27

Most of the time, we are called to speak the truth in love.  We are to [p]reach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.  Nevertheless there may come a time when we are called to silence, when to speak out in condemnation of egregious evil runs counter to God's will.  Sometimes rebellion, rather than prodding us to declaim, binds and mutes us.  We are sent speechless into our cell.  It hardly makes sense that Ezekiel would be tied up and not allowed to speak the truth, to admonish and teach those around him.  Yet Jesus Himself said, Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.  We will set aside for now the idea that we might be persecuted for speaking the truth, though that is happening more and more.  The truth should not be wasted.  The word should be sown, not trampled and defiled.  It not only does no good, it is often misused and abused by the ungodly.  There really are those who cannot handle the truth and really have no business or right trying to handle it.  How do you get a message to people who think they know it all?

A couple of days ago we were talking about Ezekiel being overwhelmed and being a source of consternation to the exiles.  I don't think we'd need to extrapolate much to guess that Ezekiel might have seemed to have lost his mind.  A modern diagnosis might be schizophrenia.  Perhaps his fellow Jews thought him a danger to himself if not potentially to others.  Ezekiel may have retreated to his house of his own accord, but it sounds very much like someone else went in and tied him up.  He was unable to speak or to explain what was happening.  It must have seemed pretty strange to everybody involved.

Like his nation, Ezekiel was in bondage.  His apparent insanity was the cause.  Sin was the cause of Jerusalem's fall and Judah's bondage.  Their sin was the rejection of reality and the God of all truth in a sort of national insanity.  Confined to his house, unable to express himself, tied down like an animal for slaughter, Ezekiel preached an eloquent message to those around him daily. It is doubtful that many received it.  I wonder if Ezekiel, at the time, even understood what was happening to him?  He wrote afterwards as he was able, when he understood that his life had been a sign.  What was he thinking at the time? 

It is a good witness to be strong and steady and faithful in the midst of trials, to trust God even when we hurt and don't understand.  But none of us expect to be bereft of our senses, to get out of balance and become paranoid, obsessed, out of touch, or severely depressed.  What kind of message is God offering through the old boy who thinks he has been abducted by aliens?  What would we see if we watched the homeless guy in his worn field jacket with the idea that the Lord had something to do with him being where he is?  What if our lives form symbols and speak in a language that goes far beyond our conscious understanding of what we are doing and what is being done to us?  Could it be that loss and tragedy, derangement and disintegration, when seen at a tangent to our personal line of sight, is meant to speak to people, to convey truth to those know not enough to seek after it?  If we are wrong to cast our pearls before swine, can we write a message with the husks on which they feed? 

Everything isn't necessarily a sign, I don't suppose.  Sometimes the brain-dead panhandler is just a loser -- maybe.  Does the drunk ever look up from his gutter at some happy, successful citizen passing by on his way to work and think, "There, but for the grace of God, go I"?  I don't know.  My life seems pretty chaotic at times.  I get beaten up badly some days to the point I just want to, as my mom used to say, crawl in a hole and pull it in after me.  Someone watching me lose it, watching me beat on my desk in utter frustration after I have done something over for the twenty-seventh time, even as the people who have asked me to change it are asking why it isn't done yet -- they would be justified in wondering about my saintliness.  But is it a part of a message the Lord is trying to send, a word, perhaps in a bigger message, or a letter in word?  Do the drunk and the citizen, the panhandler and the desk-pounder, all this that seems so senseless in the moment fit together to form a picture that could be comprehended if one knew where to stand?

It could be.  I don't think you can see it from orbit, but I suspect that the angels, out there in spiritual space can perceive it, at least catch glimpses of it, see enough to know it's part of a really good story.  When we fall flat on our faces, are bound and mute, or are out of our heads in grief, pain, and confusion, one of them will come up and whisper, "It's not what you think.  It is beautiful.  Wait and see."

Christmas Time

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. -- Luke 2:11 (KJV)

Everything that can be said about the birth of Christ has been said many times.  I lack the ability to say even the old things well.  There are many who are skeptics and critics, as there have always been.  The mocker and the scornful change their names but never their attacks.  There is nothing new in being a cynic or in ridiculing the righteous.  Even the small-minded, the petty, the crude and the vulgar can feel insightful in making jests about the Virgin and about her Son.  They can do so bravely, and safely.  They won’t be threatened with beheading.  Christians will only pray for them because we know the One for whom they express disdain loves even, perhaps especially, those who would be His enemies.    

Jesus is the Lamb of God, typified by the Passover lamb.  He is, the Revelator says, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.  The Lord laid aside His majestic glory and … made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  At that moment, He stepped out of eternity and into time.  Yet His birth, like His death, burial, and resurrection, is eternal.  Or, to quote Olaf Stapleton:  “For whatever is truly eternal is present equally in all time”. 

And that miraculous birth is truly eternal.  Like the unfailing compassion and mercy of God, it is new every morning.  To the world it looks like history, something past that has been used as a marker.  That familiar tableau that we recreate over and over in materials precious or common is an ever-present truth made manifest.  Be led to Bethlehem, stand in the damp chill of that grotto, and be rent by the cry of God as He takes on flesh.  The tenderness and innocence, the humanness of that moment is as real and as near as the blood, the ache and the agony thirty-three years later upon Golgotha.  It happened, as they say, once upon a time.  It is now.

The stable, the Virgin, the selfless protector, the shepherds, the angels, the beasts, the Baby, all are with us as we trim trees, hurry to homely houses, give, receive, and rejoice.  Yes, a sword will pierce our hearts, but that is for a different now, just as eternal.  It will wait.  Today we are with the shepherds keeping watch for we know not what, to be surprised by visions under an open heaven; we stand solemnly and resolutely beside the stalwart dreamer Joseph; we wander with those wise enough to be see wonders and follow far. 

Merry Christmas.

Going to Ground

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.  -- Romans 12:2

As humans, we alone appear to have a choice in how we live.  My cats, my dog, the deer that shred my trees, the fish in the pond, none of these creatures can see beyond itself.  The animal recognizes threats, responds to kindness, seeks a secure environment to feed, rest, and reproduce with little choice, for it is driven mostly by instincts.  Animals, at least those that are by nature predators, seem to be capable of reasoning in the sense of being able to solve a concrete puzzle that lies in front of them and working together to bring down prey.  Most animals can be trained to do rather complex things, but it is at the direction of a higher human mind guiding and channeling their instincts.  As my father said with regard to training a stock dog, “First, you have to be smarter than the dog.” 

Though my choices in life and where I have ended up are very much founded in the time and place and circumstances of my childhood, I do not believe I was bound by my past to do the things I have done.  If I was constrained by anything I would say it was more a vision of my future that drew rather than the past that drove me.  Many years ago, I deliberately set down on paper the kind of place and situation in which I wanted to live, and that is where I am.  I don’t mean to imply that I consciously took the exercise very seriously because I did not.  I had just read or heard of the idea and did it.  Regardless of how my conscious mind saw it, it apparently gave my natural life a direction.  The path here was halting and meandering, even tortuous.  This is not heaven.  It is less than idyllic.  It has disadvantages and troubles, and I sometimes ask myself what I am doing here, but it is what I pictured – what I asked for right down to some very specific aspects. 

If you stop and think about that for a moment, that is kind of scary.  Time, though, makes a lot more sense to me if I think of it, not as something going past me, but as a dimension in which I move just as I do in space.   If we don’t know where we are going in space, we are fairly unlikely to get there.  Maybe the same is true for time. 

And then there is eternity, a different attractor -- as Bob would say -- altogether.  Life might be a little like electricity.  If you have the right ground, electricity can flow the right way and do something positive.  If you let it find its own ground, it can be extremely destructive.  That’s what I like about Jesus.     

Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”   (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?  He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) (Ephesians 4:8-10)

He is the Alpha and Omega, Generator and Ground.  We come from Him and go to Him, and we are transformed in the process, becoming like Him and part of Him -- because He knows the end from the beginning. 

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.  Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.  (Ephesians 4:11-16)

What Matters

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. —- Joshua 1:8 (ESV)

This is an accidental blog. Initially, I created a blogger ID to more easily comment on One Cosmos. I subsequently created the blog in order to avoid off-topic issues and rants that I might have otherwise posted on OC; it is a relief valve of sorts. My father was dying at the time that I started it, and, even at my well-past-the-middle chronological age, I knew that his departure would require me to make changes. It provided a convenient place to shake, rattle, and roll out some of my thoughts and see if they come up snake-eyes or natural, or if I have to roll eight the hard way as is sometimes the case.

The reason that I have continued is that it gives me a good excuse to meditate on Scripture, on the Divine Nature, revelation, and life in general. I consider a post successful not so much because it generates comments from my numerically small albeit intellectually vast audience — though I always enjoy hearing what others think, but rather because I have in some way expressed God's perspective. I certainly make no claim to do that on a consistent basis. I have never been completely successful in doing so and don't expect to be. I will keep trying. Yoda was wrong. For the truly meaningful challenge, there are many tries for every do. In a sense, each try is a not-do, but not-try is the ultimate not-do.

I stand at the apex and watch the next grain of sand fall into place. Each moment of time is a new, unique part in the pattern of our lives. No matter what anyone looking in from the outside may say, we know that no two of those crystal structures are exactly alike. Each is destined to differ in shape and color, in time and place and purpose. Each will find its resting place as it forms the rising pyramid of past and present, mountainous in majesty, possessed of a peace both terrible and beautiful. Each grain will raise us higher, closer to the Source until we are able to pass through that strait, that narrow way into the upper chamber which is no chamber at all but the infinite, ever-expanding Presence.

Happy Return

You ascended to the heights, taking away captives; You received gifts among people, even from the rebellious, so that the LORD God might live there. – Psalm 68:18

Here is how Paul quotes that verse in Ephesians 4:8, “When He ascended on high, He took prisoners into captivity; He gave gifts to people”.

I did not read Gagdad Bob’s incredibly powerful post on Holy Saturday until this morning, but it coincides with the fact that I started reading Charles Williams’ Descent Into Hell last night.

I think I miss the evident for the obvious. Which is the forest – evident or obvious? How many trees does it take to make a forest? If a tree is a fact, is the forest an interpretation or an extrapolation? While talking to my wife yesterday, it occurred to me that a phrase in the Epistle to the Ephesians was of far greater significance than I could understand. He says, “Till we come … to a perfect man, to the measure of stature of the fullness of Christ” – that is to say until we reach maturity as measured by comparison to Christ. The Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ must come of age. He calls us to take His yoke upon us, but we cannot be unequally yoked.

Most of my relatives are not tall people. We range from short to average. Dad was about 5’7” and his nephew Clifford was about the same, maybe 5’6”. They had a neighbor named Tom who was well over six feet tall but slightly blunt on top. The three of them were cutting some logs together. When they carried the logs out on their shoulders, Dad took one end, Clifford took the other, and they suggested Tom get in the middle. Tom thought those logs were a little heavy. If you’ve ever seen a “Ma and Pa Kettle” movie with Marjorie Main, you might recall Pa’s rather mismatched team hitched to his wagon. In that case, it’s the little horse that has to work much harder to do what the big horse does.

The gospel is the “death, burial, and resurrection” of Christ. As we just celebrated, He liberated and despoiled hell – or as one local preacher puts it: Jesus razed hell. After descending to liberate and deliver, the Lord ascended to pour out the Holy Spirit with His myriad of gifts upon us. These gifts are not baubles for our adornment or playthings for our amusement; they are the means of our growth in wisdom, maturity and beauty.

The Lord has “ascended”. In this case, the obvious is that Jesus is no longer in this world, in the stream of time. He is, as it were, hidden from the Bride. He has given us the Comforter, the “earnest of our inheritance”, but He has left us in time while He waits in eternity – already perfect and unchanging, “the same yesterday, today, and forever”.

And then there is the evident. For what is He waiting?

For us, the Bride, to grow up.