Father, Not My Will But Thine

 

 

 

A few years ago, I was privileged to see the movie “The Passion of the Christ,” produced and directed by Mel Gibson and starring actor Jim Caviezel in the role of Jesus Christ. More recently, I learned that Gibson will produce and direct a sequel entitled “The Resurrection of the Christ.” Caviezel will not play the role of Christ and was replaced with another actor.

As for my first experience with “The Passion of the Christ,” I remember being stunned by the severity of the initial punishments inflicted on Jesus in the form of flagellation and having to wear a crown fashioned out of the branches of a thorn bush. The biblical accounts of his sufferings are very basically described, leaving much to our own imaginations. But I distinctly recall how, as I watched these scenes in the movie, I sensed that an ordinary man would not have been able to withstand such extreme and cruel torture and live long enough to be crucified. Bible scholars have claimed that many criminals indeed died before ever attaining the final horrifying death, and I remember thinking how only a man with divine strength could survive it.

I also came away from the film impressed that the character of Satan had been depicted very differently from how the Devil is often portrayed as a fire-breathing entity with horns and physically repulsive in every way. Gibson, however, chose to cast Satan as a hauntingly beautiful being with a very strong sensual appeal.

As Jesus is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before his crucifixion, Satan approaches him and tempts him to renege by saying “no human has ever been able to bear the sins of the entire world,” a type of temptation to convince Jesus that it simply won’t be doable. As the Gospels tell it, Jesus does ask his father to “take the cup” from him, but then quickly adds “Yet thy will, not mine, be done.” Satan’s character exhibits the same type of seductive behavior with which we can imagine him tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden, as a supernatural being appealing to look upon and equally hard to resist.

As I’ve studied the Holy Bible and other Christian writings, I’ve found many statements that vouch for how deeply God loathes evil and sin, to the point where He is not even capable of looking upon it. This motif lies at the heart of the reason why “no one has ever seen God and lived.” As humans who inherited the “sin gene” from the first parents, we are not capable of looking at such pure goodness, for our minds would not be able to absorb it. Even Moses, in whom God placed his trust to the lead the Israelites out of Egypt, had to approach God from inside a crevice in the rock, from behind or hidden in a burning bush or pillar of cloud.

As I continued to watch, Caviezel skillfully depicted Jesus’ intense and extreme personal anguish in anticipation of what he knew would be a terrible experience; for he knew how, even as a member of the Godhead himself, taking on the sin of the entire world for all time would effectively cut him off completely from the Father. Hence, his profound statement from the cross “Abba (Father), why hast thou forsaken me?”

Up till now, I, along with so many others, have wondered why those would be among some of Jesus’ final words, an unmistakable and raw admission that God had indeed abandoned him as something that had become too abhorrent to look upon. Only upon death was Jesus reunited with the Father, much as he made it possible for us to once again approach God to develop a personal relationship with him. The tearing of the temple veil illustrated how, up until that point, God was unapproachable due to our own sinfulness, which was resolved once and for all at the cross.

It bears remembering that, among the eons’ worth of sins Jesus had to carry with him to the grave were ages of unspeakable horrors that are too numerous to list here. Human beings are capable of some very terrible things that have the power to cut us off instantly from God. When I consider the sum and total of all that blackness entering and defiling the body of Jesus, it is little wonder that he suffered so much purely out of his love for us, which is so vast as to be “beyond knowledge,” according to Paul in his letter to the Ephesians.

To thank Jesus for his enormous sacrifice seems grossly insufficient, the words “thank you” merely two phonemes that I could say to anyone who has done me a kindness. What words to use for Jesus' inhuman suffering and sacrifice? The answer is clear: instead of using words, show him how grateful I am by following the admonition he gently gave the prostitute when he saved her from death by stoning: “Go and sin no more.”

That I can do.

 

Born of Joy: A New Song to the Lord

 

 

Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.– Psalm 96:1

The internet can be a boon or the proverbial can of worms. For every video or reel that is entertaining and/or informative, there are usually 10 or more that aren’t worth anyone’s time. I think we’ve all fallen prey to those videos that seem to be interesting at the outset but that quickly make you regret clicking on them. It doesn’t take long to realize that, while not all the comments on a video or reel are flattering, its creators couldn’t care less about that. A click is a click, good or bad, positive or negative. The more clicks, the more lucrative posting videos becomes. You also quickly find out that even the 10 seconds you spend on them generates validation, and that’s what the creators want.

Unless you want to spend time researching videos and organizing them into categories or subscriptions, you tend to come upon the good ones randomly. Some of the better reels now open into full-blown videos that range in run time from 5 to sometimes 20 minutes. Depending on their content, and whether it’s something that interests me or not, determines if I’ll stay with them to the end. If I’m pressed for time and really want to see the entire thing, I pause it and save it to return to later.

Recently, I came upon a YouTube page that featured reels and videos of varying lengths and depicting the spiritual practices that go on in the congregations and churches of other countries and other cultures where the settings are more primitive and not nearly as ornate and structured as I’ve been used to seeing all my life. Having grown up in a faith that was highly ritualized in its approach, I decided to explore what it was like to attend a service simply put together with the sparest of accouterments.

The service was a mass being conducted outside somewhere in Africa. There was no seating other than a rudimentary plastic lawn chair for the priest, a small table adorned with a pair of candles, a small book stand for the missal, and a few other items that he would need for the ceremony. Meanwhile, the congregation stood along one side of the small cleared space in front of a hut. Already, they were singing, clapping, lifting their voices to God in their own unique style of chanting broken occasionally with high-pitched wails and prolonged joyful cries.

At one point, a man started walking among the congregants, carrying a large green bucket, in which people were depositing their tithes, offerings, or donations. All the while, the priest was arranging his altar, preparing to begin the mass. He emerged from the hut carrying a paten and a chalice, items used during the Eucharistic consecration of the bread and wine, including the necessary covering for the chalice and a plain white folded cloth. The reel was short and did not proceed through the entire mass. But I saw and heard enough to be deeply moved by the passion demonstrated by the congregants, most dressed in brightly colored dresses, turbans and sashes.

How different this was from the stylized ceremony I have participated in often in the past. Unlike the bland and lackluster repetitions of prayers, homilies and responses used at masses in developed countries, these people exuded a joy that I have never seen anywhere in any church setting. Oh, there is the usual brand of fellowship before and after the service or mass, and the sentiments paid to the priest or minister on the way out. But I’ve never witnessed this type of intense and unabashed jubilation to honor God.

The congregation in this video not only felt genuine joy, but they acted it out in their song, their clapping, and their high-pitched trills. I imagined God looking down with a smile, glorying in the simple type of faith that Jesus spoke of when he said “Unless you become like one of these little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”~Matthew 18:3

We’ve all seen small children at birthday parties when it’s time to sing “Happy Birthday,” and the glee and enthusiasm they all demonstrate. This innocent shameless display of joy is one of the reasons that childhood is such a grand time for most of us, one never to be repeated in our adult lifetimes. Even in bad situations where a child’s life is not ideal, there still persists a basic joy in children that they celebrate, albeit inwardly and unbeknownst to them, a joy to simply be alive, a joy that is felt over the least little thing.

This is what I felt as I watched and listened to these men and women in a hot dusty jungle clearing: the sheer joy of honoring and celebrating the presence and power of God in their lives. No ornate surroundings or expensive gilded artifacts, no cushioned kneelers or stained-glass windows...just joy, reflected in their attire, their attitude, their exuberance...the joy of God’s children, their chants and trills bursting forth for all the world to hear.

 

Nature: God's Power, Wisdom, and Love Made Visible

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.~Romans 1:20

As long as I could walk and pick a dandelion to give to my mother, I have had a love affair with Nature. And I never wondered at the name or questioned its source. I just simply called it by how I knew it: Nature.

Only recently, from a diligent reading of the Holy Bible, did I come to realize why it is called that. All that we see around us, from the tiniest thing that creeps and outward into the entire cosmos is a clear reflection of who and what God is and why Nature is so valued, precious, and even sacred.

When we talk about “human nature,” we immediately imagine the different things that all people are capable of, what we think, how we act, how we speak, how we react to sensory input and to the varied experiences that make up a life. When we narrow it down to a particular individual’s characteristics, it is what we think of as what makes that person different from every other in the universe. Those characteristics eventually assume a recognizable pattern by which we come to know that person and that we call their nature.

The same applies to God, only on a much more vast and exclusive level. Nature, what we call all that we see around us that was not produced or created by human hands, reflects who God is on every level, from the calmness of a sea in good weather to its wrath during a powerful storm. Beauty that leaves us breathless is just a prefiguring of the beauty that is God, but that we, with our finite human minds and the limited scope of our emotional capabilities, are not capable of taking in.

“But He added, ‘You cannot see My face, for no one can see Me and live.’ ”~Exodus 33:20

At some point in our lives, I think it’s safe to say that we’ve all seen something that literally left us speechless. And for those of us who haven’t traveled much, the digital age has provided us with opportunities to see many wonders in photos, videos, movies and television nature documentaries. So we all have some idea of the inestimable extent of the wonders that adorn, not only our planet, but also the night sky.

Those with a more discerning eye also sometimes notice the much smaller wonders that most people miss in their busy lives, the small, yet highly significant processes that go on unnoticed but that keep the cycle of life going...bees and butterflies harvesting nectar, going from flower to flower gathering pollen as with which others will eventually be fertilized...bluebirds flying to and from a secretive spot, carrying materials for a nest, and ants moving in a steady rhythm as they build a mound or carry food to their young. The possibilities of spotting something miraculous are limitless, and none of us could even live long enough to explore them all.

One of the ways in which I’ve always felt the Lord’s presence more intensely happens any time I step from our big busy and bustling world onto a woodland path or an opening in a neglected patch of land or field. As I slowly make my way more deeply into the woods or into the field, leaving human noise and chaos behind as I go, the air itself becomes imbued with a sacredness that I never feel “out there.” In the woods, I find that life’s cares fall away from me, including my self-consciousness and visibility. I start to feel as one with my surroundings, less observed, less significant, less concerned with anything beyond what I can actually see close by. The sense of peace and serenity is so complete that I know I am in a very special place and a sacred moment: in the presence of the One who put this all here for my pleasure and to give me a small taste of what it will be to stand before Him one day.

The Prodigal Daughter’s Return

I will forever be amazed that, after such a long absence from the Lord, He welcomed me back so readily and so lovingly into His large family of believers. At one point, I’d decided that, if He had indeed equipped me with all that I needed in the form of intelligence and common sense, I could set off totally on my own without His help. I had a number of reasons for doing this, not the least of which was that I’d be insulting God by not living up to His expectations of me as a smart person who used those smarts to the best advantage, that the wisdom he’d instilled in me would not only be enough to get me through life, but would also please Him and bring Him glory. Truth is, I was thinking selfishly at the time, and pleasing God was really the last thing on my mind. It just seemed to me the best way to proceed without acknowledging my need for Him.

After all, I hadn’t been given much in the way of instruction by all those adults who led me through my first 20 years of life. They had passed on a basic set of rules and very little doctrine, and I was essentially booted out of the nest with little explanation and expected to thrive and be a good Christian all my life. The way I saw it, as long as I did what I’d been taught, which amounted to not much more than imitating what I saw the adults around me doing, I’d be just fine. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that a child needs so much more than visuals and imitation to develop a deep love for God.

I vacillated for years between practicing my faith and ignoring it, and that was mostly out of a sense of loyalty to my parents, which I can see now was the wrong approach. Turning to God should never be about keeping someone else happy, but about willingly and joyfully agreeing to a life that doesn’t let HIM down.

As time went on, and I returned to my hedonistic ways, I finally came to the next most important excuse I had for keeping my distance from the Lord, which was that I did not believe that I deserved to be numbered among the many who’d been saved by simply repenting of their sinful lives and believing in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. My sins were too great to be forgiven, and my soul too blackened for me to ever even consider my name being entered into the Book of Life.

At the time, I was going to a church of a completely different denomination, and for all the wrong reasons, of which I was later to be ashamed. Time and circumstances eventually intervened, and when the pandemic hit and many churches were stopping their weekly services, I dropped out with great relief. I’d overstayed my welcome in that church, my original reasons for going no longer applied, and this would be the perfect time to do some soul-searching.

Many more years would pass before I was to start feeling like there was something missing in my life. And as so often is the case with me, I came upon the realization quite by accident. Now, I’ve read the Holy Bible several times from beginning to end, always getting more out of some parts of it than others. Then one day, I decided to do an internet search for any free courses that might help me get a better grip on the more obtuse passages. I found a few sites almost right away that sounded doable, so I entered the required contact information, hit “send” and waited for the first lessons to arrive.

When they did and I’d completed one or two initial lessons, I realized that Bible studies are geared to the belief system of whoever created the courses, with a subtle (or not-so-subtle) invitation to join their fellowship. I decided that I would stick to my original intention of expanding my knowledge of the Bible with no nod to any particular theology and created my own simple system that was based entirely on a single Bible verse: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that those who believe in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. It is actually one of the very few passages that I’ve been able to memorize, and it has become my mantra.

Despite the Bible being comprised of 66 books and thousands of words, anything apart from this verse simply supports God’s singular plan of reclaiming us as His own. And every single one of those words, beginning with the first line in Genesis to the final words in Revelation, is a stone in the path that leads directly to what happened on the cross 2,000 years ago. I also found that I can open the Bible to any two pages, no matter how far apart and distinct from each other they are. And somehow, their essence will flow into each other and back again. The entire test is a living pulsing entity, whose circulatory system keeps its basic message moving all the time. And no matter how often I reread certain books or passages, it always seems like I am reading them (again) for the first time.

Few people would argue that, after a long and tiring trip, it’s always good to get home again. Although I haven’t traveled much, my life has been a journey whose pathways have crossed and recrossed countless times, only to bring me back to where I started, each time with a few more stories to tell and not all of them inspiring. But despite that, there was a lesson in each one, if only to impress upon me the fact that they were events I would not want to relive or repeat.

At some point, I have no idea when, as most of the momentous decisions I’ve made along the way just sort of crept up on me, like a tiny ocean wave, growing a bit stronger with each attempt up the beach; but it was time to go home. I felt how the prodigal son must have felt as he wondered if he’d even be welcomed and forgiven, once he got there, but it was a chance I had to take, and at my age, my last one really.

So I took it, and I’m happy to say “It’s good to be home!”

From All that Has Been Made: Knowing Nature, Knowing God

 

 

 

 

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” – Romans 1:20

The word “pantheism” refers to a belief system that places God in all of nature, thereby compelling believers to identify different forms of life as God’s actual physical presence. In other words, the essence of God is present in the trees, the birds, the grass, the sea, wild animals and so forth.

Based on several passages found in the Bible, this thinking is inaccurate. The standard Christian belief is that God is greater than his entire creation, and it is mainly a reflection of his character. Thus, it is a mistake to place God’s spirit in all that we see in nature, because he is much greater than the sum and total of his entire creation.

In the book of Genesis, after God had created the earth and everything on it and above it, Satan, furious with God for having thrown him out of heaven, decided to try to tempt the first two humans away from their Maker. To carry out his evil plan, Satan took the form of a snake and was able to convince the humans that his plan was much more preferable to God’s. So with that said, it is entirely possible that God, if he so chooses, can take the form of any species of animal he chooses. As Lord and Master of all he created, he certainly has that right as well as the ability if the need should ever arise.

But Scripture has made it very clear that God has chosen to remain apart from his creation, even going so far as to put everything on earth under the dominion of humans. Ideally, humans were to “increase and multiply” and fill the whole earth, using its fruit for their sustenance and being ever grateful to God for all his blessings. After the temptation and fall, all that changed. God cast them out of the garden he had created for them and opened the door to all the forces of “good and evil” that had been unleashed through their agreeing with Satan’s deception.

To this day, however, all of nature, apart from humans, has remained miraculously off-limits to Satan and his evil. Aside from the damage that our intervention has perpetrated on the planet, nature continues to be the one realm where things still pretty much go on as God intended them to. It’s one of the blessings that I thank God for every single time I bow to him in prayer.

During a recent time of prayer, I remembered, as always, to thank God for his creation and for the gifts he has given us to enjoy with all our senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Nature has something to offer to any, most, or all of these five senses, from the sight of misty mountains or choppy seas, the sound of birds or thunder, the soft feel of an animal’s fur, the sweetness of wild raspberries or maple syrup, and the smell of pine trees in a forest or a blossoming hyacinth. Every single living thing in nature reaches us through at least one, if not all the senses, reflecting the fact that God himself also possesses these senses; and we, in turn, were blessed with them because God created us in “his image,” so we wouldn’t be complete without them.

While meditating, I always look out the window at the woodlot behind this building. Right now, with all the deciduous trees bare and the ground covered in snow, there isn’t much color. But on sunny days, there is a special beauty to the spot in the shadows cast by the individual trees across the forest’s white floor, and how those shadows shift as the day moves toward evening.

Once again, I praised God for all his amazing gifts and blessings, and added the words “for the great art gallery that is your creation.” Because that is exactly what it is: a vast global collection of all God’s works, not a one of which has not been depicted in some form or other by various artists during human history. Even in urban settings, where buildings, highways, subway trestles and shopping malls mar the view, there is something natural to see for those who are observant and who look for the little things. Again, somewhere and at some point in time, even the tiniest detail has been captured in the mind and eye of someone who was able to replicate it in order to, if nothing else, preserve its memory. So in essence, God created the myriad of originals that have come down to us, not only in their true and natural forms but also through the interpretation and vision of the world’s painters, sculptors, and photographers.

For nature is the last bastion between us and a world that is growing ever darker and more troubling each day. While news outlets bombard us every second with new worries and concerns, life goes on in woodlands and oceans, on hills and in valleys, their gentle reality far removed from the chaos that is life as we now know it...where the thousands of species of plant and animal life go about their business, free of the evil that robs us of our own peace and serenity.

When it threatens to derail me and drag me from my spiritual journey, all I need do is look out my window for a soul-saving glimpse of one of God’s many gifts, that never fails to renew my spirit and reinstate my hope and the assurance that, no matter how bleak things seem to be, he is always with me, his rod and staff sustaining me.

The Never-Ending Story That is God's Word

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It occurred to me awhile back that at least a few people I know are wondering why, all of a sudden, I’m spouting Christian dogma and platitudes, when, at one time, it was quite the opposite. During the last half-century or so, I’ve run the gamut of believing but not understanding what I was believing to doubting and questioning, then back to believing, though I still didn’t understand why. I made the decision at that particular time that, even if I did believe, I was not worthy to trouble God for anything, let alone a request for more clarity and enlightenment.

This last time around, I decided it was time to find out why I thought certain things were so and I made a vow to do all I could possibly think of to increase in a faith that I had neglected for far too long. It was time for me to drag that pan of faith from the back of the stove where it had just stayed warm onto an active burner that would set it to boiling. And it hasn’t stopped since, nor have I moved that kettle of faith back to where it simmered for so long.

In a previous blog, I described how, as a child growing up in a more specific and ritualistic denomination, wherein I was told what to do, when to do it, what to say, and when to say it. But the list of DO NOT DO’S was much longer, and it was in its shadow that I, and many other children of that era, lived for a large part of our lives. In time, some of us left that faith altogether, while others continued to practice for reasons known only to them. Of those who left to try on different spiritual hats, the reasons they cited almost always dealt with a feeling of oppression and the specter of guilt ever lurking in their minds.

I remember that guilt well, but I can honestly say that it never felt oppressive. My big problem was that I wanted to know WHY I’d been raised that way, in the form of some sort of explanation as to who God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit were and why it was so important to worship them and maintain an eternal allegiance to them. Still, I’d get the same answers every time: it’s one of God’s mysteries, or, the priests will explain it to us, or, we just have to say our prayers and believe. And there again was the rub: believe what and why?

Which is the reason I embarked on this latest journey of spiritual discovery, enhancement, and clarification of all the truths inherent to what I already knew and sort-of believed to all that is contained in the Holy Bible. I’ve gone from not understanding any of it to actively seeking clarification and explication of many of the more difficult passages that all focus on one main event in every Christian’s belief system: the death of Jesus Christ on the cross where he paid the ransom for our sins and reconciled us to the Father for all time.

At this late date, I doubt I’ll have time to become a Biblical expert. But one thing I’ve learned is that this book is not merely two covers between which exist hundreds of pages of history, all of which points ultimately to the Cross. It is a living active thing. It is God speaking to us TODAY. And the more of it I read, the more I want to read. And despite the fact that I’ve read it through four times now, and am embarking on my fifth reading, I long to return to it again and again, always waiting for some new truth to jump out at me.

Aside from it’s abundance of truth dear to all devout Christians, the Bible has also been proclaimed as one of the most poetical and lyrical collection of books ever written. I’ve found that the best way to see this is by reading it out loud. The meter and lyricism flow, and it has a steady rhythm that also points to the story’s continuity. And here’s another pretty remarkable thing: no matter which page you put your finger on, there will be something on that page and in that text that connects the entire salvation story together. And although there is a beginning, with the book of Genesis, and an ending, in the book of Revelation, the narrative really has no beginning or end, much like God himself...You can pick it up anywhere and find yourself never having left the path that leads to him.

It’s sort of like a favorite soap opera where you can leave off for a few days and then just jump right back in without having missed much. The difference, however, between a daytime drama and the Holy Bible is this: you can abandon it altogether and not return to it for years. Yet, the minute you reopen it, you are drawn right back in to a story that leads right back to the same place each and every time: a cross on a lonely hill where, once long ago, a man died so that we would all have the chance one day to read his story, one that includes each and every one of us...if we choose to believe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From a Field of Wheat to the Bread of Life: Harvesting God’s Word

From a Field of Wheat to the Bread of Life: Harvesting God’s Word

When I open the Bible and spend time in God’s word, it is as though I stepped into a vast field of wheat at the very peak of its readiness for harvest. The stalks are tall and strong, and the heads are bursting with kernels ready to be gathered in.

As I move through this golden sea, I miraculously do not trample any of the stalks or leave any track behind me. I simply pass through it and run my hands along the tops, absorbing all their symbolic goodness as to what they will become once reaped, winnowed, ground and baked into loaves: God’s Word, the Bread of Life.

Like a wheat field shifting, swaying and undulating in the wind, God’s word is a living thing. It moves from the page into our minds and hearts, never leaving its source, making the journey to and from it and back again, over and over, in an eternal cycle designed to nourish the soul of anyone who ventures in. Placing my hand on its pages is like touching the wheat stalks, as their power and strength flow into and through me, enriching me much the same as the finished product...the bread that feeds our souls just as that which nourishes our bodies, from the evening of Passover when God’s word came to fruition in the form of the unleavened loaf that Jesus blessed, broke and shared with his disciples at the Last Supper.

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”~Matthew 26:26

Not only is God’s word nourishment for our spirits, but the bread becomes a symbol of salvation, of Jesus’ great and all-encompassing sacrifice on the cross, where a Lamb without blemish paid the price of sin and the ransom for our souls once and for all.

A field laden with a year’s providence of golden wheat or pages glowing with gilded words that remain new, alive and powerful no matter how often we read them...both are the bread we raise up toward Heaven, the words of praise we lift in the Lord’s honor...and that assure believers of complete forgiveness, liberation from death of the soul, and eternal life.