Tag Archives: Revelation

Epiphany: A Kaleidoscope of Mercy

We have traveled (less this year than others) through the days of Christmas feasting, arriving like the Magi at Epiphany. This is a blessing on a prosaic scale: as a child, Christmas was one day, not 12; and given all the build-up, something seemed off about abandoning festivities so quickly. The cadence of maneuver through 12 days makes more rhythmic sense in the ebb and flow of liturgical tides.

Epiphany restores to the Magi their rightful place in the sequence of the Nativity, tilting them a bit farther away from the rest of the living room Nativity sets. At a distance, the stargazers are not quite elbow to elbow with the shepherds, whose eyes were sometimes less on nighttime stars and more on the threats of their immediate surroundings. The shepherds and sheep figurines may be clustered around the Christ-child; but the Magi are still on their way.

The mercy of revelation – because revelation from an all-powerful, transcendent God of love is mercy to humans who would not be able to grasp God’s nature on our own – may vary in timing. Like a gently shifted kaleidoscope, God’s mercy appears in one set of colors and shapes, then slides and trickles into another as time passes and the kaleidoscope is moved. The tints and outlines of mercy appear to animal caretakers keeping watch at night; the kaleidoscope tilts, and the same mercy appears, this time to star-gazing scholars – to Gentiles.

Epiphany is a swirl of colors and shapes that, when tilted again, reflects the mirrored patterns of mercy in John 4. Here, we watch Jesus as he “has” to go through Samaria; we watch his disciples go into town to buy lunch; we watch him talk with a woman, a Samaritan woman, by a well. We watch him disclose to her what he rarely verbally affirmed – that he is in fact the Messiah. She doesn’t know about the myrrh and frankincense and gold that strangers brought to his parents when he was two, but she receives the same mercy that the Magi received when they brought their gifts. When the disciples return with lunch and encourage Jesus to eat, we see him respond, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” In truth, he is revealing that he has mercy that they know nothing about.

To draw from his own well of hidden mercy – this is why Jesus had to go through Samaria. At the time of his birth, what attention did the priests and scribes pay to – astronomy? Yet there was mercy hidden from their view but written in the stars.

“I have mercy you know not of.” A flash, blinding light – otherworldly beings appear to shepherds who smell of dung. An appearance in the night sky of a new celestial body captures the attention of foreign mages. A cleared throat and polite voice sounding young and ancient at the same time asks for a drink of water at a well at mid-day.

The kaleidoscope turns; the mercy of revelation remains.

Is revelation always a mercy? Yes – even if it is our undoing. Madeleine L’Engle wrote of this trade in an Epiphany poem, “One King’s Epiphany” –

I shall miss the stars.

Not that I shall stop looking
as they pattern their wild will each night
across an inchoate sky, but I must see them with a different awe.
If I trace their flames’ ascending and descending –
relationships and correspondences –
then I deny what they have just revealed.
The sum of their oppositions, juxtapositions, led me to the end of all sums:
a long journey, cold, dark and uncertain,
toward the ultimate equation.
How can I understand? If I turn back from this,
compelled to seek all answers in the stars,
then this – Who – they have led me to
is not the One they said: they will have lied.

No stars are liars!
My life on their truth!
If they had lied about this
I could never trust their power again.

But I believe they showed the truth,
truth breathing,
truth Whom I have touched with my own hands,
worshipped with my gifts.
If I have bowed, made
obeisance to this final arithmetic,
I cannot ask the future from the stars without betraying
the One whom they have led me to.

It will be hard not ask, just once again,
see by mathematical forecast where he will grow,
where go, what kingdom conquer, what crown wear.
But would it not be going beyond truth
(the obscene reduction ad absurdum)
to lose my faith in truth once, and once for all
revealed in the full dayspring of the sun?

I cannot go back to night.
O Truth, O small and unexpected thing,
You have taken so much from me.
How can I bear wisdom’s pain?
But I have been shown: and I have seen.

Yes. I shall miss the stars.

This is mercy – even when it seems harsh: “I cannot go back to night.” We cannot love what leads us to Jesus more than we love Jesus, any more than the Magi could love the stars that led their discovery more than the discovery itself. Who can cling to stars when they have seen the Daystar enfleshed? The stars didn’t lie; but the stars became insufficient. The kaleidoscope simply shifted, putting all their wisdom at the mercy of revelation.

You and I cannot go back to night, even if we love the minute adjustment of telescopes, the star charts, the constellations. Mercy will not let us. This is Epiphany: light to the Gentiles, God’s mercy in vivid form, appearing with ruthlessly consistent love.

Featured image courtesy Biswarup Ganguly.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Reckoning Before Revival

There is a reckoning unfolding that we would avoid if we could – unless we are one of the people who have been crying out for it, praying for it, watching the horizon for it.

But the people who pray for revival and the people who pray for reckoning aren’t always the same.

In the open air of summer camp meeting, I watched with child’s eyes as adults around me responded to altar calls from evangelists. Most of the people sitting on rough wooden pews were not atheists; they were looking for sanctification. Often, they were looking for release – catharsis, tears, freedom in individual hearts and minds. Preachers cautioned against returning home without living out the work claimed to have been done in the heart kneeling at the altar rail. I lost count of the times I went to the altar to pray.

Good was done in those camp meetings. When revivalistic Protestants speak of revival, it almost always entails looking back and looking forward – back to something that was, forward hoping to see it again. A lot has been written in the past few years that helps to puncture the yearning for a supposed golden time or the vague chase for nebulous revival.

Exploration of travailing prayer looks at the presence of focused, laboring intercession preceding spiritual awakening within the footprints of church history. Travailing is childbirth language; it is the language of being in labor, experiencing the pain of contractions. Rather than lament the absence of an idealized past with varying descriptions of revival – rather than hope wistfully to experience those descriptions of revival if God chooses to allow it (as if God is preoccupied on the phone rather than willingly pouring out the power and presence of the Holy Spirit) – discussions of travailing prayer highlight the rhythms of awakenings around the world the past few hundred years. Through this, we find helpful posture and practices for those hungry for spiritual awakening. A willingness to engage in travailing prayer should precede scanning the horizon for signs of revival.

Discussions on travailing prayer seem to be a necessary and pivotal counterpoint to any approach to revival that reduces awakening primarily to a personal experience of subjective emotional response. If we do not accept the burden of laboring in travailing prayer, we cannot complain of the need for awakened revival.

But I would say today, on a cool spring morning in the early years of the 21st century, living and breathing on American soil, that the people who pray for revival and the people who pray for reckoning aren’t always the same people. But they may be praying for the same thing.

People who pray for revival may want Holy Spirit power; people who pray for reckoning want the power of God to flip the power of oppressors upside-down.

People who pray for reckoning are people who are already used to praying travailing prayer, because they don’t have to go far to find themselves groaning in spirit.

The power of God may be poised, waiting to see whether the people accustomed to praying for revival will awaken to the deep-seated memory that revival and reckoning were never separated in the first place.

Reckoning came before the glory of the Lord would be revealed. The apocalypse – the uncovering – the unveiling – the revealing of God’s glory – would not occur without reckoning.

The people of Israel learned and forgot this time and again.

When the Word Became Flesh and walked around revealing God’s glory to untouchables and undesirables and overlookeds and underfeds, reckoning thundered in his wake; the same God spoke the Truth of God and to some it sounded like blessing and beatitude and to others it echoed of woe and dread.

To desire God’s glory without submitting to God’s reckoning is to desire the benefits of God without the costs of the way of Jesus.

Judas wanted to be near power and glory. Judas was near power and glory. Judas could not submit to the reckoning that occurs in the presence of God who was walking around eating fish and raising the dead and sitting in the houses of imperial collaborators.

Judas acted out of self-preservation and then regretted it; but the apocalypse – the uncovering – the unveiling of his own heart and motives became a further moment of reckoning for the rest of the disciples. In the face of the crucifixion, they also faced the revelation of Judas’ actions. Gospel readers know that before Judas tried to bolt as a disciple, he embezzled from the treasury box – a box funded by wealthy women supporting Jesus’ ministry.

In Acts 1, about 120 men and women – disciples of Jesus – gathered together earnestly praying, before Pentecost – before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In the midst of this travailing prayer, before Pentecost, they face what Judas has done – “he was one of our number and shared in our ministry.”

Reckoning comes before revival.

Had the wealthy women disciples noticed discrepancies in the treasury and prayed for God to reveal the truth of what was happening?

Had Judas stolen from someone who’d given their last two mites, their five loaves and two fish? Had someone powerless seen his quick, hidden dip into the group funds? Had someone prayed for reckoning? Someone who was dismayed but not shocked to learn about Judas betraying Jesus?

We cannot pray for revival without being willing to face the reckoning. If we submit to the reckoning, we may or may not see revival, but we will have submitted ourselves to the justice, mercy, and power of God – “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24)

An impoverished unmarried woman prophesied in a time when her homeland was occupied by foreign forces:

“And Mary said:

‘My soul glorifies the Lord
    and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
    of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
    for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
    holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
    from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
    he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
    but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
    but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
    remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
    just as he promised our ancestors.'”

This ferocity from the mother of Christ celebrates the fact that for many, reckoning means hope.

“He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” She rejoices because God has been “mindful of the humble state of his servant.”

Her suffering had not been overlooked; her humiliation had not been forgotten or ignored; the injustice experienced by her people was being answered in the arrival of the revelation of the Son of God – the God of jubilee and freedom, hope for widows and welcome for strangers.

People who pray for reckoning are people who are already used to praying travailing prayer, because they don’t have to go far to find themselves groaning in spirit.

There is a reckoning unfolding that we would avoid if we could – unless we are one of the people who have been crying out for it, praying for it, watching the horizon for it.

But the people who pray for revival and the people who pray for reckoning aren’t always the same.

Where in the Book of Acts can I find the Holy Spirit pouring out on groups of believers easily characterized by shared race – when that race is so predominantly represented because congregations and traditions sprang up geographically in places that less than a lifetime ago had Sundown signs posted at city limits? How can I say I long for individual and corporate spiritual awakening if I pray for revival in a room dominated by other white Americans?

Predominantly white towns and regions did not happen accidentally. Thousands of American churches are predominantly white because decades ago explicit signs or implicit laws made them that way and kept them that way.

Some of the oldest, storied, traditional Black Methodist denominations exist because white Methodists kept them out. Consider the AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Zion Church:

“The origins of this church can be traced to the John Street Methodist Church of New York City. Following acts of overt discrimination in New York (such as black parishioners being forced to leave worship), many black Christians left to form their own churches. The first church founded by the AME Zion Church was built in 1800 and was named Zion; one of the founders was William Hamilton, a prominent orator and abolitionist. These early black churches still belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church denomination, although the congregations were independent. During the Great Awakening, the Methodists and Baptists had welcomed free blacks and slaves to their congregations and as preachers.”

Revival and reckoning had gone hand in hand – during the Great Awakening, Methodists and Baptists had welcomed “free Blacks and slaves to their congregations and as preachers.” But in the wake of the awakening, hearts closed; decades before the Civil War, the debate within the Methodist Episcopal Church over accepting Black ministers led to the official formation of the AME Zion Church.

Sitting in the humidity watching adults fumble down the aisle of the open air tabernacle toward the altar, crickets and cicadas loud against the singing of “I Surrender All,” almost every face around me was white.

How can God take seriously the prayers – even the travailing prayers – for revival and spiritual awakening that are prayed distracted from the cries, laments, and groans of those praying for reckoning?

We want revival only inasmuch as we desire to submit ourselves to reckoning, and the predominantly white Protestant Church in the United States on this Eve of Pentecost 2020 has shown nothing so clearly in the past six months as its damnable refusal to submit to anything, much less the convicting reckoning of Almighty God.

We want revival for ourselves and reckoning for our adversaries, rather than reckoning for ourselves and revival for our adversaries. The way of the cross of Jesus Christ welcomes the painful scrutiny of the Holy Spirit upon ourselves and the Holy Spirit’s merciful grace toward literally everyone else.

White Christians who pray for Holy Spirit power need to ask ourselves if we have a history of using power well. If we cannot answer that with a “yes” then we should beg God to spare us from pouring out any holy power on us that would consume us in its blaze. We should beg God to spare us until we have the character to withstand the presence of the Holy Spirit – “our God is a consuming fire.”

Desiring proximity to power and glory without submitting to the reckoning that occurs in the presence of God will place us squarely alongside a disciple – but not the disciple we would wish to emulate.

If revival does not come for you, it cannot come for me. If reckoning is what you are praying for, I cannot ignore it. If my prayers for revival sound trite while you groan for God to hear your pleas for justice, then I must join your groans and prayers for reckoning, sharing in your travailing as I can.

Ferocious Mary, mother of God prayed table-flipping prayers years before her son walked into the temple for a day of reckoning.

“He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.“

If Christians are baffled at why our prayers are being sent away empty, maybe we should consider that it is because we are avoiding the reckoning while praying for the revival. The arm of God will crash down on us like thunder if we think we deserve the outpouring of the Holy Spirit while avoiding truth; if we think we are entitled to revival while others need to prove their worthiness.

The Holy Spirit of God poured out on women and men, empowering them to speak in different languages. Jews from all different regions heard God calling out to them in their own languages, with their own words – God’s heart in the sound of their own accent:

“‘Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome(both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”

Pentecost has always only meant that the pouring out of the Holy Spirit means hearing God’s wonders. The Holy Spirit was set loose witnessing to the Resurrected Christ: “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.“

If I do not have ears to hear the groaning for reckoning, I do not have ears to hear the wonders of God.

If we justify church leaders who abuse their positions to exploit others, we do not have ears to hear the wonders of God.

If we ignore the groans of suffering people inside or outside the church, we have stopped up our ears to ignore the wonders of God.

If we resist the opportunity to learn our own history and the history of others so that we can better grieve and lament our broken, shared story, then we dim the volume of the wonders of God.

If we scorn the accounts of the hurting out of the compulsion to justify people who remind us of us, we silence the mouth of Jesus; we drown out the wonders of God.

A few months ago, Rev. Shalom Liddick preached on intercession. Anointed by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, she testified to this truth:

“I’m your keeper – you are mine. The fact that God came to Cain and asked, ‘where is your brother?’ tells me something. It tells me God will ask me about my community. ‘Hey – where is…?’ It is my responsibility to pray for you. Where are you, friend? We live in a culture where we want to be independent. But I need to make it a point to always present you before God, and you need to make it a point to present me before God.

Remember: you are your brother’s keeper; you are your sister’s keeper. You’re a watchman. And where God has placed you, God has placed you on purpose. Watchmen stand in the middle to communicate, to see, to defend. An intercessor stands in the middle to intervene on behalf of somebody else.

God calls me and calls you to be people who get in the middle and say, ‘God, can you help my sister? Can you help my brother? Can you help my community?’ God is present – in the middle – of everything.”

Reckoning comes before revival, and before we open our eyes on Pentecost Sunday, we must face the question of whether or not we have failed to be each others’ keepers. Whether we have neglected to stand in the middle and intervene.

In John Donne’s classic poem, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” he considers the question not only of inquiring whose funeral a bell announces, but also the dilemma of whose responsibility it is to ring a bell announcing a sermon. Reflecting on funeral bells tolling, he wonders if the bell could ring for himself, if he were too ill to realize how ill he was:

“PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he
knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so
much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my
state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.

The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she
does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action
concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which
is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member.
And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is
of one author, and is one volume.”

Can one be so sick they do not recognize the extent of their illness – to such a degree that they do not realize the funeral bell tolls for them? Can our souls carry unseen disease, visible to those around us but hidden from ourselves, so that we do not even realize the reckoning is ours?

On responsibility to ring the sermon bell, he muses that those who realize the dignity of the task will quickly respond to share the responsibility: “The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth.” The bell tolls for the person who thinks it summons them.

But whether or not we have trained our ears to hear the summons is another matter. And this is the tragedy of Pentecost: “Some, however, made fun of them and said, ‘They have had too much wine.'” We cannot hear what we do not listen for. We cannot hear revival if we believe it doesn’t sound like reckoning.

Every time a funeral bell tolls for someone else, it tolls for me, because their death diminishes me.

“I’m your keeper. You are mine. God came to Cain and asked, “where is your brother?”

The people who pray for revival and the people who pray for reckoning aren’t always the same people. But they may be praying for the same thing.

Come, Holy Spirit.

And let justice, like revival, roll down.

Aaron Perry ~ What a Baby Uncovers: The Judgment of Advent

“I’m pregnant!”

The announcement demands a response. At times the response is easy: There are hugs and cheers, whoops, whirls, and texts—the group kind. At times the response is complicated: There are glances and glares, winces, wails, and tears—not the good kind.

When a baby is a dream come true, the announcers set to painting a room, taking vitamins, writing letters, scheduling appointments, arranging photos, and purchasing a range of clothes…and bins—lots of bins—to house the clothes. The list feels endless. A baby is the natural tangible expression of marital love. Pregnancy is welcome news.

Tragically, a baby may be the opposite of a dream come true. For some, a baby may be a nightmare. Far from an expression of marital love, a baby may be evidence of secret infidelity, sexual abuse, rape, and impulsive action. Pregnancy may not feel like a delight, but a verdict.

Whether welcome or wished-it-wasn’t-so, a baby is revealing. The baby brings revealing light to the emotional strength, financial capacity, planning ability, and relational health of a life. A baby reveals the order (or chaos) of a house. A baby reveals a home’s priorities and values. Trying to welcome a baby into life and home without making adjustments is impossible. You can’t ignore the baby. There is new work, new responsibilities, and new demands.

While the Annunciation, Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she will conceive a child by the Holy Spirit, reminds Christians that a baby is on his way, Advent provides a time of preparation for his arrival. No longer can important tasks be put off. He’s on his way. Like expectant parents, churches and church members focus on making announcements, building floats, practicing and performing dramas, purchasing and distributing gifts. But we ought not ignore everything that Jesus’ birth revealed. It was not taken as easy celebration but as serious news. His birth could not be treated neutrally. Just as a baby reveals the state of the home, so did Jesus’ birth reveal the state of his world.

Just as a baby reveals the home’s priorities, Jesus’ birth forces us to attend to our priorities. His birth exposes idolatry—the sin of placing anything before God. Do the priorities in our lives reflect God’s primacy in our love and devotion? Just as a baby must be loved in proper order, so must God order everything else in our lives.
Just as a baby cannot be ignored in its home, Jesus’ birth forces us to attend to the rhythm of our lives. His birth exposes our folly—the sin of crafting a life without God. Have we ignored God? How have we constructed lives without God?
Just as a baby brings new responsibilities and work, Jesus’ birth forces us to attend to our willingness to do the work given us by God. His birth exposes our penchant to sloth—the sin of refusing our God-given work. Are we giving our best to the work done by the will of God? Are we taking up our divinely ordered tasks?

Just as baby reveals my life’s priorities, constructions, and discipline, so does the birth of Jesus offer a judgment on my idolatry, folly, and sloth. Advent gives me time to prepare for that judgment.

Judgment on idolatry, folly, and sloth? No wonder people might not consider the birth of this baby Good News! But it actually is. If you have ever lived in a home, worked in an organization, invested in a community, or had a meaningful partnership that was marked with disorder, intentional ignorance, and laziness, then you know that judgment is, possibly, Good News. Proper judgment establishes order, wisdom, and meaningful work.

But the news of order, wisdom, and work is only good news if the one bringing judgment is of a certain character. The form taken in the manger reveals to us the heart of the judge. He would grow to be the one who would weep these prophetic words of warning, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate” (Matt. 23:37-38a). He weeps because Jesus’ words have a finality. His warnings have not been heeded and the ultimate symbol of his judgment will be the destruction of the temple as predicted in the very next chapter, Matthew 24.

But while the temple will be brought down, the personal houses of the disciples may still be guarded. “Keep watch!” “Stay awake!” or even “Wake up!” commands Jesus (Matt. 24:42). May your house be found in order! Advent is not simply an invitation to set our houses in order for his birth. Advent is an urgent opportunity to set our houses in order for Jesus’ return. By taking the opportunity to rightly order our lives, we may anticipate the glorious return of Jesus joyfully. His coming judgment will not be feared if we accept his present judgment against idolatry, folly, and sloth—even our own.

The liturgical calendar, in its wisdom, has given us Advent, complete with its call to prepare for judgment. Advent is like an alarm clock. The alarm clock’s obnoxious noise is not bad news! If properly set and attended, the alarm clock wakes us up to keep our lives well ordered, to keep us on time. The alarm clock is not bad news; it is the opportunity to prepare. Advent’s warning of judgment is not bad news; it is the opportunity to prepare for Christ’s return. Advent is an annual alarm clock, set to go off and remind us that a baby is coming and so we must be prepared. The baby will reveal the state of our house.

And if we prepare, then just as many heard the news of his birth as gospel, so will we anticipate his return with similar hope. Advent’s alarm clock is ringing. Are you awake? Are you alert?

Justus Hunter ~ Noise Without Word: Worship in a World of Static

“Shape without form, shade without color,

Paralyzed force; gesture without motion.” – T.S. Eliot

Noise without Word.

After Solomon died, his Kingdom was split in two – the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, reigned over Judah. He lived in Jerusalem, where Solomon built the temple of the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

In the North, Jeroboam reigned over Israel. The Kings of Israel were masters of noise.

Noise-making, then and now, has benefits. You see, Jeroboam was worried. As long as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the God of Israel, then Jeroboam’s people would travel to Jerusalem, Rehoboam’s home. Year after year they would trek to the Temple to offer sacrifices. Year after year they would trek to Rehoboam’s home. So Jeroboam was worried.

Now the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was not like other gods. You couldn’t just build a temple anywhere for the God of Israel. This God spoke. And this God told the Israelites to build one temple, in one city. This God required one worship.

Other gods were just the opposite; the more the merrier! A King could build temple after temple, holy site after holy site, install priest after priest for these other gods. And though these other gods did not speak, they made a lot of noise.

So Jeroboam gave them noise. Lots of noise. Like the Israelites before him, he fashioned his own god rather than wait for the God of Moses. Like the Israelites at Sinai, Jeroboam cast a golden calf. But not just one. He cast two, and placed them on the Northern and Southern edges of his kingdom, in Dan and Bethel. He built them Temples. He gave them priests.

And he said to the people, “you have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”

Just like that, Jeroboam changed their history. He exchanged the God of Exodus for cheap imitations. And unsurprisingly, the people forgot their history. They forgot the story of true Exodus; they lost the God who sets free. They exchanged truth for imitation, form for shape, color for shade, Word for noise.

In changing their history, Jeroboam changed their worship. The gods who stole their history gave them spectacles. And so the people exchanged true worship for spectacle. They went about with spectacle in their eyes, and noise in their ears.

So they silenced the God of David. Jeroboam built sacred sites in all the high places across Israel. He installed priests to offer sacrifices to his gods. And so, all across Israel, from Dan to Bethel, noise filled the air. No one could hear the Word of the Lord, the God of David. All was imitation, mimicry, spectacle, and noise.

This was the way of Jeroboam.

After Jeroboam, all the Kings of Israel followed his way. Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri, all of them “walked in the way of Jeroboam and in the sins that he caused Israel to commit, provoking the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger by their idols.” More Kings made more gods. More priests made more spectacles. More prophets made more noise. And the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was drowned out. No one could hear the Word of the Lord.

Of all the Kings of Israel, Ahab was the noisiest. Like the others, he “walked in the sins of Jeroboam.” Ahab and his wife Jezebel built a temple to Baal in the heart of the land, in Samaria. They raised poles to Asherah throughout Israel. And so they filled the land with noise.

Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the Kings of Israel before him.

The gods of Ahab and Jezebel were happy. The God of Israel was drowned out. Noise. But no one could hear the Word of the Lord. Noise without Word.

And then, the Word of the Lord came to Elijah. The Word of the Lord declares a drought. On Mount Carmel, the Word of the Lord silences the prophets of Baal. Baal’s worship is a spectacle; but like all spectacles, it can deliver no fire. And so the Word of the Lord comes and rains fire, and then fires rain.

On Mount Carmel, Elijah mocks Baal’s spectacle. Elijah’s words called down signs and wonders from the sky. Consuming fire rains down. Elijah’s words condemn Baal’s noisemakers. The Word is proclaimed. And the Wordless noise is silenced by the Lord’s Word.

Or so it seemed.

(The next day) Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not (silence you) by this time tomorrow.”

The noise returns. The noisy gods declare vengeance. They are not satisfied with silencing the Word through noise, or stealing Israel’s history through mimicry. Now they must parody the Law of the Lord. And so, Jezebel vows to execute the law of noise. Noise without Word enacts law without Justice.

Elijah despairs. The day after the consuming fire on Carmel, he flees for his life. He wanders out into the wilderness, out of the kingdom of the gods of noise, and collapses under a bush. He begs the Lord to take his life. He flees the land of noise, mimicry, and parody. He flees the law without Justice, and begs for mercy from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Better to die at the Word of the Lord than at the decree of the gods of noise. So he cries out:

Enough! Now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.

But the Lord withholds mercy. The Lord will not take his life away. The Lord will not let Elijah abandon his gifts, though they afflict him; though he is no better off with these gifts than his ancestors were with theirs. The Lord will not take back Elijah’s gift of life. He is harassed by the gift of life. And he is afflicted with the gift of prophecy.

God will not take his life. Instead, God restores it. Angels bring him food.

And Elijah got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Sinai, the mount of God.

Elijah feasts on food from heaven, like the manna in the wilderness. And like the manna, which sustained Israel forty years, Elijah’s food sustains him forty days.

Forty days, fasting. Forty days, trudging through wilderness. Forty days, back through the years to the site where God created Israel. Forty days, back to Mount Sinai, where God afflicted Elijah’s ancestors with gifts of Word, Worship, and Law.

Elijah retraces the journey of his ancestors. He remembers the Exodus, Moses, the encounter in the wilderness. Elijah returns. He finds a cave and collapses with exhaustion.

Then the Word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

For forty days, he has staggered to the edge of his life. For forty days, he has fasted to his innermost thoughts. For forty days, he has remembered his story. And there, where the Word of the Lord meets him, he pleads his case.

I was zealous, and yet…

And yet, your people have forsaken your covenant. They exchanged your Law for parody – a law without justice.

And yet, your people have thrown down your altars. They exchanged your Worship for spectacle – a worship without fire.

And yet, your people have killed your prophets. They exchanged your Word for noise.

“Shape without form, shade without color,

Paralyzed force; gesture without motion.”

Noise without Word.

Ours is an age of noise. We exchange our history for comforting lies of other gods. We exchange our worship for spectacles. We exchange true justice for parodies, imitations, mimicry. We fill our lives with noise. We silence the Word of the Lord.

Sometimes we expect God to cut through the noise. We look for the consuming fire of Mt. Carmel. If only God would upset our slumber with force – the rushing wind, the unsteady earth, the raining fire.

The Word said to Elijah, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard the silence, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.”

Much later in this story, the Word of the Lord came again.

The Word became flesh, and made His dwelling among us.

The Word ascended another mountain. And the Word gave another sign, feeding five thousand with five loaves and two fish. The Word descended the mountain heights, and worked another wonder, walking on water and calming the depths.

And then, he delivered a teaching. And that teaching mystified the people. People living among parody and imitation and mimicry. People with eyes full of spectacle and ears full of noise.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

Eat my flesh. It is an odd teaching. It is an unsuspected teaching. It is a difficult teaching. And so, many left the Word who came down from heaven and returned to the noise.

So The Word, the bread that came down from heaven, turned to his disciples, and asked them a question:

“Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

“Shape without form, shade without color,

Paralyzed force; gesture without motion.”

Noise without Word.

Ours is an age of noise. We exchange our history for comforting lies of other gods. We exchange our worship for spectacles. We exchange true justice for parodies, imitations, mimicry. We fill our lives with noise. We silence the Word of the Lord.

But the Word comes nevertheless, not in an earthquake or fire or rushing wind, but in this man, Jesus the Christ. And he offers himself to us; eat from me, drink from me.

How odd. No spectacle of noisy gods. Just this peculiar sign, this unexpected wonder.

“Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

And he turns to his disciples, and he asks: “Do you also wish to go away?”

And we, with eyes full of spectacle and ears full of noise, despairing for our lives, afflicted with our gifts and our calls, like Elijah in the wilderness, respond:

“Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Note from the Editor: We appreciate the opportunity to revisit this reflection, which originally appeared on Wesleyan Accent in 2017.

Justus Hunter ~ Letting Go of Your Own Influence: Thy Will Be Done

There are two difficulties with our prayer, “Thy will be done.” We fret over the first, but the second is far more dangerous.

“What is Your will? How do I know it? Where can I find it? Is this Your will?” This is the first difficulty. The second accompanies it, and often escapes our notice.

There is a forgotten moment in Elijah’s early career. First the widow’s jars of flour and oil never fail. Then her son, once dead, revives at Elijah’s prayer. Later, Elijah defeats the prophets of Baal. Those prophets, masters of spectacle, cannot reach their gods’ ears. Elijah’s God silences them. And when Elijah’s God comes, a consuming fire on Mount Carmel, the prophets of Baal are wiped out, along with the spectacle of their gods. The Word of the Lord silences them, and at that Word, heard once again by God’s chosen people, the drought breaks, rain falls.

But that Word, the Word on Elijah’s lips, was not so clear in the forgotten moment between the miracle of the widow and the miracle of fire. In that moment, two men meet before a Mountain.

After many days the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year of the drought, saying, “Go, present yourself to Ahab; I will send rain on the earth.” And so Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. The famine was severe in Samaria. Ahab summoned Obadiah, who was in charge of the palace. (Now Obadiah revered the Lord greatly; when Jezebel was killing off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets, hid them fifty to a cave, and provided them with bread and water.) Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go through the land to all the springs of water and to all the wadis; perhaps we may find grass to keep the horses and mules alive, and not lose some of the animals.” So they divided the land between them to pass through it; Ahab went in one direction by himself, and Obadiah went in another direction by himself. As Obadiah was on the way, Elijah met him; Obadiah recognized him, fell on his face, and said, “Is it you, my lord Elijah?” He answered him, “It is I. Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here.” And he said, “How have I sinned, that you would hand your servant over to Ahab, to kill me? As the Lord your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom to which my lord has not sent to seek you; and when they would say, ‘He is not here,’ he would require an oath of the kingdom or nation, that they had not found you. But now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here.’ As soon as I have gone from you, the spirit of the Lord will carry you I know not where; so, when I come and tell Ahab and he cannot find you, he will kill me, although I your servant have revered the Lord from my youth. Has it not been told my lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord, how I hid a hundred of the Lord’s prophets fifty to a cave, and provided them with bread and water? Yet now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here’; he will surely kill me.” Elijah said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today.” So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him; and Ahab went to meet Elijah. – 1 Kings 18:1-16

Like Elijah, Obadiah is a servant of the Lord. Like Elijah, he defies the Canaanite gods of Jezebel, the Baals and the Asherah, gods tolerated by Ahab, King of Israel. Like Elijah, Obadiah defies the king. But he does so secretly. Obadiah defies Ahab in the king’s own court. He conspires against Jezebel’s plotting. In a time of drought, he secrets water away for prophets pursued by the queen.

Like Elijah, Obadiah’s faithfulness is dangerous. He is a faithful servant of the Lord in the house of Ahab. He risks himself for the Lord’s prophets. In this work, secrecy is his ally. He hides the prophets, fifty to a cave. He hides them.

Obadiah’s secrecy was his faithful service. He knew God’s will: hide the prophets. And he followed God’s will, risking martyrdom. Jezebel silences prophets. But Obadiah guards the word of the Lord on the prophets’ lips. He preserves them, and in preserving them, he preserves the Lord’s word.

When Elijah comes, however, Obadiah is caught. He is caught between two other lords. “Is it you my lord Elijah?” he says. But Elijah replies, “It is I. Go tell your lord Ahab that Elijah is here.”

How often we find ourselves caught between Ahabs and Elijahs – caught between lords, uncertain how to serve the one Lord?

Of course, to us, the decision between Ahab and Elijah is obvious. But it was not so clear for Obadiah. Has not Obadiah been serving both the Lord and Ahab to this point? Not only that, but his obedience to Elijah, another lord, risks the failure of his prior faithfulness. What will happen to the prophets if Obadiah is found out, if Obadiah dies? Who will preserve the Word of the Lord on the prophets’ lips?

Obadiah is uncertain. He is not uncertain as to his Lord – that is clear. It is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. It is the God whose Word is on the lips of the prophets. But what does faithfulness to this God look like in this moment? How does he choose between his prior faithfulness and this new Word?

This is the second difficulty of “Thy will be done” – that God’s will for one moment will become our idol in the next.

We focus our attention on easy idols. We love to preach against the Baals and the Asherah. We preach against injustice and immorality. But we’re afraid to speak of the idols that tempt us most: what God is doing through me, my gifts, my ministry, God’s will for my life.

How easily “thy will” becomes “my will.” Beware: the idol of “my will” is difficult to kick down. “God, if what you’re doing now doesn’t confirm, if it doesn’t extend, if it doesn’t expand the good works you began for me, I’m not interested. God, what about my sacrifices? What about my responsibilities? What about my gifts? What about my…”

“What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Cor 4:7) What do you have that was not a gift? Do not mistake your gifts for possessions. They came from the will of God, and there they must remain.

This is the second difficulty of “Thy will be done” – the temptation to turn “Thy will” into “my will.” Obadiah confronts this second difficulty. He pleads for himself. He pleads for his faithful service to God. And once again, the Word of God confronts him. “Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here.”

“So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him.” So ends the story of Obadiah. His departure is as sudden as his appearance. But even if his appearance is brief, his lesson lasts.

Obadiah could have usurped the Word of the Lord. Had he not won the right? While Elijah was away, in Zarephath, Obadiah was sleeping under the same roof as Ahab and Jezebel. Obadiah was hiding prophets. Obadiah was risking death.

And yet he obeys. And yet he submits. Confronted by the Word of the Lord, his prior service to God disrupted, his gifts, influence, and life risked, Obadiah obeys.

Another day, another man confronts the will of God before another mountain. Jesus prayed the prayer he taught his disciples, “Thy Will be done.” “Not my will, but Thine.” And in his prayer, he overturns our most tantalizing idols. He shows us that we too can pray that prayer – “Thy Will be done.”

But God, look at what I can do for you. Look at what I’ve begun. What about my gifts? You don’t give them in vain, do you?

All the gifts of God are ordered to a greater gift: the gift of Christ-in-me, so that all things might be conformed to the pattern of Christ, the One through whom God is reconciling all things to himself.

Unless we hold God’s will as Christ held his Father’s, our gifts corrupt. They grow into the most sinister of idols, more powerful than the Baals.

Obadiah came, and encountered the word of God. His will submitted to God’s, and in his obedience he prefigured Christ. Christ came, and was the Word of God. His will was the will of the Father, and the power of his obedience empowers our own.

Christ’s prayer in the garden, “Not my will, but thine,” silences the false gods and overturns the idols. Christ’s prayer in the garden, “Not my will, but thine,” empowers our own prayer – “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” The prayer is there in Obadiah’s silence. The prayer is now on our lips.

And so we pray, and we pray, and we pray, and we pray … and we teach our children to pray, just as we were taught: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…Not my will, but thine.”

This post from our archives first appeared on Wesleyan Accent in 2017. Featured image: St Peter in Prison, by Rembrandt.

Brian Yeich ~ What Providence Looks Like

At times it seems that people who come from Wesleyan Methodist backgrounds have an “arm’s length” relationship with the idea of providence. At its most basic level, providence is the activity of God working out God’s redemptive plans for his creation. It’s God working out a rescue plan for creation, and the idea that God is working behind the scenes without our involvement or cooperation is a bit unnerving to Wesleyan sensibilities. For after all, aren’t we the people who believe in cooperating grace (that is, that there is a degree of cooperation we engage in when it comes to God’s saving work)? We are the movement that emphasizes human free will and our ability to choose or reject the gift of grace that God offers. “Providence” just sounds too much like those Reformed or Calvinist folks, we think. But if we take a closer look, we see that the founder of our movement, John Wesley, had a very robust understanding of divine providence. So, what are we to think about providence as Wesleyans?

Let’s describe what providence is not. Providence does not mean that we have no free will. God’s providence does not rule out human freedom. Providence is not opposed to cooperation with God. Providence does not mean we are “off the hook” or that we have no sense of responsibility when it comes to spiritual growth. Rather, we cooperate with God as we grow in our faith by practicing spiritual disciplines, or the “means of grace.”

So, what is providence?

Providence is at the heart of Christian theology. Christians throughout the ages, although there have been exceptions, have affirmed that God is not simply a clockmaker who put the universe into motion and has since left it unattended to its own ends. Rather, providence affirms that God is working behind the scenes, sometimes imperceptibly, but working nevertheless. Drawing on centuries of Christian understanding, the late theologian Thomas Oden defined providence as, “the expression of the divine will, power, and goodness through which the Creator preserves creatures, cooperates with what is coming to pass through their actions, and guides creatures in their long-range purposes.”^[1] Providence is both evidence of God’s love for his creation as well as his sovereignty.

John Wesley had strong convictions regarding God’s providence. With his both/and approach, Wesley shared great insights into the nature of God and into the life of the Christian disciple through the lens of providence. In his sermon, On Providence, Wesley urged, “There is scarce any doctrine in the whole compass of revelation, which is of deeper importance than this. And, at the same time, there is scarce any that is so little regarded, and perhaps so little understood.”^[2]

While Christian thinkers for centuries affirmed God’s omniscience and omnipresence, Wesley acknowledged that our limited human understanding has trouble grasping the concept of God’s providential nature. Wesley emphasized that we should be humbled by the fact that God, infinite in wisdom and power, is yet concerned with his creation’s wellbeing. Wesley pointed out that while with God all things are possible, “He that can do all things else cannot deny himself.”^[3] While it is within God’s power to destroy all sin and evil in the world, for instance, this would contradict God’s nature. Particularly, this would contradict the fact that humanity was created in God’s own image. However, Wesley clarified, this is where the providence of God enters into the equation. While God allows human beings to choose between good and evil, God’s providence is a work, “to assist man [sic] in attaining the end of his being, in working out his own salvation, so far as it can be done without compulsion, without over-ruling his liberty.” Wesley envisions God’s providence operating in a “three-fold circle” within creation.^[4]

First, Wesley observed, the whole universe is governed by God, including the movements of the sun, moon and stars as well as animal life. Beyond this governance, Wesley describes three circles of God’s providence. The first of the three circles encompasses all of humanity. Within this circle, God’s providence works in the world… The second circle includes “all that profess to believe in Christ.”^[5] Within this circle, God is at work… The final and innermost circle, encompasses, “real Christians, those that worship God, not in form only, but in spirit and in truth. Herein are comprised all that love God, or, at least, truly fear God and work righteousness; all in whom is the mind which was in Christ, and who walk as Christ also walked.”^[6] (Interestingly, Wesley argued that it is within this circle that Luke 12:7 is realized: “Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.”^[7] He commented, “Nothing relative to these is too great, nothing too little, for his attention.”^[8] While God is concerned for all of his creation, Wesley believed that the Lord gives special attention to those who are fully devoted followers of Jesus.)

Throughout his writings including his journal and letters, Wesley noted on many occasions the “train of providences” that God worked in particular situations. He often ascribes additional descriptive words like, “uncommon,” “various,” “wonderful,” and “whole” to further describe these instances in which Wesley observed the hand of God at work in the lives of Christians. He emphasized that while God has established general laws that govern the universe, God is free to, “make exceptions to them, whensoever he pleases.” ^[9] For Wesley, God’s care for creation and especially for human beings is not hindered by the laws of the universe.

In the conclusion of his sermon, Wesley encourages Christians to put their full trust in the Lord and to not fear. God’s providence means that we can trust him even when it seems that our world or the whole world is falling apart. He does not deny that we will face challenges and sorrows, but that we should walk humbly before God and trust that “God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”^[10] The Christian’s hope is in the Lord who not only governs the universe but also cares particularly for those who follow God. He knows the number of hairs on our heads. No detail escapes his attention. God’s providence gives us hope for both our present and our future. It’s not a matter of just saying that “everything happens for a reason,” for God is not the source of evil or chaos. However, we can trust that behind it all, God is at work. It does not mean that everything will go well for us, but it does mean that God is with us every step of the way. Perhaps that was the motivation of John Wesley on his deathbed when he uttered the words, “The best of all, God is with us.”^[11]

^[1] Oden, Thomas C. Classic Christianity: A Systematic Theology. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

^[2] John Wesley, “On Divine Providence” (1786), in The Works of John Wesley, ed. Thomas Jackson, 14 vols.,(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007), 6:315; hereafter cited as Works (Jackson).

^[3] Ibid. p. 317.

^[4] This idea is from Thomas Crane, A Prospect of Divine Providence which Wesley included in his Christian Library.

^[5] Ibid., p. 319

^[6] Ibid., p. 319

^[7] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).

^[8] Ibid., p. 320

^[9] Ibid., p. 322.

^[10]Romans 8:28. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).

^[11] Ken Collins, John Wesley: A Theological Journey, (Nashville, TN: Abindgon Press, 2003), p, 268.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ The Terrible Precipice of Knowing: Black Holes, Enlightenment, and the Divine

There is a moment you stand on the brink, or the brink stands on you. The inexorable draw pulls you in, like gravity, like the current; at the moment you must fight to get away or be drawn in forever, you are the most tempted to pause with quickened breath as you weigh whether the knowledge of what lies on the other side is worth the possibility of your own extinction – before you can say what it is you’ve seen.

“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.”

In the quest to see the truth, what if you are blinded? Is a blind woman happy who has lost her sight in order to bear witness to the Beatific vision? Would terrorist Saul have chosen blindness and disorientation to see Christ, or did Christ need to blind Saul temporarily so that he would perceive properly?

Today is an odd moment in human history; scientists have collaborated across continents, in multiple time zones, to set up equipment on the world’s mountains so that humanity can use plastic, metal, and glass tools that fit in your pocket or sit on your desk to communicate with each other almost instantaneously and see images of a black hole. Computing isn’t identical to information and information isn’t identical to knowledge, but today you can pull out a piece of equipment, use a high-powered search engine, type the words, “black hole photo,” and see the results of decades of hard work. Just 150 years ago people learned of the death of their loved one in the U.S. Civil War by checking the newspaper or receiving a letter from the dead person’s friend. It could take weeks, months. Now a mystery in our galaxy is viewable on the rechargeable machine in your pocket.

Black holes are mesmerizing, terrifying, and little understood. Using math, calculations, formulas, equations, scientists guess. What appears to be true is that, in a way, light itself can be sucked down the drain and condensed into a tiny, heavy ball with extraordinary gravitational pull. (Note: this is an inaccurate description of a complex reality by someone who is not a scientist.) What science fiction writers like to play with is the moment – the event horizon – in which light or matter (or a fictional character) can no longer escape the gravitational pull.

You still have time you still have time you still have time it’s too late.

Who can rescue you from knowledge that will be your undoing? No rescue craft can hover at the event horizon, lowering a rope to you.

How can knowledge burn but set you free? There is a knowing that singes you to breaking point, then propels you forward.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

Light, we are told, cannot escape the power of a black hole.

Perhaps not.

Or at least, perhaps not for a long, long time, until that condensed matter explodes outward – propelling, igniting, cascading.

Jesus swallowed up the darkness that appeared to swallow him. The darkness came close; the darkness thought that Jesus Christ stood on the event horizon, and fell in.

On this mountain he will destroy
    the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
    he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears
    from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
    from all the earth.
The Lord has spoken. – Isaiah 25:7-8

What is Holy Week about? It is about Jesus letting himself be drawn into a black hole. It is about the sky going dark, the earth shaking. It is about hours of eerie silence – hours and hours. It is about hope vanishing in the blink of an eye.

It is about a black hole quivering. It is about a black hole beginning to get smaller. It is about the Light of the World swallowing the heavy darkness with such inescapable draw that the darkness cannot escape. It is about the Light of the World entering a hole of black darkness and absorbing it from the inside.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Standing on the brink, looking into the abyss, Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate stood.

The inexorable draw pulls you in, like gravity, like the current; at the moment you must fight to get away or be drawn in forever, you are the most tempted to pause with quickened breath as you weigh whether the knowledge of what lies on the other side is worth the possibility of your own extinction – before you can say what it is you’ve seen.

What does it feel like to betray the Light? Judas held that knowledge. So too did Pilate. And it swallowed them whole as they were consumed by the ever-hungry darkness.

Standing on the brink, looking into the abyss, Mary the mother of James, Joanna, Mary Magdalene, and other women stood, peering into an open, empty, echoing tomb. Comprehension failed them. Lightning-colored beings shouted nearby from an eternity away. Fight or flight kicked in. Hope is deadly, and they did not want to die.

At the moment you must fight to get away or be drawn in forever, you are the most tempted to pause with quickened breath as you weigh whether the knowledge of what lies on the other side is worth the possibility of your own extinction.

Had Light escaped the darkness?

What does it feel like to witness the Light? Mary and Joanna held that knowledge. So too did Magdalene. And it swallowed them whole as they were consumed by the ever-lifegiving Light.

It is not the brink that is the problem; it is not the cliff’s edge, the event horizon; it’s whether you’re jumping into darkness or into Light. Holy Week brings us to the brink, reminds us of what it feels like to peer over the edge into humanity’s bent toward self-destruction, pushes us toward letting go of all safety railings as we free-fall into the Light of the World.

Featured image courtesy Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration/National Science Foundation.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Reveal

Note from the Editor: Enjoy this reflection on the Incarnation from our archives.

Revelation.

Not of the contents of a carefully wrapped box in your childhood home, hidden from view until enterprising siblings helped you spy out the contents (or were you one of the professional tape-peelers who could lift a flap of wrapping paper without leaving a trace?).

Not of a painful holiday discovery, realizing your daughter has an eating disorder or your sister has cancer or Uncle Joe isn’t who everyone thought he is.

Not of the extravagant new church cantata, rehearsed over months and performed under spotlights in matching robes to an audience in green and red.

Christmas is a revelation, one that trumps even North American preoccupation with the Book of Revelation and end times, because Christmas is Word-Made-Flesh and in him was life and light. And what we know about Christ’s second coming is always framed in what we know of Christ’s first coming, of who Christ is revealed to be through the incarnation, Emmanuel, God with us. We have seen the careful braiding of a whip in the temple, we have seen the mud smeared on a blind man’s eyes, we have seen the gentle drawing in the dirt as a woman shivers and shakes while her accusers drop their rocks, we have seen friends’ gush of tears as they demand, “if you had been here, our brother would not have died,” we have seen the crazed man stumbling naked among the tombs and sitting dressed and in his right mind, we have seen a piercing glance towards Simon’s eyes across a courtyard, we have seen the stumble and fall in blood and sweat and the Cyrene who carried Christ’s instrument of torture and death (what a strange brotherhood).

Who is God? Emmanuel, Word-Made-Flesh, Jesus Christ the fully divine, fully mortal. And the Book of Revelation is understood through Emmanuel, God with us, who makes all things new – new, say, as a newborn, fists tight, eyes blinking, with that delicious newborn smell and tiny tufts of hair.

Our world needs to be new again: reborn, pressed against the chest of its Creator. Do galaxies have a newborn smell? Do subatomic particles dance with the hard-to-predict movements of a newborn’s kicking legs? In the youth of the world, did the trees yawn the contented sigh of a just-nursed newborn?

The earth needs swaddling cloths. How can we be young again? Innocent like a newborn baby? How can we go back, before terrorism or Rwandan genocide or Vietnam or the Holocaust or Hiroshima or the Spanish flu or mustard gas or humans bought and sold or the plague or Mongolian war chiefs or the crusades or martyrs or Hebrew slaves in Egypt or Cain and Abel…how old and jaded the human race feels sometimes.

All things new: our world needs to be new again, but not by going back. We can’t be young again, returning to childhood, peeling tape away from the edge of Rudolph wrapping paper, Citizen Kane whispering, “Rosebud…” How can a man be born again? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time? “See, I am making all things new:”

See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”

What do we want for Christmas? A set of swaddling cloths for the world, newborn and blinking. Mercifully, we’ve gotten a peek at the cosmic birth narrative through the birth of Jesus Christ and the unveiling of the new birth of the cosmos in the Book of Revelation.

Meanwhile, enjoy your set of tiny jams or a crisp new pair of flannel pajamas with relished contentment, and let hope be born in your heart today.

Carolyn Moore ~ The Mystery and Glory of Communion with God

My sister, after years away from the faith, came home to Christ in the Lutheran church. The transition back into the church world, while it was welcomed, still had its moments. She’d dealt with a lot in her life and carried a lot of shame. As a Lutheran she took communion every Sunday but she noticed that communion just made her feel more guilty. She often thought as she’d go to the altar, “I’m not worthy.” But Lutherans take communion every week, so every week she had to deal with what it means to be invited to the table as a person with a past.

Then one Sunday, something shifted. She was at the railing to receive the elements, but the person with the wine was moving slowly so she’d gotten the wafer but had to hold it in her mouth while she waited for the wine. Kneeling there with that wafer melting in her mouth, a memory floated forward. It was a moment she’d had with our father when he was in his last days on earth. He was home with hospice care and she’d been with him for days but was about to go back home to another state. This was the last time she would see him alive and they both knew it. They told each other good-bye and she left crying but before she could get out of the driveway, someone waved her back into the house. Daddy had asked for her again. He wanted her to bring him two pieces of ice. My father hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for days so this was sort of an odd request. My sister went and got the ice and took it to him and he took one piece and told her to keep the other one. And he said, “Now, you go on home but when you leave I want you to put your piece of ice in your mouth and I’ll put my piece in my mouth.”

That was it. He didn’t say any more than that but as my sister left the house with that ice in her mouth, she said, “I knew exactly what he meant. He meant that even if we were separated, if we were doing the same thing at the same time then we were still connected.” So it seemed to my sister that her daddy was saying, “Here’s something tangible to hold on to, and when you do this I will meet you in this act.”

That whole memory came to my sister while she knelt there at the communion rail with the body of Christ melting into the roof of her mouth. “That’s when I got it,” she told me. “Because if I’m holding this in my mouth right now, then Jesus must be saying to me that he’s here and I’m here in the very same space. The real Jesus. I’m in his presence and he is in mine. He’s saying, ‘I’m not leaving you. It might look like I’m leaving, but I’m not leaving. This is not the end.’”

Ever since, my sister tells me, she revels in the opportunity to take communion. Because she so wants to see Jesus.

Read more from Rev. Carolyn Moore at www.artofholiness.com.

If It’s Not Okay, It’s Not the End

I have a practice of sending morning texts to my family members. Sometimes it’s a meme, or a photo from the past, or just a quick morning hello to start the day. As I’ve continued this practice, I’ve come across lots of memes and cartoons and other silly things that seem to not only flourish but multiply on the internet. One of my favorites is this: “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”

The joy of Christian faith is that the God who entered human history in Jesus of Nazareth, the God who is present in the here and now through the power of the Holy Spirit, that God will one day come in glory. In Jesus, God is telling us that everything will be okay in the end. No hurt is permanent, no sorrow is absolute, no loss lasts forever, no defeat is insurmountable. This joy is not a denial of the reality of suffering. If the life of Jesus tells us anything, it is that suffering, discouragement, disappointment, frustration, and even death, are very, very real. And yet, amidst that reality, Jesus shows us that the Kingdom of God will overcome it all. God’s love is so great, it will conquer all the world’s horrors. God’s love is so prodigious, no evil can possibly prevail against it. Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. Revelation 21:4 (NLT)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]