GOOD FRIDAY

April 19, 2019

Back in 2015, I discovered Sufjan Stevens’ marvelous music.  “Abraham” moved me deeply. The simple music played on acoustic guitar accompanying spare and fine, almost stark, lyrics is surely mystical.

  • Abraham
  • Was a righteous one
  • Take up on the wood
  • Put it on your son
  • Take a lamb
  • There is none to harm
  • When the angel came
  • You had raised your arm
  • Abraham
  • Put off on your son
  • Take instead the ram
  • Until Jesus comes

The type is Isaac, bound with the killing thrust poised in Abraham’s hand.  The antitype is Jesus, nailed to a cross with the killing nails. Slow, inch by inch, life leaked from Jesus’ hands.  The angel stayed Isaac’s execution.  Not so, Jesus.   What God did not ultimately demand of Abraham, He did demand of Himself.

On that Friday of death, contradiction morphed into paradox:  Good Friday.

In hope, in spite of the facts.  John

Lent IV

“It’s snakes, why does it have to be snakes?” Indiana Jones

It is a true saying and worthy of all people to be received, that When 2 or 3 are gathered together, someone is always complaining

The Brazen Serpent - James Tissot

The Brazen Serpent – James Tissot

The children of Israel (note they were never called the adults of Israel) are complaining about, you guessed it, the food. They got really personal about it too, doubting God and sassing Moses.

So they certainly had it coming when the serpents slivered into camp with their names written on them. Naturally, they came running for help, given the bite of consequences. They never seemed to “get it” or at least the crowd that exited Egypt never got it. That is why only two of that generation made it to the Promised Land. It took wandering in circles for forty years for them to die off. Their children were a hardier lot.

Hold that thought.

Seeing the cross coming and going and coming again.

28-serpentJesus seeing his passion coming picked the story of the serpent on the pole as a metaphor for his coming death. This is called the type. However, this is a type only because what Jesus saw the striking similarity of the upward movement of the serpent on a pole and his body on a cross.

This is called the Antitype. After Good Friday, the disciples saw the connection and realized that the incarnation (Jesus coming as a man) reflecting back and forth.

Over time, they realized the New Testament as it developed, was concealed in the Old Testament and the Old Testament was revealed in the New Testament.

This is reading
• “forward (New Testament)
• backward (Old Testament)
• forward” (New Testament again with greater insight.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Let’s examine two words that are often misunderstood.

  • Believe
    Belief is not an affirmation of facts and data.
    Belief here is internalizing the truth perceived, evidenced by the reordering of our loves.
  • Eternal Life
    Eternal life is not endless chronology. An old movie device for the passage of time was a calendar with leaves for each day set upon by a fan. The days flipped by and then moving faster and faster, years and decades. Calendar leaves blown by gale force winds in perpetuity is not eternal life.

Eternal life is the quality of time, transcending the clock.

As Robert Capon once put it, “Clock time is, “what time is it?” Eternal-life time is, “high time, what it time for is?”

The eternal is the quality of reality outside time and space. Since we have never been outside either, we cannot conceive it (yet).

Some people are incapable of going to hell, because they are living there already in this present time. In the same way, eternal life begins now.

Take heart. God is not like us!

Moses did not hoist the serpent in the wilderness to taunt the Children of Israel with the image of the punishment they had earned by doubting God and sassing Moses. That is not how God works. Moses, not being God, was tempted to go that route a few times, but was, to his credit, mostly restrained. The serpentine image was a sign of and a source of healing and salvation. All this when the Children of Israel clearly had it coming.

Raising the Cross - James Tissot

Raising the Cross – James Tissot

Jesus was not lifted up to shame or pronounce judgment on the sinful and uninformed there that Passover. No, so that everyone who accepts the improbable good news of saving from the pandemic of sin, always fatal. Bizarre as it seems it makes perfect sense with the mind of faith. Don’t just do something today, stand there. Gaze upon the inoculation from death.

Is this not wondrous, O my soul? Is this not wondrous, beloved to your soul?

How then should we live?

Salvation is the free gift of God to sinners; in Christ, man is given union with God even though he crucifies it. We are saved through faith in this gift, and through gratitude for it perform good works. Alan Watts – Behold the Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion (p. 198).

In this post-Christendom where we find ourselves, we no longer have the luxury of an unexamined and lazy spirituality. Now, we simply must know better. That being the case, let us live like it, being in constant prayer. What is ours in Christ Jesus is a gift. But finally it is a gift we must act on and live in. Lent will soon end. Easter is coming. When Saint Paul exhorts us to live in the power of the resurrection, it is not just a metaphor for moral living Life. Saint Paul means it literally. In this, we must be literalists!

Remember, Easter is coming. Amen

The Origin & Healing of Sin

Abel and Cain offer their sacrifice to God

Abel and Cain offer their sacrifice to God

Prudentius(1) in a work entitled The Origin of Sin demonstrates the Type – Antitype(2) Structure of Christian Biblical interpretation. He shows this through the story the murder of Abel by his brother Cain enraged that Abel’s sacrifice was acceptable to God and his was not.

Then a brother in jealousy of the goodness that was accepted arms his hand to commit parricide, and breaks his own brother’s neck with his bent hoe, staining the new-made world with unnatural bloodshed, a world to be purified late in time when it was already growing old, by the sacred blood of Christ whereby the destroyer fell.  Death first began with he wounding of one that was innocent, and passed away by the wounding of one that was innocent, and passed away by the wounding of one that was guiltless. Through sin it arose, by sin it was done away, in that afortime it smote Abel, and then Christ; it was itself  brought to an end in aiming at one who is without end.

The Origin of Sin: Prudentius
The Origin of Sin: Prudentius

The Type/Antitype typology speaks to the criticism that says the God of the Old and New Testaments are not the same God.  The old one is vengeful and the new one is don’t worry be happy.  This is really grossly over-simplified as the Hebrew Scriptures are full of the loving kindness and never failing mercy of God. While the Book of Revelation for one in the New Testament has plenty of judgement (thank you very much).

For me at least,  I see the difference as not about God’s character at all but rather about the development stage of humanity.  There is a story I remember reading about John Wesley (where I have no idea) who went to the mines preaching grace and the miners paid him no mind.  The next day he returned, this time preaching hell-fire and judgment.  That day they heard him.

The structure of Type & Antitype display the essential and deep harmony of the entire sweep of the Bible.  It is one story. The murder of Abel is the murder of our brother and the failure of Cain is the failure of our brother.  When that becomes true we will be a long way toward understanding the amazing grace of God’s steadfast love demonstrated in the saving acts of God in history.

ivory panel cain(1)Aurelius Prudentius Clemens was a Roman Christian poet, born in the Roman province of Tarraconensis in 348. He probably died in the Iberian Peninsula some time after 405, possibly around 413. Wikipedia

 (2)Type – Antitype
1. One that is foreshadowed by or identified with an earlier symbol or type, such as a figure in the New Testament who has a counterpart in the Old Testament.
2. An opposite or contrasting type.  Free Dictionary

Between the Rock and the Holy Place

The World's deadlist road  Himachal Pradesh India

The World’s deadlist road Himachal Pradesh India

One of the strangest and to my mind most disturbing sayings of Jesus is in Matthew 21:44.  It occurs after of parable of conflict with the Jewish religious establishment.  Jesus said,

“The very stone with the builders rejected has become the head of the corner?  Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; but when it falls on anyone it will crush them.”

 What does this mean?  I can’t be certain of all it means but I believe that these remarks of Jesus point to the root of the conflict between Jesus and the Jewish religious community especially the Pharisees.  “This is also the issue between Paul and his Jewish opponents. It is a sort of which came first the chicken or egg question.

 According to Jesus and Paul it was the gift of God’s presence that made a good life possible rather than if you live a good life God will be present as a reward for your goodness. The challenge of Jesus was this: obedience does not lead to God, rather God’s love leads to obedience. This is the reverse of what was happening in 1st Century Judaism.  Christianity is not immune from the tendency to think we should or could EARN God’s love.

Jesus & Pharisees - James Tissot

Jesus & Pharisees – James Tissot

The deepest longing of the Jewish people was for the Messiah to come and bring the Kingdom of God.  The Pharisees who have a bad reputation among Christians were really a renewal movement among Jews.  They longed for the Kingdom and Messiah.  Further they were proactive and decided to do their part to make it happen.  They believed that if everyone followed the law that Messiah would come.  They pushed not just the 10 commandments, but all the rules and interpretation of the law.

TAKE IT FURTHER!

They wanted the ritual purity of the priests in the temple – to be normative for all Jews in all parts of their lives.  They were deeply motivated to keep the law and hostile to those not so  inspired because the laxness of some prevented the coming of Messiah.

 Now Jesus tells them that they had it all wrong.  Being good and getting your ticket punched will not bring God’s presence; rather God’s presence enables goodness.  Keeping all the laws won’t bring Messiah – Messiah will come when he chooses and furthermore here he is: the stone, which the builders rejected, has become the keystone of the arch.

 The Jews have a saying:

“If a jar falls on a rock, woe be to the jar.
If a rock falls on a jar, woe be to the jar.
Either way, woe be to the jar!”

God will being in his reign of peace, the Kingdom in his way, on his terms, not because we hold our mouths just so and wish real hard, keeping all the rules and getting our tickets punched.  When the Pharisees and others thought keeping the law would produce God’s presence they were forgetting their own history.

  1.  Abraham didn’t go to Canaan looking for God. God lead him there.
  2. Jacob fled his home to escape his brother Esau, whose blessing he had stolen.  As he slept God came looking for him so that Jacob awoke and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.”
  3. Moses did not set fire to the bush – the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob came looking for him
  4. The prophet Isaiah reminds the children of Israel (and us) that it is God that makes a way in the sea, who does a NEW THING, waters in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.
  5. Paul writes in his letter to the Christians in Philippi that he presses on to reach the goal of participating in the resurrection of Christ from the dead.  “…but I press on to make my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”
  6. In the reading from Matthew, Jesus tells the story of the wicked tenants, who refused to recognize the heir of the vineyard’s owner when he came to receive what, belonged to the owner.  The vineyard was a common symbol of Israel.  The scribes and chief priests understood the story as a critique of their leadership of Israel.

The irony is that Messiah had come.  The very one that their hearts most longed for had come and they didn’t recognize him because he had not come on their terms [they weren’t good enough yet] but on his father’s terms.  That’s really tragic.

It’s sort of like the old couple who began dating after their spouses died.  They spent a lot of time together and one day as they sat on the porch he leaned over and whispered, “Let’s get married.”  She laughed and said, “It’s a great idea but who would have us?”

 We will encounter the rock, the stone rejected by the builders, whether we recognize him or not.  We will finally encounter the reality that we can’t make it on our own.  We may live in denial and avoid it for as long as humanly possible but eventually the jar and the rock will collide.

Most of us talk about grace but we really prefer to earn our way.  We believe that our goodness brings God’s presence when God’s presence brings whatever goodness we display.  Salvation finally is a gift, if we are to be saved.  I at no other time at death we will finally admit/submit to power beyond us – the jar and the rock will collide.  Fortunately that reality is a God who is generous and wants the best for us.

 We do not have to wait to the end.  We can choose to embrace the reality that God’s presence is a gift now!  “If you fall on the stone you will be broken to pieces but if the stone falls on anyone it crush them.”  I submit that it is better for God to pick up the pieces of our ego and rework them than to be pulverized.  We can cooperate with our salvation or we can resist it.  It is up to us.

The Shakers have a hymn that sums this up, “I will bow and be simple, I will bow and be free, I will bow and be humble (bow like the willow tree).  I will bow this is the token I will wear the easy yoke.  I will bow and be broken, Yea, I’ll fall upon the rock!”

Let us then fall upon the rock – For indeed – brothers and sister it is the rock of our salvation.      Amen.

The Rock of Our Salvation

The Rock of Our Salvation

In the end he is its sole object

Sir Ralph Spencer , Last Supper

Sir Ralph Spencer , Last Supper

 After Pentecost the followers of Jesus began working to make sense of what had happened to them, the only holy text was what we call the Old Testament. They then began to read the Hebrew text looking for Jesus. They found him on almost every page. Some followers of Jesus have ignored, discounted or almost abandoned the Old Testament seeing it redundant. This of course is not the case at all. As Cardinal de Lubac (post before this one) puts it, “Everything in it (Scripture) is related to him (Jesus). In the end he is its sole object.”

This thinking has exploded my notion of how Holy Writ. It is all organically connected as living things always are if they are truly living. We will encounter the Holy One of God in all sorts of places if we look, thus the deliverance of the Children through the waters of the Red Sea from slavery in Egypt points toward and is fulfilled (filled full) those who believe saved from bondage of sin through the waters of baptism. This is called type and antitype.

 I begin vacation next week for the month of August. In September 1st I begin a three month sabbatical. During this time I will continue to post as I think out loud about faith and practice. I will also chronicle my trip to the north of England from September 3rd until October 18th. If you have questions send them my way.

JWS

On Loving God – Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

‘He spake the word, and they were made’ (Ps. 148.5). But to redeem that creation which sprang into being at His word, how much He spake, what wonders He wrought, what hardships He endured, what shames He suffered! Therefore what reward shall I give unto the Lord for all the benefits which He hath done unto me? In the first creation He gave me myself; but in His new creation He gave me Himself, and by that gift restored to me the self that I had lost. Created first and then restored, I owe Him myself twice over in return for myself. But what have I to offer Him for the gift of Himself? Could I multiply myself a thousand-fold and then give Him all, what would that be in comparison with God?

St. Bernard of Clairvaux (2009-06-11). On Loving God – Enhanced Version (Kindle Locations 287-292). Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Kindle Edition.

Continue reading