Thursday, November 06, 2008

The Kings of the Earth and the Lord's Annointed (Revelation 2-5)


The church in John’s day is not unlike the church in many countries of the world today, and throughout history. Christians exist in empires who unashamedly trumpet their authority to rule the world as they see fit. When the church is not being actively persecuted, it is marginalized. They simply don’t matter. It is this church – the suffering and insignificant church of the first century – who first receives John’s vision of Jesus, “the ruler of kings on earth.”

To these churches, John transcribes seven letters with one message. Some are sterner than others, but the thrust is the same. Here’s the letter to Thyatira:
I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. Only hold fast what you have until I come. The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. And I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
There’s recognition of their works and perseverance, and stern warnings against their complacency and compromise. The church is implored to stick it out under pain just a little longer until the Lord comes. The church that conquers will be given authority over the very nations where it now suffers – to smash them into bits.

The number seven is the number of creation. It is used in scripture to imply “fullness” and “completion”, and so I think it no stretch whatsoever to understand this urgent message sent to “seven churches” as meant for the entire church. If we mean to take John’s unmistakable urgency seriously, then let it be clear - these letters are to us. It is we who must persevere amidst empires who are glad to run the world in rebellion against God and oppression of man. It is we who are tempted to compromise and collude with the destructive idolatry that we find ourselves in. It is we who are urged to conquer, and dash the nations into pieces with a rod of iron.

So, what are we waiting for? Time to strap on our swords and crush our enemies for the kingdom of God! But not so fast. Unless we are to make the same mistake as the Jews in Jesus’ day, we need to be careful to understand that the ruler of kings on earth whom we serve has radically redefined what it means to conquer and wield authority, and given us very counter-intuitive stories about how his kingdom comes.
The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.
And again:
He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.”
And again:
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Lest we have any doubt of the means to the end, John gives us a vivid glimpse into the heavenly reality behind the world. He sees a scroll of the purposes of God sealed up, with none worthy to take and reveal. It is then announced that the “lion” of the tribe of Judah has conquered and is worthy. But John sees not a lion, but a slaughtered lamb standing there. And then he hears the chorus:
Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.
The lamb has conquered by being slaughtered. Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, triumphing over them by his cross. The church in John’s day conquered the greatest empire in the world has ever seen, dashing its power to pieces by their patient and loving endurance to suffering and death and their willingness to forgive their enemies. And we are called to do likewise with an urgency that cannot be exaggerated.

Our king is coming, even as we speak.

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# posted by Wonders for Oyarsa @ 10:51 AM  10 comments links to this post

Sunday, November 02, 2008

The Glory of Jesus (Revelation 1)


Revelation has an unmistakable air of both urgency and timelessness to it. Everything mentioned is said to be immanent. John is writing about “the things that must soon take place” and we are exhorted to heed his words “for the time is near.” The reader gets this sense that he will hardly have time to hear the message before it all comes to pass. And yet the message is as timeless and all encompassing as its source. The alpha and omega, the one who was, is, and is to come, tells John to “write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.”

This must surely challenge some common evangelical attitudes towards Revelation. On the one hand, the book is thought to be written for people a long time ago – these seven churches in the early days. On the other hand, the book is thought to be about the things that will happen at the end of time, and of use largely in preparing us in the event that we are living in the last days. Yet the book itself seems to make very little distinction between what was, what is, and what is to come. It is, after all, the same Jesus who is the center of all these things.

The book begins with a stunning vision of Jesus himself, speaking to John:
I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.
Depending on who you ask, there are anywhere from 300 to 600 specific Old Testament allusions in the 403 verses of Revelation. Let’s see what looking for some does for our understanding of the passage above.

A loud voice like a trumpet
Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins.

I saw seven golden lampstands,
And he said to me, “What do you see?” I said, “I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps that are on the top of it. And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left.” “These seven are the eyes of the Lord, which range through the whole earth. These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.”

And in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man
Behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him

Clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest
I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.

The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire
As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; His throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.

His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace
His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude.

His voice was like the roar of many waters
Ah, the thunder of many peoples; they thunder like the thundering of the sea! Ah, the roar of nations; they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!

From his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

His face was like the sun shining in full strength
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not”
When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.”

I am the first and the last
Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.”

The living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore
But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King.

I have the keys of Death and Hades
Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death? O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting?

OK, so they’re not all Old Testament. But it does amaze me how so much is evoked by symbols which first seemed merely strange. John looks at the man Jesus, and sees the fulfillment of all of Israel’s hopes.

It is Jesus who declares to Jacob the message of the prophets. It is him who holds together the faithful of Israel in his hands. He is the one worthy to be presented to the ancient of days. In his authority he holds Jerusalem in his hands like a father. When we look on his face, we see nothing less than the ineffable glory of the invisible God. He is the shining man Daniel saw crossing the river, while in captivity in Babylon. His voice drowns out the clamor of nations who assert their own power to rule the Earth. From his mouth comes the very word of God, piercing the heart and soul of man. In him the fullness of the glory of God lives, and shines brighter than we can look at. And yet he is compassionate, and elevates us with him in his glory. Jesus is to be seen as nothing less than the God who was and is – by his resurrection he proves that he has life in himself, and will endure forever just as we know God does. He is the conqueror of Death, and the plunderer of Hades who have hitherto held his people in captivity.

Behold, the man.

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# posted by Wonders for Oyarsa @ 9:21 PM  13 comments links to this post

Monday, October 27, 2008

Blogging Through Revelation


In a rather sharp break from the momentum of this project, I’m going to blog through the book of Revelation. It’s a less than ideal time to do it, since I’m only now about to reach some of the key Old Testament books that Revelation most often alludes to (Zechariah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Daniel). The book is deeply symbolic and very complex, and I had thought to wait until I had gone through the entire Bible to sum it all up in this last majestic volume.

However, I’m teaching a study on the book in our church small group, so now is the time that I have it on my mind. If I wait 'til I finish the rest of the Bible, I may wait forever - especially at my current rate of an utter standstill. I don't want the imagined best to become the enemy of actual good.

In a study our group did on Genesis a while back, there were a few principles we tried to adhere to:

1. Use the questions of the text. Let the text set its own agenda. Rather than bringing our questions to the text, try to pick up on what questions the text itself is seeking to answer, and ask those.

2. Speak the language of the text. Suspend the need to fit every detail into a preconceived theological framework, and allow yourself to be caught up in the story, interpreting the details in its light.

This is certainly not the only way to study the Bible - or even necessarily the best way, but I think it's a particularly neglected way in evangelical Bible studies. Things seemed to work particularly well for Genesis.

Revelation is a little trickier, because its imagery depends so heavily on the rest of the Bible. But I'm offering the group a few tips that seem helpful, most of which I've shamelessly stolen from a list I found on the internet that seemed wise.

1. The book of Revelation was written to the church in its infancy which was facing a great deal of persecution. We may not be persecuted for our faith, but St. John’s church was, as have been many since, as many are today. How does this speak to a suffering and powerless people?

2. Revelation is deeply symbolic, and though the symbolism is vivid and colorful, it isn’t primarily visual. Numbers, for instance, are almost always meant to convey meaning rather than a sense of how many objects we should be picturing in our heads. What are the symbols pointing us to?

3. The more of the Old Testament you know, the better you’ll get on with Revelation. Almost 600 OT references have been picked up, most of them probably unconscious. John is just so steeped in the language of scripture that it forms a natural part of his language. What OT themes are being invoked?

4. Notice how central ‘worship’ is to this book. The heart of Revelation’s message is the victory of Christ and the sovereignty of God over all the powers of the earth. Though this was written immediately to a church facing the might of the Roman Empire, it still speaks to us because those powers still trumpet their sovereignty in our world. How are we to worship?

Here we go!

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# posted by Wonders for Oyarsa @ 11:24 PM  6 comments links to this post

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

My Presence Will Go With You (Haggai 1-2)


I admit that it’s hard to have much perspective on the book of Haggai, having not yet gone through the return from exile in Ezra and Nehemiah. My goal in reading the prophets has been to gain perspective on the exile itself before moving on to the return, and so Haggai doesn’t exactly fit in that well at first glance. But let’s see what we can find.

The book is short and to the point. Some of the people have returned from exile back to Judah, and are managing to scratch out a meager existence for themselves in their ancestral homeland. But their thoughts are only on their own concerns. They have little energy for the things of God. And so the prophet speaks:
Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes . . . Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord.
I think back to Moses pleading with the Lord to travel alongside his people:
If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?
There is no life for the people of Israel without the abiding presence of God alongside them. There is no glory for them as a nation if they do not radiate with the glory of God. They were exiled from his presence for disobedience; how can they return and build houses for themselves if God is not to dwell once again in their midst?

Here again I’m struck with the nature of the God of Israel. This is a God who wants to live with man. He wants to elevate man to himself, and to condescend to live among them. The anger and frustration at their faithlessness is just another angle on that intense longing of God for his son to share his glory.

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# posted by Wonders for Oyarsa @ 11:40 PM  2 comments links to this post

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Esau Have I Hated (Obadiah)


I apologize again for the lack of posts. I'm working on a really neat side project right now that's taking up most of my spare time. But I'm not abandoning the blog.

The vision of Obadiah is a short but fierce proclamation of Edom’s destruction. The justification seems simple enough. During the fall of Jerusalem, Edom sided with Judah’s enemies, going so far as to hunt down fugitives to turn over to the Babylonians. It’s wounds from a brother that bite deepest.
On the day that you stood aloof,
on the day that strangers carried off his wealth
and foreigners entered his gates
and cast lots for Jerusalem,
you were like one of them.
The Lord announces his verdict, in a terrifying variation of the golden rule:
As you have done, it shall be done to you;
your deeds shall return on your own head.
In the end, even though Jerusalem has been plundered and Judah taken off to Israel, the Lord’s judgment will be in their favor:
But in Mount Zion there shall be those who escape,
and it shall be holy,
and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions.

The house of Jacob shall be a fire,
and the house of Joseph a flame,
and the house of Esau stubble;
they shall burn them and consume them,
and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau,
for the Lord has spoken.
That certainly settles the matter. Cain who murdered his brother was exiled. Esau who despised his birthright will now be dispossessed. Such is God’s faithfulness to the younger brother Israel.

But what about Israel’s redemption? Is Israel being restored simply to gloat over those who were happy to see her down? What about Esau embracing Jacob and Jacob seeing the face of God? What about Joseph saying “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good?”

Right now it looks to be forgotten. God’s verdict for their destruction is final and all encompassing. Unless, of course, someone with the authority to represent the people might look upon those who cast lots for his clothing and pray “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

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# posted by Wonders for Oyarsa @ 1:38 AM  6 comments links to this post

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Audacity of Hope (Habakkuk 1-3)


Wow, it’s been a while since my last post here. I suppose I’m doing what many readers of the Old Testament have done before me: I’ve gotten bogged down in the prophets. And these are just the “minor” prophets at that! Anyway, sorry about the title. I know it's a shameless ripoff, but it just so happens to also be a perfect title.

Hope seems to be one of the strongest themes in the Old Testament. Not optimism, mind you. Things don’t ever seem to go all that well for the people of Israel, and even the most glorious moment of their story, the exodus from Egypt, is filled with failure and judgment so severe it almost ended the story before it began. Yet every page is bursting at the seams with an unshakable hope in the goodness of God.

It is common indeed for people today to ask “where was God” when a tragedy strikes. It is even more common for eggheads like me to do so in a detached and cynical fashion about tragedy in the abstract (the problem of evil). But it makes every difference in the world whether the question is asked out of despair or hope. Indeed, those who hope can scream for God with a volume scarcely reachable by more tepid and bitter voices:
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
Why do you make me see iniquity,
and why do you idly look at wrong?
Thus says the prophet Habakkuk, in the face of the idolatry and injustice of Israel. God responds by bringing the Chaldeans (or Babylonians) to be the great equalizers of a corrupt and haughty civilization. But even this “salvation” is ambiguous. The Chaldeans exploit and abuse every kingdom known to man. It is true that the poor now see the rich getting their comeuppance, but the people of Israel as a whole must struggle under their yoke. Rich and poor suffer alike.

So Habakkuk asks again:
O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment,
and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.

Is he then to keep on emptying his net
and mercilessly killing nations forever?
The Chaldeans may be God’s way of judging the people of Israel, but they themselves are calling down judgment on their own heads:
Woe to him who builds a town with blood
and founds a city on iniquity!
Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts
that peoples labor merely for fire,
and nations weary themselves for nothing?
For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
The wrath of man doesn’t achieve the justice of God, and so even man as God’s instrument stands condemned. Israel has failed his task of upholding the law as a light to the nations, and instead has fallen into idolatry and injustice. Babylon has failed in her task of punishing Israel justly, and instead arrogantly assumes the entire world will be her prey. This is what the Lord saw when, before the flood, the Earth was filled with violence and the intentions of man’s heart were only evil continually. No wonder the Bible speaks of God being tempted to destroy man for good.

This is all hardly grounds for optimism. So the prophet leaves optimism behind, and clings to hope instead:
Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer's;
he makes me tread on my high places.
Hope looks into the blackness of utter despair and total ruin and says, with defiance, “yet I will rejoice.” Such hope isn’t sentimentality or wishful thinking. It refuses to submit to the dark facts of reality, and so changes that reality by bringing the rule of God to bear.

Thus Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Thus Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Thus Moses turned the face of God back towards his rebellious people. Thus David established an everlasting kingdom. And thus the tomb of the son of David was found empty, for hope does not disappoint.

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# posted by Wonders for Oyarsa @ 1:10 AM  6 comments links to this post

Friday, May 30, 2008

In Wrath, Remember Mercy (Jonah 1-4)


I don’t know how I could possibly do the book of Jonah justice. It seems I ought to devote three or four posts at least to this tiny little book (though I’ll never get through the whole Bible that way). For those of you who don’t remember much besides the whale (and please don’t tell me that 20th century animal naming schemes do not classify whales as “fish” and so the fish couldn’t be a whale), I cannot recommend rereading it highly enough. Heck, go ahead and do it now – it’ll only take 2 minutes.

The message of Jonah is among the most important of the prophets, as it speaks to the heart of Israel’s story. Jonah may very well be Israel himself.

Here we have a man given a vocation by God to proclaim a message before the nations, who then flees to a far country rather than obey the voice of the Lord. When the Lord sends the enveloping waters over him, Jonah thinks it is the end, but then he is saved by being swallowed up by a whale. Once he is vomited up on the shore, Jonah is once again tasked to do his duty, and this time he obeys. It’s the familiar picture of exile and return; judgment and salvation.

But what is really fascinating about Jonah is what happens next. The city in question is Nineveh, and the message he bears might just as well be verbatim from the book of Nahum. It’s a message of unconditional and unavoidable wrath and destruction. It’s a courtesy really – like having the death sentence formally read to the defendant right before carrying it out.

The citizens of Nineveh know what it’s like dealing with wrathful gods. I remember a similar incident in Homer’s Iliad, where Hector urges the women of Troy to pray to Pallas Athena to stay her wrath. They do so:
“Blessed Athena, sacred goddess … pity our city, with the wives and little ones of the Trojans.”

The women prayed. But Pallas Athena refused their prayer
I doubt the citizens of Nineveh expect any different. But apparently it’s worth a try:
Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.
There goes nothing. And then, surprisingly, against all expectation, God actually forgives them. He relents from his promised disaster. The only person not surprised is Jonah:
O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.
Jonah was in on the secret: the Lord loves mankind! He doesn’t want even the wicked to perish, but prefers instead that they repent and be made whole. He is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and kindness. He’s such a sap that it’s sickening. God’s response is telling:
Do you do well to be angry?
It’s the same thing he said to Cain when he fumed with jealous anger over the Lord’s acceptance of his younger brother Abel’s sacrifice. Here again is the perennial choice – to “do well”.

Jonah doesn’t want Nineveh to be forgiven. These are the people who have visited cruelty upon the entire world – not the least of which Israel themselves. The salvation Jonah wants is the total destruction of the Assyrians and the triumph and dominion of Israel as God’s chosen and holy people.

When Jonah then complains about the death of a vine which shielded him from the sun, the Lord sets him straight:
You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?
One thing that amazes me is how thoroughly the roles have been reversed. Abraham pleaded with God to save Sodom, Moses begged him not to destroy the Israelites, and David implored him to take his plague out on his house and not the people as a whole. But here it is Jonah, not God, who needs convincing.

Jonah can’t see past his own interests, while the Lord is concerned even about the cows in Nineveh. But it goes deeper than that. Jonah’s vocation was to be a light for the nations, and instead he shrunk from the task. After being forgiven and restored against all odds, he resigned himself to his vocation, but was still convinced that the Lord had chosen him for his own benefit and exaltation. Rather than see a younger brother like Nineveh offer an acceptable sacrifice, Jonah would see him dead – and if this isn’t possible, he’d prefer to die himself.

What a picture of self-righteous Israel! This is precisely what Jesus faults them for – thinking that God gave them the law so that they could look down on all the other nations. Thus the wayward prophet cannot bear to see a people forgiven for their waywardness. The sulking elder brother would rather stay outside than see his younger brother restored to the family. The forgiven adulteress picks up stones to stone another woman caught in the same sin. And the Lord lays upon his Christ the iniquity of them all.

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# posted by Wonders for Oyarsa @ 1:14 AM  4 comments links to this post

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The Wrath of God (Nahum 1-3)


“The Lord is a jealous and avenging God,” begins the prophet Nahum in his oracle against Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire. This short book is a treatise against the city which calls down utter destruction on its walls. The prophet does not urge the city to repentance. He only informs them that they will shortly meet their maker and that there will be Hell to pay.

The judgment of God. The ancient Jews longed for it, because they suffered under the weight of powerful empires. The medieval Christians dreaded it, because they feared condemnation for the evil of their own hearts. We are mostly confused and even embarrassed by it, because we are not generally oppressed and think ourselves to be fairly good people. And yet the moment a calamity comes to shake us out of our complacency, we begin suddenly to sound like the ancients towards God. Why isn’t he doing something? Why doesn’t he come and judge the Earth?

Well, in Nineveh’s case, it is time for this long anticipated judgment. News of their crimes has reached to high Heaven:
Woe to the bloody city,
all full of lies and plunder—
no end to the prey!
The crack of the whip, and rumble of the wheel,
galloping horse and bounding chariot!
Horsemen charging,
flashing sword and glittering spear,
hosts of slain,
heaps of corpses,
dead bodies without end—
they stumble over the bodies!
And all for the countless whorings of the prostitute,
graceful and of deadly charms,
who betrays nations with her whorings,
and peoples with her charms.
They are a ruthless people who crush other nations without giving it a second thought. Like hungry lions they rip the flesh off kingdoms and drink the blood of their slain armies. But their time has come:
There is no easing your hurt;
your wound is grievous.
All who hear the news about you
clap their hands over you.
For upon whom has not come
your unceasing evil?
When disaster comes, few indeed will pity them. It’s good riddance. The people of the world will cheer and jeer as the hated city is pounded into dust.

So much for Nineveh. But what can be said for the judgment of God? I’m reminded of a major theme from the book on evil I just finished: The Doors of the Sea by David Hart. Rather than affirming all things as somehow fitting into God’s perfect plan, Hart reminds us that some things truly are meaningless:
Simply said, there is no more liberating knowledge given us by the gospel—and none in which we should find more comfort—than the knowledge that suffering and death, considered in themselves, have no ultimate meaning at all.

Now we are able to rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history's many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that he will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes.
Though it may sound strange to us, the fiery judgment of God is one of the most hopeful and freeing truths in all of scripture. If God himself, the all-powerful and infinitely wise creator, finds much of our world’s present state worthy of damnation, then it frees us from having to reconcile ourselves to “the way things are.”

This is the vision that will sustain Israel through the exile. If the people of God were mere pragmatists finding a niche for themselves in the world, then this would be the end of the story. But instead they can hope in a wrathful God who will soon storm down from his Heaven and shatter the kingdoms of the world. The nations may rage, but the kingdom of God is at hand.

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# posted by Wonders for Oyarsa @ 1:57 AM  7 comments links to this post

Monday, May 19, 2008

The Doors of the Sea


I’ve just finished what is probably the best thing I’ve ever read on the problem of evil: David Bentley Hart’s The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami. It’s a tiny little book, with a cover that suggested to me Max Lucado feel-good sentimentality rather than one of the most profound and beautiful theological books I’ve come across. This Eastern Orthodox theologian rips to shreds many of the standard theistic theodocies as well as atheist straw men, and proclaims in their place the Christian gospel. He does this with beautiful writing that verges on poetry, all in a mere 100 pages. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Rather than attempt to review Hart’s book, and thus summarize it, I thought I’d key in on a theme I found particularly striking. In dealing with deistic theodocies of the watchmaker God, Hart talks in great length something that most of us who have pondered the beauty and savagery of nature know:
The natural world overwhelms us with its splendor, its beauty, its immensities and fragilities, its incalculable diversity, its endless combinations of the colossal and the delicate, sweetness and glory, minute intricacies and immeasurable grandeurs. It is easy, and among the most spontaneous movements of the soul, to revere the God glimpsed in the iridescence of flowered meadows, the emerald light of the deep forest, the soft, immaculate blue of distant mountains, the shining volubility of the sunlit sea, the pale, cold glitter of the stars. This is a perfectly wise and even holy impulse.

But, at the same time, all the splendid loveliness of the natural world is everywhere attended – and, indeed, preserved – by death. All life feeds on life, each creature must yield its place in time to another, and at the heart of nature is a perpetual struggle to survive and increase at the expense of other beings. It is as if the entire cosmos were somehow predatory, a single great organism nourishing itself upon the death of everything to which it gives birth, creating and devouring all things with a terrible and impassive majesty. Nature squanders us with such magnificent prodigality that it is hard not to think that something enduringly hideous and abysmal must abide in the depths of life.

Considered “from below,” from within the system of nature, the force that drives and animates and shapes the whole of the organic world seems to achieve an almost perfectly transparent epitome of itself in those lavishly floriferous but parasitic vines that – urged always upward by a blind, thrusting, idiotic heliotropism – climb toward the light of the sun by choking the life from the trees around which they grow, constantly struggling out of the shadows in their thirst for the light, extending one tenuous tendril after another toward the sun to swell and slowly suffocate the boughs they entwine, until they burgeon forth at the last in such gorgeous and copious flowers that one might forget what had to perish to make such a triumph possible.
Put quite simply, the world is clearly the beautiful, glorious creation of God, but it is bound inextricably to the forces of death and decay – so much so that we can’t even imagine a world without such ruthlessness. And here the deist theodicy says that this is as good as it gets. If you want the glory, you have to endure all the death and decay that makes it possible. True paradise is a logical impossibility, and you must simply resign yourself that this is as good as it can get – the best of all possible worlds. Take it or leave it.

Hart then takes from the pragmatic theodicy of the deist into the gloriously non-empirical vision of the Christian. He quotes Thomas Traherne, saying:
You never enjoy the world aright, till you see how a sand exhibiteth the wisdom and power of God; and prize in everything the service which they do you, by manifesting His glory and goodness to your soul. Wine quencheth my thirst, but to see it flowing from his love who give it unto man quencheth the thrist even of the holy angels. Your enjoyment of the world is never right till every morning you awake in Heaven: see yourself in your Father’s palace; and look upon the skies and the earth and the air, as celestial joys. You never enjoy the world aright till the sea floweth in your veins; till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the starts are your jewels; till you love men so as to desire their happiness, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own; till you delight in God for being good to all. The world is a mirror of inifinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a temple of majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of light and peace, did not men disquiet it. It is the paradise of God.
Hart concludes:
To see the world as it should be seen, and so to see the true glory of God reflected in it, requires the cultivation of charity, of an eye rendered limpid by love.
I can’t easily express how deeply this moves my soul. So much could be said, and so much more had probably better be left unsaid. But one thing that really stands out to me is something that puzzles a great many people: the virtue of faith.

The saints Hart refers to seem to inhabit a different world than the one full of death and decay that we are familiar with. They straddle the line between Heaven and Earth, and walk in Paradise under our sky. And so they see the world not through the spectacles of empiricism but the eyes of faith. This really is virtuous, for acting in such faith causes a little bit of that reality break in to our lives.

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# posted by Wonders for Oyarsa @ 1:25 AM  14 comments links to this post

Monday, April 21, 2008

Rejoice Over Me With Singing (Zephaniah 1-3)


Back in the days of my High School youth group, there was a praise song we used to sing called “Zephaniah 3:17”. The chorus (adopted from that passage) implored the Lord to “quiet me with your holy love, and rejoice over me with singing.” It was a cheesy but sweet song, especially when sung with dozens of young people around a campfire with a lone acoustic guitar leading the way – sort of an evangelical Christian “let it be”.

Though I mean no disrespect for campfire praise songs (which have probably done my soul more good than I know), I can’t imagine that this was really the tone the prophet Zephaniah had in mind.

The book of Zephaniah opens with this:
“I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord.

“I will sweep away man and beast; I will sweep away the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, and the rubble with the wicked. I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord.
Here God is bringing back the imagery of the Flood in Genesis. I really can’t get over the horror of that story. Many today dismiss it as a wrathful and unjust picture of God, but this misses the real tragedy – that man has made himself a cancer on creation that it warrants the destruction of the entire project.

Only here God is talking specifically about Judah:
I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal and the name of the idolatrous priests along with the priests, those who bow down on the roofs
to the host of the heavens, those who bow down and swear to the Lord and yet swear by Milcom, those who have turned back from following the Lord, who do not seek the Lord or inquire of him.
Zephaniah goes on to talk about the terrible the day of the Lord. The judgment will come on Judah, and upon all the surrounding nations. Egypt, Assyria, Moab, and the land of the Philistines will all be swept away by his fierce anger:
In the fire of his jealousy,
all the earth shall be consumed;
for a full and sudden end
he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.
I think this is a perfect example of the pitfalls of reading the Bible with either wooden literalism or dismissive allegorization. Clearly the Babylonian scourge didn’t actually wipe out all the inhabitants of the Earth. Clearly the birds, fish, beasts, and people lived to see another day. But it is every bit as clear that a cheap spiritualization does violence to the text. Like in the Genesis story itself, you miss the point if you see these events in anything less than cosmic terms.

The exile of Israel isn’t just something that feels like the end of the world – it really is the end of the world. Israel is man’s representative and the platform for the world’s redemption. If the light of the world is darkness, then the darkness is great indeed!

It is here, at the end of all things, while peering into the abyss, that we hear the words which inspired the praise song:
Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion;
shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter of Jerusalem!

The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

At that time I will bring you in,
at the time when I gather you together;
for I will make you renowned and praised
among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes
before your eyes.
Though their evil is such as to render the goodness of creation forfeit, there is no pit so deep that Israel’s God is not deeper still. There are no lengths to which he will not go to save them. Though they see the world crashing down around them for their faithlessness to God, it is God’s faithfulness to man that will be the final word.

However, unlike the sentimentality of the praise song, this salvation isn’t something that can be focused on apart from the terrifying judgment of God. As we saw with some frustration earlier, Josiah’s reforms were not enough to stay his anger. On the contrary: the salvation of God is found in enduring the curse for the joy set before them.

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# posted by Wonders for Oyarsa @ 1:38 AM  5 comments links to this post
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