We do not know what is Wrong, because we do not know what is Right.

From a reading done in preparation for a weekend retreat:

"She longs for spiritual hygiene itself - and not just as a consolation prize when she cannot be rich and envied instead. She longs for other human beings: she wants to love them and to be loved by them. She hungers for social justice. She longs for nature, for its beauties and graces, for the sheer particularity of a squirrel with a nut. As we might expect, her longings dim from season to season. When they do, she longs to long again.

"She is a person of character consistency, a person who rings true wherever you tap her. She keeps promises. She weeps with those who weep and, perhaps more impressively, rejoices with those who rejoice. She does all these things in ways that express her own personality and culture but also a general "mind of Christ" that is cross-culturally unmistakable.

"Her motives include faith - a quiet confidence in God and in the mercies of God that radiate from the self-giving work of Jesus Christ. She knows God is good; she also feels assured that God is good to her. Her faith secures her against the ceaseless oscillations of pride and despair familiar to every human being who has taken refuge in the cave of her own being and tried there to bury all her insecurities under a mound of achievements. When her faith slips, she retains faith enough to believe that the Spirit of God, whose presence is her renewable resource, will one day secure her faith again."

~ Plantinga, Not the Way It's Supposed to Be; a breviary of sin.

Crazy Mirrors

     

     I've always thought that I knew what it meant to be made in the image of God, but my construct was shaken slightly during a discussion in my Readings in Classic Christian Spirituality class this past semester. One of my classmates kept pressing us to find a definition that can be applied to unborn babies and those with mental deficiencies. It was more difficult than I anticipated and I never reached an answer that I was satisfied with.

     Usually the definition that I use is that we, unlike the rest of creation, have the capacity to be creative, to plan and execute, to communicate at a high level, and to make choices, etc. But my classmate pressed me to apply those to an unborn baby. I argued that it is the capacity that delineates us from animals, but that seemed an insufficient explanation to both of us.

     Then over Christmas, my brother Jack (I believe it was him, I had a plethora of conversations with my siblings, so I can't be sure :P) and I began talking about mirroring the image of God. Comparing ourselves to a mirror is nothing new, of course. But what got me was that the reason we can reflect God is because we are spiritual beings, unlike the animals. In a way, it is about capacity. Yet we are separated from exercising this ability fully, like one of those crazy mirrors that skews the image drastically. . .the image is still there, but isn't accurate. The beauty of the gospel is that Christ once again made it possible for us to reflect God undistorted.

I later included in my customary written prayers:

The idea of the mirror as the image of God really changed my definition. That because we are the only spiritual beings here on earth, we are the only things capable of reflecting you. How marvelous!

     And it really is marvelous, isn't it? The implications are dazzlingly pervasive in the way we view each other and view ourselves. For instance, it is what allows me to acknowledge my strengths and those of others without usurping God of his glory – indeed, exactly the opposite!

~ ~ ~

     We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. 2 Cor 3:13-18

Another Death

     Have you faced death in its despicable, tattered glory? A shake of the head, a sympathetic shock. What you don't see is that death can only take pleasure in its anticipation, for the moment itself is so fleeting as to be completely disregarded. Death was the last piercing enemy of Christ, but he submitted death unto death, and it was left only as a shadow without sting for those who accept that it is consummately vanquished by the living God. I can speak of a physical death, of course. I have tasted the salty bitterness that preludes it and known the blessed rejoicing after death, when I see that unmarred life has finally begun. When my mother died I felt my loss far more keenly than my father's, but now looking back, what took my heart so long to understand was not her death, but the preceding eight years of real suffering that she had. Eight years of my own selfishness to regret. Eight years of never hearing a harsh word from her lips to later strike my foolish heart with bitter weeping. Eight years of clinging to my stale dreams, and alternately, either blind to the coming death or blinded by the fear of death. The first made my life shallow and fruitless, the second was so debilitating that I could not live at all.

     Think of it not as a stretching metaphor when I speak of the intimate parallels with spiritual death. I say spiritual death, but that too is physically expressed, not to mention emotionally and mentally. There are two deaths. The first is what we usually refer to as the spiritual death, in that we are separated from God, but there is another death of spiritual nature, as we ought to die to the sinful man so that we can live in Christ. But dying to the sinful man does not happen all at once, and the process of dying is terrible, as we cling tightly to what gives us pleasure and empty satisfaction. There is no room in the sinful man for God, only prideful self at the center. The dying man fights desperately for life; the man that has died is freed to finally live.

     Is this not what we want? To be free of the overwhelming desire to sin, to not have our internal self contradicting itself at every turn? I do not think that death comes all at once, but that we die to self every day. Christians speak of sacrifice, but I think it has unintentionally become a euphemism. Sacrifice means death, a terrible and bloody death at that. I remember when my brother Jack came back from a trip to Brazil and showed me a video of a young bull being beaten on the head until it fell unconscious long enough for the head to be hacked off with a machete. I was eleven at the time, but a gorge rose within me and my eyes frantically evaded the screen. Sacrifice means death.

     To live for Christ is to sacrifice our selfish desires at every choice and decision, and to no longer live for ourselves. Because of Christ, death – and here is the odd part – loses it potency, for once it occurs, it no longer has power over us. You know how when you are tempted, the desire to sin grows stronger and stronger, increasingly painful as what you know is right goes against wild desire. But if you make the choice to die to self in that moment, oh the glorious, glorious peace that comes in the same instant! It is the resurrection of our justified and sanctified self as God designed us to be – full of vision, creativity, wisdom and strength. We spend years clinging to our stale dreams, and alternately, either blind to the coming death or blinded by the fear of dying to our desires, as the proverbial young man that cries out to God “Make me chaste, but not yet!” The first makes our life shallow and fruitless, the second is so debilitating that we can not live at all.

~ ~ ~

     Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Col 3:5-10

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Cor 5:17

     Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. John 12:24-26

     Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. Col 2:20-23

Resurrect Me

It takes a long time to kill a man
Fifty-five years at least
Until he breaks down
Starts to look underground
And go off and get him some peace

I want to die a lot quicker than that
If it's my only way out
I've been counting up the cost
Getting up on that cross
Wanna know what this is all about

Father time
Steals our days
Like a thief
There's no Price
That I wouldn't pay
To get some relief
I've become
The empty shell
Of a man I like so well
I am a living, breathing hell
Come on and resurrect me

I tried to drown the pain with a friend of mine
It didn't seem to help
Oh, she's got a pretty face with a wedding lace
But I'm still waking up with myself

I know what it means to choke it down
Driving 'til your legs get weak
I know what it's like on a Saturday night
To be alone in a crowded street

Father time
Steals our days
Like a thief
There's no Price
That I haven't paid
To get some relief
I've become
The shell of a man
I can't begin to even understand
Have I forgotten who I am?
Come on and resurrect me
Resurrect me

~ Jon Foreman