YHWH, God of Salvation, I thank You.
YHWH, God of Righteousness, I praise You.
YHWH, God of Judgment, I fear You.
YHWH, God of Humility, I bow before You.
YHWH, God of Mercy, Grace and Compassion, I love You.
YHWH, Giver of Life, I rejoice in You.
YHWH, God of Holiness, I worship You.
YHWH, Creator God, I marvel at Your works.
YHWH, Bridegroom God, I yearn for You.
YHWH, Healing God, stoop down and touch me.
Instruction in the Night
I will bless the LORD who has counseled me; indeed my mind instructs me in the night. Psalm 16:7
Far too lately have I become convinced that spending time with God is the most practical solution to my daily problems. I am learning that He is far more interested in our lives than we dare to hope, and vastly more knowledgeable. The roots of my anxieties usually do not lie where I think they do, and my solutions are rarely as effective as I imagine. But I am learning that if I am patient, the Father has a plan. He can instruct me even in my sleep.
A couple of weeks ago I had an unusual dream. It was an instructional video of sorts on the methods of a particular demon. In the dream I saw a man walking down a street. There was a demon, like a shadow, hovering over and behind him. Every move the man made the demon would mimic. If the man moved his arm, the demon’s arm moved right behind his. If he kicked a can, the demon’s leg was right behind his.
The man was unaware of the demon, though he certainly felt its presence. He experienced the demon as stress or anxiety – a sense that he could never get a break. And this was the demon’s tactic. It stuck to the man like a tar baby until he reached a boiling point of pent up stress and anger.
At this point in the dream another man came on the scene. He was a friend, a Christian brother. The subject of my dream did not see his brother approaching, but the demon did, and just as the friend came in range, the demon struck his man hard on the side of the approaching friend. The man jerked around to see what had hit him and saw his brother. All the pent up anger in the man exploded on the unsuspecting brother. Of course, the brother was offended and struck back. The fire grew and the demon smiled. Mission accomplished.
Interesting. As Thomas and I have engaged in the work of reconciliation, we have discovered that the majority of stumbling blocks which divide individual Christians are personal rather than doctrinal. This is not to make light of doctrinal issues. Theological dialogue has an important place in the work of reconciliation. However, the most painful divisions we experience are often within our own churches and families. Recognizing the demonic forces behind these would be helpful, I thought.
But as it happened, this was not the end of the lesson, nor the main point of the Father’s instruction. The following night I lay down prostrate to pray before bed. I have been praying this way morning and night for over a year now, and it has become a place of great joy and stability for my soul. My only intention in these prayers is to worship God, to bring Him thanks and praise at the beginning and end of each day. But sometimes the prayers continue and wander into intercession, or conversation. On this particular night, the Holy Spirit led me in an unexpected direction. I saw a replay of the dream with the demon, then I saw myself in a vision, lying prostrate in prayer. I understood that while the demon could mimic every other position a man might take, it could not lie prostrate in worship of the Father. At that point it had to lift. Furthermore, when the demon lifted, so did the stress or anxiety it caused. And because the demon worked slowly, building stress to a boiling point, its effectiveness was severely limited by frequent worship in this prostrate position.
Then best of all, I felt the blessing of my Father. I understood that He was showing me a dynamic already at work in my soul, the fruit of this past year of prayer. I realized that though I have had several trials and challenges, and some points of failure in the past year, I have not felt chronically stressed or anxious. This is a change, and a gift, and a strong motivation to prostrate myself in worship all the more often. Our God is good, and holy and gracious, and a very wise counselor!
John The Baptist
Today Catholics celebrate the birth of John the Baptist. It is a day observed with greater honor than the feast days of most other saints - a solemnity rather than a feast. It is a day especially close to my heart as we have a son named after John, the Messiah's Forerunner, the flesh and blood cousin of our Lord. Around 1600 years ago, Augustine of Hippo wrote a beautiful homily for this occasion which touches on many themes the Spirit has been highlighting to me. Below is an excerpt from that sermon followed by some reflections of my own.
The Church observes the birth of John as in some way sacred; and you will not find any other of the great men of old whose birth we celebrate officially. We celebrate John’s as we celebrate Christ’s. This point cannot be passed over in silence, and if I may not perhaps be able to explain it in the way that such an important matter deserves, it is still worth thinking about it a little more deeply and fruitfully than usual. John is born of an old woman who is barren; Christ is born of a young woman who is a virgin. That John will be born is not believed, and his father is struck dumb; that Christ will be born is believed, and he is conceived by faith.
I have introduced these points even if we are not up to examining all the twists and turns of such a great mystery, either for lack of capacity or for lack of time. You will be taught much better by the one who speaks in you even when I am not here; the one about whom you think loving thoughts, the one whom you have taken into your hearts and whose temple you have become.
John, it seems, has been inserted as a kind of boundary between the two Testaments, the Old and the New. That he is somehow or other a boundary is something that the Lord himself indicates when he says, The Law and the prophets were until John. So he represents the old and heralds the new. Because he represents the old, he is born of an elderly couple; because he represents the new, he is revealed as a prophet in his mother’s womb. You will remember that, before he was born, at Mary’s arrival he leapt in his mother’s womb. Already he had been marked out there, designated before he was born; it was already shown whose forerunner he would be, even before he saw him. These are divine matters, and exceed the measure of human frailty. Finally, he is born, he receives a name, and his father’s tongue is loosed.
Zachary is struck dumb and loses his voice, until John, the Lord’s forerunner, is born and releases his voice for him. What does Zachary’s silence mean, but that prophecy was obscure and, before the proclamation of Christ, somehow concealed and shut up? It is released and opened up by his arrival, it becomes clear when the one who was being prophesied is about to come. The releasing of Zachary’s voice at the birth of John has the same significance as the tearing of the veil of the Temple at the crucifixion of Christ.
I love this image of the Zechariah's tongue being loosened at John's birth. It is true that the prophets had been silenced for centuries before the birth of Jesus. It was a season of waiting, of darkness, like a womb. But when the Messiah came, it was time to prophesy again - not so much about what would come in the future, but to bear witness to the One who was, and is, among us.
John the Apostle explains that "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." (Rev. 19:10)
Thus prophecy had to accompany the birth of the Church just as it had heralded the birth of the Messiah. At Pentecost and the Spirit of God fell upon men and women, old and young, slave and free, such that they all found themselves prophesying. (Acts 2) This was a fulfillment of Joel's vision, and the great hope of Moses. "Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!” (Num 11:29)
It is clear from Paul's writings that the gift of prophecy, along with other gifts of the Holy Spirit, flowed freely in the first century church. If the spirit of prophecy is truly the testimony of Jesus, then this makes sense. The prophetic voice is vital to the preaching and reception of the gospel. However, as the Church became more established and more comfortable, it seems the gifts of the gifts of the Spirit became quieter and more rare. Not unlike, perhaps, the silence in the days before John the Baptist.
Then about 100 years ago, a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit began moving upon the Church through the charismatic renewal. This widespread experience of the Holy Spirit spread rapidly across racial boundaries, language barriers, geographical and denominational lines. Once again common people were prophesying.
My great hope is that this move of the Holy Spirit is like John the Baptist's voice calling in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the Lord!" My belief is that the Spirit is working to make ready a Bride for Jesus. My prayer, as Paul recommends, is that the Church earnestly desire this work of the Spirit and long for the greater gifts, like prophecy. Then, I believe the Bride will be able to cry out with the Spirit, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus!"
John the Baptist once described himself as "the friend of the Bridegroom" so I am certain this his prayer.
A Second Conversation: On the Topic of Lying
The last week of March and first week of April I was laid up in bed, on narcotics, recovering from surgery. I must have been more pliant than usual in this state because the Lord took the opportunity to work on some painful places in my soul - feelings and false beliefs which began forming in early childhood. Below is a conversation I had with my Father one day as I lay in bed.
"Amy, what other sins did you commit in your childhood?" (This was part two of a conversation begun a few days earlier. For the record, my first sin was stealing, but that is a different topic.)
"I lied," I responded.
"Yes, but you did not lie to manipulate or get your own way. Why did you lie?"
"I lied when I was afraid or ashamed."
"And why is lying evil?"
"Because it is contrary to Your nature."
"And what is My nature?"
"Your nature is love."
As soon as I said those words, I realized how much I was like Eve. At a very early age, I also heard the voice of the Accuser suggesting that perhaps God was not as good and loving as He claimed to be. Maybe He was holding out on us. Maybe there was really nothing wrong with forbidden pleasures. So I tried them. I stole a toy, or hid a cookie and then felt awful, like Eve.
"When I felt ashamed, I tried to hide by lying," I continued.
"Yes," our Father responded. Then He surprised me, as He always does in these conversations. "But not all hiding is lying. "When you make treasure hunts for your children, you hide their presents and then give them clues. Is that lying?"
"No, because my intent is always to give them the gift. I just want to do it in a way that is special and meaningful for them."
At that point the "verbal" part of our conversation ended, but I felt a download of revelation in my spirit. I understood that God's intent is to reveal everything to His Beloved. Our Father greatly desires to be known! This is why we were created - to share union with Him. This is why Jesus came to us - to reveal the Father. God will not withhold anything from us, but He waits to reveal Himself until we are ready, until we are eager, until we are mature enough to understand.
Verses like these, which always seemed to good to be true, rang with new truth and hope and joy in my soul.
"I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." John 15:15
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,." Eph. 1:3
"Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.....we have the mind of Christ." I Cor. 2:12, 16
I believe God's intent was always, ultimately, to share with us the tree of knowledge. But we ate prematurely, before we could control ourselves, before we were fully convinced of the Father's goodness and love and wisdom. Knowledge without love, without the redemption of the cross or the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, makes us warped and broken. So God in His love, hid the tree of life, not permanently, but until we were healed and transformed into the likeness of Christ, until living forever would be a blessing and not a curse.
What a beautiful, complete story - what a gift we have in scripture! The tragic story recorded in Genesis resolves with glory in John's Revelation. The very last book in the Bible tells us what happens to the tree of life.
"Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads." Rev. 22:1-4
Truly God is a Lover who will withhold nothing from His Beloved!
A Couple of Conversations
That God speaks to ordinary men should be the assumption of all Christians. After all, Jesus' final words on earth were, "I am with you always." But even on the day of Christ's ascension, Matthew tells us that His followers "worshiped Him, but some were doubtful." And so we too are doubtful - not about Christ's resurrection, but about His nearness, His presence, His active voice in our lives.
God speaks to His people in many ways. YWH spoke with Moses "face to face, just as a man speaks with his friend." (Ex. 33:11) Mary received a message from an angel whom she could see and hear. God communicated to both Josephs through dreams Paul and other saints have heard the audible voice of Jesus, or seen Him with their own eyes. But the most common way God speaks to us is through an internal voice. This voice is often so quiet, so gentle and subtle, that we are quick to dismiss it as our own imagination.
A healthy dose of skepticism is a safeguard. People can get carried away by vain imaginations. Not every thought that enters our head is from God. But it is a tragic mistake, a stunting obstacle to maturity, to always doubt and never trust that God our Father, Jesus our Brother, the Holy Spirit our Advocate are speaking to us.
In the next few posts I want to share a couple of recent conversations I have had with the Lord. But before I do, I think it might be helpful to explain how I discern whether the voice I hear in my head is from God, or from my own imagination, or from some place darker than that. It is really very simple - I just ask the following questions.
1) Is what I am hearing in line with scripture? Even better, does it open new revelation or insight into scripture I already know? Revelation and wisdom are gifts of the Holy Spirit. If the voice I hear opens my ears to the word, or grants a clearer vision of Jesus and the Father, then I am confident it comes from God.
On the other hand, any voice which causes me to doubt scripture or sound doctrine must be rejected immediately.
2) Does this internal voice bring peace, joy, repentance or a hunger for righteousness? If so, it is approved by the Holy Spirit. Most thoughts originating from my own imagination, certainly all those which spring from the Accuser, lead to fear, worry, or perhaps anger and resentment.
3) Does the voice I hear cause me to love my brothers and sisters more deeply, or does it lead me to compare myself to others?
If the words I am hearing are in line with scripture and produce fruit in keeping with the Holy Spirit, then I am confident they come from the mind of Christ, which scripture assures us is ours. (I Cor. 2 :16) Thus I am fairly confident that the following internal conversation I had with the Lord a few days ago is safe and valid.
I was standing at my closet, facing a very busy day. I felt overwhelmed, so I asked, "Father what should I wear today?" Immediately I felt silly asking God such a small, inconsequential question, so I said something else....
"Father, how is it that You desire to be so close to us humans? That you care about the details of our lives?"
"Amy," He responded, " are you always thinking of Me?"
"Yes, Lord," I replied. "You know my thoughts."
"How could it be that I love you any less than you love me?"
I was amazed, and humbled, and full of joy! Scripture tells us that God knows us better than we know ourselves, that He loves us more than we, more than I, dare to believe. Still, I needed to hear these words directly from my Father in order to embrace more fully the assurance He has given us all.
O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You understand my thoughts from afar.
You scrutinize my path and my lying down,
And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
Even before there is a word on my tongue,
Behold, O Lord, You know it all. (Psalm 139:1-4)
Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows. (Matt. 10:29-31)
The Trial - Part II
I wonder what Caiaphas was thinking when he tore his robe. What was fueling his fury?
Was it pure religious zeal? Did he see himself as the protector of God’s people, saving them from error and blasphemy which would call down the judgment of YWH?
Or had he, perhaps, ceased to believe a Messiah would really come? Was he like many of our modern seminary professors, practicing religion without a living hope?
Had he become enamored with his own power and position? Did he see a Messiah as a personal threat?
Scripture does not answer this question. All we know is that Caiaphas felt so agitated that he did not wait for a reasonable hour to question Jesus. He did not deliberate with the council about the merits of the accusations. He did not ask Jesus why He claimed to be the Messiah. He never considered the possibility that Jesus was speaking the truth. Instead he tore his priestly garments and looked on with satisfaction as the crowd jeered and humiliated the quiet man who had claimed with unnerving certainty that they would see “the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the mighty one and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
How beautiful it is that, for all the wrong reasons, Caiaphas did the right thing! The high priest of an old covenant tore His garments before the High Priest of a new and better covenant. This was entirely right and fitting, though Caiaphas did not understand the import of his actions.
What a mysterious dance this trial is – Jesus is submissive, but He holds all authority. He is condemned, but remains the Judge. Free will and sovereignty are both in play. “The Son of Man will go just as it is written of Him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man!”
I believe this dance continues until the end of the age. Evil men make real decisions which cause great suffering, but God directs history toward its climax. We are free to choose; our Messiah is determined to rescue. Our Great High Priest is with us – suffering for us, with us, even through us. He is merciful, kind and powerful. He may not intervene as quickly as we would like; but He will raise us to new life., and all the kings of this earth will bow before Him.
The Trial - Part I
This week a friend of mine wrote me a letter. Like most of my friends who do not believe in God, this man is intelligent, fun, and gracious to our family. Unlike most of my other atheist friends, he is not hesitant to engage in philosophical debate. I admire this quality of his, and I appreciated his frank explanation of why he could not believe in God. His objections are familiar to me – familiar to all of us, I suppose. “If there were really an omniscient, omnipotent God who loves people, then He would act on my behalf. He would not allow such suffering. He would not hide Himself. He would act in a way that makes sense to me.”
Though these accusations resonate with us, they are really madness. We humans cannot imagine what it is like to be eternal, omniscient, or omnipotent, much less how One with those qualities should act. Mired in our various addictions, resentments and fears, we are entirely unfit to make such judgments; but we hurt, and so we beat our fists against the God we hold responsible for our pain. Even we Christians do this at times. We may not doubt the existence of God, but we don’t trust Him fully; we are not always convinced in the deepest part of our being that He is altogether good.
But He is good, and humble and patient. I am awed thinking of Jesus, the one in Whom all creation holds together, standing trial before miserable, proud men. He stands in silence, speaking nothing of His miracles. He calls no character witnesses. He issues no threats. He simply confesses to the charge brought against Him. He is the Christ, the Son of God, and that is the reason we hate Him.
We blame Him for our misery. We hate Him because we do not understand Him. We judge Him because our vision is so small. We are like little children screaming at our father, pouring out the violence of our anger and pain.
Thankfully, God is a Father who loves us more than we dare believe. In sending His Son to walk through the Passion, He takes responsibility for all that was lost in our fall – all the pain and death, all the hostility between brothers, all the futility of the earth, even the accusations we hold against Him. Jesus bears it all. He understands our pain and He cares enough to enter it. He will open all things to His Beloved, and we will “be like Him when we see Him as He is.”
I am no better than Pilate or Caiaphas or my atheist friend. I have accused God more than once. I have threatened to leave Jesus if He did not explain certain things to me – things far beyond my ability to understand. Jesus has treated me the same way He treated His accusers in Jerusalem, with silent patience, allowing me to pour out all my doubt and pain until I could say with Peter, “Where would I go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life.” Blessed be His name!
The Humility of Fear
As I have mentioned before, meditating on the Christ's Passion has been hard for me in the past. Not that I did not love my Lord, or was not thankful for His sacrifice. I simply could not imagine how to relate to Him in such pain. Like the disciples at Gethsamane, I did not know how to remain with Jesus in His suffering, much less how to offer any comfort. Yet is is clear that Christ wanted His disciples near Him at Gethsamene. He longed for their prayers.
A few days ago I was visiting my friends among the Marienschwestern at their cloister in Darmstadt, Germany. I mentioned to the sisters how odd it has always seemed to me that Paul prays first that He will know Christ in the power of His resurrection and then in fellowship of his suffering. That is, of course, not the order in which Jesus experienced them. But Sr. Damiana explained to me that we disciples must learn in this order. Without the assurance of the resurrection, we would have no strength for the suffering. Peter, James and John could not participate in their Lord's suffering on the night of His betrayal. But later, knowing Him in His resurrected power and glory, they would follow Him through persecution, exile and martyrdom.
I told the sisters of my desire to spend this Lent meditating on the Passion, so they gave me a book written by their foundress, Basilea Schlink. Let me Stand at Your Side is a series of meditations and prayers, many based on revelations given to a Catholic mystic, Anna Katharina Emmerich. The first meditation touched me deeply. It is too long to quote fully, but below are some passages which I am contemplating in prayer.
In those last days it must have been immeasurably hard for our Lord Jesus to be in such close company with His disciples who had always been at His side. Jesus' heart was filled with suffering. He lived wholly in that which awaited Him and which constantly confronted His soul - His path of bitter suffering that would lead to death. He yearned to speak with His disciples about the coming suffering in His tender care for them, but also in His love, for love longs to share everything - especially sorrow - with the beloved. However, Jesus found no loving response, no understanding. He found no one to suffer with Him.
The disciples, though no doubt full of fear, were sure of themselves. This is what made Peter vow shortly before they went to Gethsamane, "I will go with You even if I have to die.".... Ultimately they repressed the thought that Jesus' work could soon lie in ruins...
In contrast to this self-assurance of the disciples, Jesus was filled with trepidation, as He expressed to them, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." Jesus, the Creator of all worlds, did not live in self-assurance; He was filled with fear at the thought of suffering. Earlier when He had spoken of the baptism of suffering that awaited Him, He said, "How great is my distress till it is over!" Thus Jesus prepared to meet suffering by surrendering His will to the Father, by praying for strength, whereas we, who are mere created beings and sinners, suppress the possibility that suffering could enter our lives...
The distance that separated the disciples from Jesus was immeasurable, although outwardly they were at His side. Jesus wanted to do the will of the Father and He gave His consent. He prayed for help and received the ministry of angels.. The disciples refused the cross: their answer was NO.
Jesus the Door
This glowing cloud in the sky was the climax of a spectacular light show one evening here at CTR. It reminded us of the "door standing open in heaven" which John saw in Revelation. Sadly, we could not pass through this door. Someday we shall see what John saw.
As a young girl I was fascinated by storybook pictures of castles. Long corridors with rows of doors, secret passageways and locked rooms excited my imagination. They felt mysterious and foreign. Houses in my small West Texas town were simple – front door, back door, a couple of rooms in each home. Even so, I loved going new places and wondering what secrets might lie behind a closed door. Though I was too polite to try them, I badly wanted to open them all.
Only recently has it occurred to me that my fascination with doors is rooted in divine mystery. My Savior is a Door, and a Door to endless revelation. Jesus Himself said so. “I am the Door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” (John 10:9) In the same passage Jesus calls Himself the Doorkeeper and the Good Shepherd as well. I am sure this made John’s head spin, even as mine does when I contemplate Jesus as King and Servant, God and Man, Bridegroom and Judge. But surely He is all of these and more.
Jesus is the Door of reconciliation to the Father. In parables He teaches us the nature of the Father. In prayer He shows us how to draw near to the Father. In His death and Resurrection He proves the depth of the Father’s love. On the evening of His betrayal, Jesus tells the disciples, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”
Now if Jesus is the Door to the Father, He is an unending door, always opening new rooms, new mysteries, new revelations of the Father who is glory without end. John experiences this truth on the Island of Patmos when once again His Savior appears to him. John hears a voice like a trumpet, a voice we are told belongs to Jesus, and the voice tells him to look into heaven where a door stands open. (Rev. 1:10. Rev. 4:1) This door reveals the Father in a glory John has never seen – shining like sardius and jasper with peals of thunder and lightning flashes around His throne, encircled by the rainbow, a sea of crystal at His feet. This door is no humble sheep gate!
Yet the Alpha and Omega, the Firstborn of the Dead, is always the Good Shepherd. As John looks through the open door in heaven he sees, “a great multitude from every tribe and nation and tongue, clothed in white robes, standing before the Lamb.” I am sure this vision recalled to John's mind words that Jesus had spoken early in his his life. “I have other sheep which are not of this fold; I must bring them also; they will hear My voice and become one flock with one shepherd.” I cannot imagine how Jesus’ Jewish audience understood these words, but I am sure it was puzzling. Even today we Christians stumble over these words. We find sheep from different folds a bit off-putting with their strange language, odd worship, doctrines which feel unbalanced or misguided in places.
But as Jesus is the Door to the Father, He is also the Door to our unity. He is the Shepherd of a vast and varied flock. Jesus knows His sheep even as the Father knows Him. And true sheep know the Shepherd’s voice. They recognize His voice in other sheep, even sheep of a different flock. True sheep always follow their Master, and they share in the love which binds the Father to the Son, the Shepherd to His sheep.
Jesus, we ask You to continue opening doors of revelation of the Father. And we pray for You to make us one flock under one Shepherd.
Suscipe
When I pray these days I often see the Son before His incarnation. I see Him standing before the Father in glory, "Light from Light, true God from true God." He stands and offers Himself as a living sacrifice for men. The Father receives the gift and strips His Only Begotten of all that is rightly His - His glory, His power, even His memory, His intellect, His will. The Father reduces the Son to a single biological cell and entrusts that cell to a defenseless girl and her betrothed husband.
I see the baby with Mary and Joseph in the Temple. The Father looks down in watchful protection, joyfully proud, loving all who bless His Son. The Spirit hovers around the infant, stirring friends of God to see and rejoice. The Holy Trinity is present, though in a different form than it has ever known. The Father will take responsibility; the Spirit will lead. But the Son, for now, is oblivious, helpless, completely dependent on earthly men whom He does not know, and the Father whom He has forgotten. Surely the Incarnation was a kind of death within the Trinity.
Jesus did become like us, more than I have dared to consider. Being born in the flesh, I imagine that Jesus came to know the Father in ways not so different from the ways in which we come to know the Father - more purely, more perfectly, but in keeping with His nature as a man. "Growing in wisdom and stature" Jesus' intellect and will developed over time. Perhaps the Spirit even graced Jesus with memories of the "glory He shared with the Father before the world began." (John 17:5) Scripture is quiet on this point. However, we know that by the age of twelve Jesus had discovered something of His identity. He had learned to trust the Father to the extent that He was unafraid of losing Mary and Joseph. The Son's love had been awakened and this restoration must have been something like a resurrection for the Trinity - the joy of the fellowship of the Godhead returning, not yet in its fullness, but with solid hope for the future. God’s "wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory" was coming to fruition.
As Jesus came to know the Father more fully, He grew in confidence in His unique identity. The Son's identity held the key to His power and authority; thus it become the target of Satan's attack. "If you are the Son of God...." the devil prodded, "then you can....." I believe this was a real test for Jesus, just as our identity in Christ is a continual battleground for us.
But there was one more test to come; yet another stripping of the Son. This stripping was also voluntary, though it did not appear so to our eyes. This stripping came at the hands of cruel, violent men rather than the hands of a loving Father. But it was endured for the Father Jesus had come to know and trust, and for the men whom He had come to love. Having once surrendered Himself to the helplessness and forgetfulness of the womb, the Son again surrendered His will, His power, His intellect, His life and embraced the tomb.
There is a daring prayer written by Ignatius Loyola which I have always wanted to pray wholeheartedly, but it just seemed beyond my ability, and in some ways puzzling. The prayer is known as the Suscipe after its first word in Latin.
Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and thy grace, for this is sufficient for me.
As I consider these words now, I realize that this is the prayer which Jesus lived at the Incarnation and once again at the Passion. He gave the Father, whom He knew could be trusted, all His liberty, His memory, His understanding and His entire will. That fills me with wonder and hope, for the Father loves me too, and the more I come to know this, the more closely I can follow Jesus. Even if I should lose my memory of my Lord, He will never forget me Jesus knows His sheep as the Father knows the Son. (John 10:15) I can trust Him as He trusted the Father. He is the Good Shepherd who never leads where He has not walked before.
And so, Father, I ask you...
Suscipe, Domine, universam mean libertatem
Accipe memoriam, intellectum atque voluntatem omnem.
The Wisdom of John Bosco
Cristo Rey youth with Sr. Guadalupe on a mission trip to Laredo. Jack and Yolanda are on the far right. There are some Cogdells in the picture as well.
Seventeen years ago I met the Salesian sisters - nuns who became heroes of the faith to me. Their order is named after St. Francis de Sales (one of my favorite writers), but it was founded by St. John Bosco who lived in Italy during the mid-nineteenth century when the industrial revolution was in full swing. During that time, the economy was changing rapidly and farmers were finding it hard to make a living. Rumor had it that there were factory jobs in the cities, so many starving rural families packed up their boys, some as young as nine or ten years old, and put them on trains in hopes that they could make their own way in the new urban world.
Or course, unparented children do not fare well in cities. Many of them landed in jail. Fr. Bosco was moved by the plight of these street children and began ministering to them through magic shows followed by snacks and homilies. Later he founded oratories which would house and feed the boys who continued to work in town. Eventually he founded an order devoted to youth ministry.
Modern Salesians continue to use the pattern set by their founder - play, food, preaching and prayer. When I first began attending youth meetings at Cristo Rey, I was surprised and puzzled by how much time was devoted to games - simple games like musical chairs and Simon Says. I would have never dreamed of asking burly 18 year old young men, some of them with criminal records, to play musical chairs, but to my amazement Sr. Guadalupe pulled it off week after week. At first I attributed our youth's compliance to the power of the habit. Who could refuse Sr. Guadalupe anything? She was so kind, so lovely, glowing with holy happiness - and she was a nun. Catholics respected nuns, I thought, so that must be the answer.
But I was wrong. There was a deeper wisdom at work, one born of the Holy Spirit. I began to realize this on a confirmation retreat, a weekend in which we had much more time together than at our weekly youth meeting. So what did we do? We played games for two full hours. Played until these teens were rolling on the floor laughing. Played until I was tired and confused. Didn't we have an agenda to cover?
Then Jack, one of our leaders, quieted the group and led us in a reflective exercise of healing prayer. These same teens who were running and laughing minutes ago were now weeping holy tears. It was beautiful
That evening I understood the wisdom of the Salesians. We first experience the Father heart of God through joy. Fun and laughter, chasing and rough-housing - these are ways fathers show affection for their children. This kind of safe, playful love was sorely missing in the lives of this group of teens, many of whom had no fathers at home. Play opened the doors of their hearts to receive their heavenly Father's love.
Reflecting back on my experience with the Cristo Rey youth, I am certain most of them have forgotten the homilies and prayers. I am equally certain that most of them remember the wonderful feeling of laughing and being safe in a group. And I pray that those memories serve as a rock, a stepping stone, to a greater experience of the Father's love.
Today is the feast of St. John Bosco. On this day I always thank my Father in heaven for Sr. Gaudalupe, Sr. Emma, for Jack and Yolanda, for the wonderful youth I met at Cristo Rey. I learned so much from them! So much from John Bosco.
Mostly, I thank you, Father, for your joyful, playful love!
Broken Heart of God
Photo credit: Michael Clark, Copyright 2011 Michael Clark Photography, used with permission, http://www.michaelclarkphoto.com
Quotation source: John Dawson, What Christians Should Know About Reconciliation
Recently we received a response to this Door of the Day on our Wittenberg 2017 website. The sister who wrote objected to the phrase "the broken heart of God." She rightly pointed out that nothing in God is broken. He is all wise, all powerful and works everything according to His will. Suggesting that His heart was broken seemed to imply to her some deficit in Him and His authority. This is a valid concern worthy of a response. Below is a copy of the reply I sent to her.
Dear __________,
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I will try to give an explanation of the thought behind this quote while acknowledging that we "all see through a mirror dimly" the glory of God. This response will have its weaknesses, but I offer it for your consideration.
We absolutely agree that God is holy and sovereign and wise. In this sense there is nothing broken in Him. Yet there is something very broken in us, and inasmuch as He longs for us to be in union with Him, this brokenness which prevents that union with Him and with one another causes longing and even grief in His heart.
We can see this longing in many scriptures. In Matthew 23:37 Jesus laments over Jerusalem. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling."
There are many passages in the Old Testament where God speaks as a forsaken lover. The whole book of Hosea is a metaphor for God's grieving heart for an adulterous bride. The second chapter of Jeremiah takes up this yearning, sorrowful love. "I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals, your following after Me in the wilderness,......What injustice did your fathers find in Me, That they went far from Me and walked after emptiness and became empty?"
Many other scripture speak of God's desires (that none should perish), His anger, His wrath, His mercy, and even His gratitude and joy when people believe and respond with faith.
We believe that God is an emotional being - not controlled by His passions, certainly - but full of longing and joy, just anger, sorrow and love. We believe that we experience emotions because we are created in His image. Yes, we are weak and tossed about in our emotions in ways that God is not. But there is also something very good and right about our yearning, our sorrow, our joy and hope which resides in the image of God stamped within us.
So in the Wittenberg 2017 initiative, we do believe that our division causes God grief. We also believe that He is sovereign and will bring about the unity which He desires for His people. We wait in this tension in the place of prayer.
Thank you again for your response. May God our Father bless you!
If anyone reading is interested in receiving Door of the Day quotes, you can sign up at http://www.wittenberg2017.us/door-of-the-day.html
We are almost half way through our 500 day countdown to Nov. 1!
Thorns
Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it; Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you."
Though I have often heard how fruitful it is to meditate on the wounds of Christ, until very recently found that practice difficult. The horror of the Passion overwhelmed me, saddened me, frightened me. But something has changed of late which allows me to look on my crucified Lord with new eyes. In my last post I talked about the nails in Jesus' hands. Now I am seeing the crown of thorns. Another type of piercing painful to the body, yes; but this torment was aimed at the soul. The men who fashioned the crown were mockers taunting Jesus' for His claim to be king, or rather, for His refusal to deny that title.
Perhaps there was an even deeper mockery going on, one inspired from hell. There was one present at the crucifixion who was present in the garden, a witness to the curse of Adam and the ground. I am sure Satan reveled to see the Son of God crowned with thorns - a reminder of the Father's judgment and his own first victory with men.
But I believe Jesus saw the crown of thorns differently. He came with the intention of bearing and breaking the curse, and so the thorns were a fitting symbol. The crown was a visible sign of humility, of love, and in a way obscured to our jeering, disbelieving eyes, it was a sign of authority. The crown on Christ’s head testifies to His redemption of the earth, just as His wounds witness His power over death.
Adrienne von Speyr was an early twentieth century mystic and Catholic theologian who claimed that the most defining attribute of the Father is that He is the one who takes responsibility. He created all things. He sustains them. And because He fathers men, He refuses to abandon them to their own fate but plans a means of redemption at His own cost. He inflicts the curse in His righteous judgment, and in so doing, puts limits on our folly. But He sends His Son to bear the curse with us and for us – limiting our pain and opening the tree of life again, only more gloriously as we now known the depth of God’s love.
The funny thing about mockers is that they cannot stand to be mocked. Satan delights in our fear, in our anger, in our hate, but he cannot stand to be laughed at. Silence unsettles him as well. I suspect hell would have enjoyed the crucifixion far more had Jesus spat and cursed and called down fire from heaven. But He did not. Jesus suffered in silence, in patience, in confidence.
I fear that for all our talk about becoming Christ-like, most Christians resemble the devil more than their Savior when faced with mocking. We hate it. We fear it, and with some justification. It is true that mockery usually precedes persecution. This was the pattern for Jesus. Mocking at the trial, death at the cross.
This was the pattern in Nazi Germany. Years of defamatory propaganda fueled the fires of Kristalnacht. Our friend Hanna Miley remembers being taunted at school. She and other Jewish children were put in the middle of a circle while their Gentile classmates danced round singing songs about killing ugly, stupid Jews. Shortly after, her family was rounded up and forced into a ghetto in Cologne. Thankfully, Hanna escaped on a Kindertransport rescue train. Her parents did not.
For the most part, American Christians have not suffered the sting of mockery or persecution. There have been some shining exceptions – the early abolitionists, the pioneers of the civil rights movement. But in general, American has been a safe-haven of religious freedom and that is a blessed thing – a gift to us citizens and a blessing to the world. Yet many of us feel the tide turning. Academia has long been a skeptic of faith, if not an outright mocker. Our entertainment industry daily serves up fare pushing traditional standards of decency farther and farther to the fringes of society, and they do so because we eat it up, Christians included. Now we begin to hear outright attacks on traditional Christian teaching regarding sexuality, beliefs held by most civilizations for millennia, not only Judeo-Christian societies.
I feel the fear rising. We try to fight back with legislation. Others rant on social media. We do not like to be mocked. We are not comfortable with silence. And not all of us should be silent. There is always need for the prophet. But I believe there is also need for patient enduring, even suffering in confidence that our Father will make all things right.
As a child I loved the beatitudes. I spent a lot of time imagining what it must be like to be pure in heart, to be a peacemaker, to be meek or poor in spirit. But there was one beatitude which scared me. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven!” On the one hand, I was relieved that it seemed unlikely that I would ever be put to such a test. I simply did not know if I had that kind of strength. On the other hand, I wanted all the blessings and rewards in heaven I could carry. That is a childlikeness which I hope pleases the Father. I still want that desire to mark me though I am now wiser and more aware of my own weakness.
Jesus, you are beautiful in Your crown of thorns, and I want to be like You.
Iron
"Oh mad lover! It was not enough for You to take on our humanity; You had to die as well!" - St. Catherine of Siena
Lately when I pray I often see the nails in Jesus' hands. It is not a gory, bloody scene. What strikes me most in this internal vision is His patience and humility. His willingness, His love.
And I know that the One who allowed his body hands to be pierced with iron is entirely trustworthy to wield the rod of iron that will shatter the nations.
Come, Lord Jesus! We need Your mercy and Your justice!
Advent Howling
My favorite family traditions are the ones that spring up spontaneously – moments so perfect that they must be relived, remembered, revisited each year. We have a few such traditions unique to the Cogdell family. One of my favorites is associated with Advent evening prayer. It is better experienced than described. You are all invited to join us for prayer to see for yourselves. Here I will simply say there is some howling involved.
A couple of months ago I received this wonderful short story from my Austrian friend Maria Lang who spent a month in Israel this summer praying. Now every evening during prayer, I find myself recalling this story and joining in the howl.
A very funny detail about my trips to Israel is that each time I live close to animals usually associated with Africa. On the first trip, I lived close to a zoo and could even hear the lions roar nearby. Now on the second trip, I live on top of Mount Carmel, surrounded by forests and bushland. There I experience a very strange ritual every evening.
In the beginning I did not quite know what it was.
When the sun is down, all of a sudden strange cries can be heard. They sound like cheering voices that become gradually louder, until they turn into a howling sound. It sends shivers down my spine. First I thought: “Is there a celebration going on?” When the same thing happened on the second and third night, I thought: “Well, they can’t celebrate like this every night.” So I asked somebody what it was all about. “Oh, these are not people! These are the koyotes – and maybe some hyena!”, they explained and laughed.
How strange! I have never heard a sound like that! During the first week it made me feel kind of uneasy to be surrounded by so many of these strange wild creatures. I did not want to go out of the house when it got dark. But I got used to it and people assured me that the koyotes were not dangerous. From time to time I even spotted one during the day. They looked like small, fox-like dogs and seemed to be very shy.
On one of my walks I found a really nice path which I decided to use for jogging. It was so good to get away from people sometimes and be out in nature. One evening, I went jogging, being aware that the sun was about to go down. But I longed to get some exercise. I had taken my torch with me, just in case it got really dark. The full moon shone its pale light down. It was kind of spooky and I thought: “The only thing that is missing now would be the koyote’s howling…” Thought it, and there it was. All around me the koyotes started to lift their voices. Although I could not see them, I knew that they were quite near. But I also knew that God was with me. This gave me the courage I needed.
One moment I thought of running back as fast as I could. But then I decided to stop for a minute and join the chorus. I howled as loud as I could, receiving answers from all around me. The thought crossed my mind that it was like a worship song of some sort…May all creatures praise their maker! Then I lit my torch and marched back to my house.
In my bible I even found a passage saying: "The wild animals honor me,
the jackals and the owls,..." (Isiah 43:20)
When I hear it now every evening again, I love the idea that the koyotes are having their worship time… I am grateful that God has taken away my fear and given me a totally new perspective.
Job and Peter
Recently my son Noah commented that I hadn’t posted anything on my blog for awhile. Frankly, I was flattered. I didn’t know my kids read my blog.
I told him that I had, in fact, been writing, but my thoughts were still in process.
He responded, “Then you mean you are journaling.”
“Not exactly,” I replied.
“Well, then what are you doing?”
The answer is that I have been readinga lot of scripture and pondering – mystery, redemption, mercy, suffering and the “manifold wisdom of God.” And in this pondering, two saints have become dear to me - Peter and Job.
I am fascinated by the opening scene of Job.
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them…. The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” Then Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse You to Your face.”
As Christians, we know there are more things on heaven and earth than we can see with our mortal eyes. We know there is a spiritual realm filled with creatures different from us.
For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. (Col 1)
But we don’t know much about these spiritual beings. In the Father’s great wisdom, much is still veiled to our eyes. We do know these beings are strong and glorious, numerous and diverse. And they are not all friendly to men.
And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (Rev. 12)
It is unsettling to think that powerful spiritual beings hate us simply because the Father loves us. Because they, perhaps more than we, have an inkling of the gloryset before us, they are at war against the God’s design, wanting us to fall just as they did. But the Father has a plan, a mystery to reveal, something the angels have never seen or imagined, and so He replies to Satan concerning Job….
“Behold, he is in your power, only spare his life.”
Job suffered, and he questioned, and he complained, but did not curse God. Instead, through, the Holy Spirit, he prophesied of the mystery to come – a Savior, who was both God and man.
“For God is not merely human like me;
there is no answer that I could give him
if we were to come together in court.
There is no arbitrator between us
who could lay his hand on us both…
“Oh that my words were written!
Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
“That with an iron stylus and lead
They were engraved in the rock forever!
“As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
And at the last He will take His stand on the earth.
“Even after my skin is destroyed,
Yet from my flesh I shall see God;
Whom I myself shall behold,
And whom my eyes will see and not another.
And when Job spoke these words, the Father rejoiced for this was the hidden mystery -the great risk that God took with men. Unlike the fallen angels, men could be won back. They could be redeemed! The love of a Savior, in flesh like theirs, could fill them with the love of God. And they could come to love like God - even in weakness, even in suffering, even in failure. Though the glory of God was hidden from their eyes, they would love Him. Though they knew only a fraction of what the angels knew – they would bear His image. This love which sees only in part, this love which suffers and endures, this love which brings sinners to repentance, this love which embraces the mercy Lucifer rejected – this love brings God joy and glory in the heavenlies. It reveals His manifold wisdom.
Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (I Cor 2)
Jesus was also tempted by Satan – with physical suffering and mental trials.
Satan demanded to “sift Peter like wheat,” and the Father permitted it. I believe the devil gloated in victory because the battle with Peter seemed easy. Peter denied Jesus. He betrayed God in flesh, as Lucifer had betrayed God in glory. But the story was not over.
God’s manifold wisdom was still hidden in the cross, waiting to be revealed in the resurrection
For men, mercy could triumph over judgment. So the resurrected Jesus went looking for Peter.
“Peter, do you love me?” Jesus asked.
“Lord, you know that I love you,” Peter replied.
“Peter, do you love me?” Jesus asked again.
“Lord, you know that I love you,” Peter replied.
One last time Jesus asked. The question grieved Peter, but he responded. “Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you!”
And the Father, Son and Spirit rejoiced ! Peter testified three times in the court of heaven, in the ears of the Accuser – love stronger than sin, stronger than despair. Mercy embraced and man saved from the dominion of Satan. The redemption of a Bride! A Bride who could return the love of her Bridegroom. A bride who, for the joy set before her, could suffer like her Savior.
Heaven’s economy is truly not like our own. The Father and Son receive as much glory through faithful suffering as through great exploits. It is never man who works a miracle, always God through the faith of a man. But is always the choice of man to love or to despair.
In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, (I Peter 1)
When a man leaves his home to wander in the desert because of faith – this glorifies God in the heavenlies. When people believe the promises of God, despite all worldly wisdom – this proves God wise. When sinners repent and embrace mercy – Satan and his minions are put to shame. When Christians love their Savior in spite of loss, illness, depression or grief, this love is treasured in heaven.
And God will by no means let these sufferings go unrewarded.
“Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard,
And which have not entered the heart of man,
All that God has prepared for those who love Him.” (I Cor 2)
A Lesson from my Daughter
Clara introduces Martin Luther to a water fairy.
Last week my thirteen-year-old son John, my four-year-old daughter Clara and I were praying together in our prayer room. We were using the Divine Mercy Chaplet, a set of prayers said with rosary beads. The heart of the Divine Mercy chaplet is this petition addressed to the Father - "For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world." We modify the prayer a bit in our family, addressing Jesus and asking His mercy upon specific individuals. It is an excellent way to pray for 50 people, and at the end of each chaplet, we realize how many friends, family members, and others are still left on our hearts.
We went around the circle a few times - John, then Clara, then I - lifting names up to the Lord. When we came to Clara the third time, she paused. "This one is a little strange, " she warned us. And she prayed, "For the sake of Your sorrowful passion, have mercy on God."
I was surprised and needed a moment to think. My silence made Clara self-conscious. She ran to me, wrapped her arms around my neck and cried, "Mama, I couldn't help it! I just love Him so much!"
In that moment I knew, as circular as the prayer might be, it was highly pleasing to the Trinity!
Jesus prayed for the Father's desires. " Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
I am not sure exactly what it would mean for Jesus to have mercy on the Father. While all contemplation of the Trinity makes my head spin, it is easier for me to conceive of the Father having mercy on the Son. But I do know that Jesus praised His Father, thanked His Father, glorified, obeyed and loved His Father. And I believe that at least part of the reason Jesus has mercy upon us is that such mercy blesses the Father.
Though I cannot wrap my little brain around my daughter's prayer, I want more of her heart. I want to consider God's desires before my own, "because I love Him so much!"
More Preschool Theology
A few months ago I was filling up the car with gas when Clara giggled in the back seat and announced, "I am thinking about those cookies!" She was referring to some cookies Thomas had brought home from a meeting the night before. I didn't think much of the comment until Clara continued, "I know I should be thinking about God, but I am thinking about the cookies."
Hmmmm.... what to say? I could not really blame a four year old for thinking about cookies. I think about them far too often myself. But then again, we should never give ourselves over to things we sense are wrong... so, since preschool self-control is limited, I suggested this course of action.
"Clara, do you think you could think about God AND the cookie."
She lit up immediately and replied, "That is a great idea! I will think about God the Father, and God the Son, and the Cookie!"
I laughed, feeling certain the Holy Spirit was not offended.
The Transfiguration
God is not a man. I know this. Yet sometimes I grow comfortable imagining God simply as the man Jesus who walked among us weak and hungry men many years ago. Yes, He is still with us. And I love Him! But Jesus is one of three persons in a Holy Trinity. And there is much more to Jesus than the meek and mild teacher.
I love the passages in scripture where Christ’s glory, His divine, uncreated nature burst through. My heart quakes when I hear Him thunder to the Pharisees, “Before Abraham was, I AM!” Since my retreat in April, I have been especially fascinated by the transfiguration and its connection to the exodus.
My Passover vision took me to the book of Exodus, which I now read in a very different light. I am riveted, captivated by the stories which once seemed distant. God the Father, Creator of all, the One who has no beginning and no end, set His affections upon the people of Israel. He fought for them. He ate with their elders. He made a covenant with them, writing the words of that covenant with His own finger. He fed them. He dwelt among them. The Israelites could see his presence in the cloud by day, in the fire by night! They heard His speak and they trembled. They saw Moses’ face shine, transfigured. And when they dedicated the tabernacle, none could stand in His presence, not even Moses.
My heart is burning to see the God that Israel knew in the desert. The God of glory, the consuming fire! The Creator of all that exists, both visible and invisible. Entirely other, unfathomable, but One who loves His people with a jealous love.
This is the glory that Jesus had from the beginning. This is the glory which He prays to the Father just before His passion that His disciples might see. “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:24) And this is the glory which Peter, James and John glimpsed at the Transfiguration.
Until recently, this story in the gospels puzzled me, perhaps in the way it puzzled the disciples. Surely the scene is awesome, a scary and a sober reminder that our Savior is not like any other man. But why Moses and Elijah? And why would they come to talk to Jesus at this point in His ministry?
One problem for English readers, in my opinion, is inadequate translation. Most English versions of Luke 9:30-31 read like this. “And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” The word departure seems odd to me. I have always understood that the word refers to the coming passion and death of Jesus. Even so, it is an unusual usage of words. Departures are everyday affairs. One does not often speak of “accomplishing” a departure, one simply makes a departure.
But as I walked the beach on the morning of the Passover, I recalled that the word in Greek is “exodus.” And then what joy filled my heart! Of course, Jesus would accomplish a great exodus with his death. He would be the Passover lamb, and He would open the expanse between death and life, earth and heaven!
We know from scripture that Jesus desired to be with His close friends on the night of His passion. But He began thinking about His exodus well before that day. And as the day grew closer and began to consume His thoughts, would it not be a comfort to share this burden with friends who understood? Friends who could rejoice with Him, who could speak courage. Friends who knew Him as He really was, in His glory. Moses and Elijah had both seen Jesus in glory, before the Incarnation (or inasmuch as one can speak of “before” when one is outside the confines of time.) They were the type of friends Jesus prayed for in John 17, those who saw the glory the Father had given the Son before the foundation of the world. Peter, James and John would become those friends, and they were invited to the mountain top for a foretaste. But Moses and Elijah already knew. And as a witness to the first exodus, I believe Moses had a special interest in the exodus to come. Speaking mystically, Moses and Elijah were the reward of Jesus’ sacrifice – men who became friends of God by grace, clothed in glory, living with God.
Once again, this is just my imagination, but I believe Jesus longed to wear His glory, or a small bit of it, before entering His passion. I know the Father spoke over His Son on that mountain, and I know that the Son rejoiced in the manifest presence of His Father. Jesus loves the glory He shares with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and the promise of returning to that glory, and sharing it with the people He loves, that was the “joy set before Him.”
On the night of His passion, Jesus prayed this prayer. “ The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one.” I find it fascinating that as often I hear John 17 taught, I rarely hear anyone address this verse. It seems to me that we Christians are understandably often focused on our brokenness. But Jesus prayed for us to have a share in His glory, that we may be one. Somehow carrying the glory of Jesus is essential to our hope of unity. It is certainly essential to our promised life in the presence of God.
How can we carry that glory unless we gaze upon it? Unless we long for a vision of Christ’s glory? Today, on the Feast of the Transfiguration, I set my internal vision toward that mountain in Israel. Toward the consuming fire on Mt. Sinai. Toward the one whose “eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun [k]shining in its strength..” (Rev. 1:14-16) And I take great hope in these other words of the Apostle John, a witness to the Transfiguration, “ Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” (I John 3:2)
The Exodus - Part II
And while He was praying, the appearance of His face became different, and His clothing became white and gleaming. And behold, two men were talking with Him; and they were Moses and Elijah, who, appearing in glory, were speaking of His exodus which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
I wrote recently about my vision of the Exodus on a retreat this April. The next morning, Sunday the 24th, the vision continued. This time I saw the hands of God with His fingers in the dirt. He seemed to be working on something impossibly small, and He began speaking to me like a teacher.
"Amy, Israel could not respond to my glory. My fire terrified them and they would not look Me in the face, so they never learned my emotions, they never felt My love. Instead they made idols which would not burn, gods they could touch. But still my heart longed for Israel. I still yearned for a bride. And so I did another magic trick – one which confounded the heavens.
I hid My glory in the dirt. My Son became very, very small. He took on a face so men could look at Me and learn My heart, learn My emotions, learn My ways.
How could one man accomplish an Exodus? In Egypt, a million people beheld my glory at one time. This time my Son called each person by name – each man, woman, child."
And then Jesus began speaking to me.
"I was the Passover Lamb. And I descended into hell. And I opened a path from death into life. None can shut it until My return, and whoever will may come. The Father and I are one.
I have a glorious Bride from every tribe and nation and tongue and none can deny her because I have parted the expanse between heaven and earth.
When I rose from the dead, I was full of joy because I walked in both my natures – in glory and in humanity. I ascended to the Father and received the glory which was mine. But I am a man like you, and when you see me in glory you will be like Me for you will see Me as I am.
After the Resurrection, I breathed on you, I touched you, I ate with you so you would know that I am with you always, even to the end of the age.