What is Old Becomes New Again

Many, many years ago, when I was actively involved in the Charismatic Movement, I had a vivid dream.  In the dream, a number of us (maybe 6 or 7) were crammed into one of those little clown cars and driving down the highway, laughing, joking, having a great time.  We were all dressed as clowns. 

Then, along a paved two-lane road, the car stopped, and I got out.  The car with all of my companions drove off, leaving me standing alongside the road dressed in my clown costume.  I thought I was in the middle of nowhere, and I could not understand what was happening, or why.  I turned to look around me and saw a small neat path leading back into the woods.  At the end of it was a charming, welcoming, cottage.  Suddenly, with no words, I understood.  I was to stand at the edge of the road, dressed as a clown, to welcome travelers and strangers into my Father's house.

I was consoled at having been dropped off from the "party" going on without me, but I never really understood the clown costume until about 30 years later when I read this passage from Henri Nouwen's Clowning in Rome:

Clowns are not the center of events.  They appear between the great acts, fumble and fall, make us smile again after the tensions created by the heroes.  They are people who, by their solitary lives of prayer and contemplation reveal to us our 'other side' and thus offer consolation, comfort, hope, and a smile.  The large, busy, entertaining, and distracting world keeps tempting us to join the lion tamers and trapeze artists who get most of the attention.  But whenever the clowns appear, we are reminded that what really counts is something other than the spectacular and the sensational.  It's what happens between the scenes.  The clowns show us that our preoccupations, worries, tensions, and anxieties need a smile, but more important that we, too, have white on our faces and that we, too, are called to clown a little.

It is so amazing to me how God can give us an image that somehow speaks to us -- and then explain it by directing our reading, even years later, to someone who has put the explanation into the right words.  In the article I referred to yesterday on "Divine Reading," David Stanley, S.J., answers the question, "Why was the Bible written?"  In order to make available to the man of faith that truth, which is not historical truth, nor scientific truth, nor philosophical truth, by the assimilation of which alone man can be saved.  One traditionally Christian method of assimilating this saving truth is lectio divina.  Stanley goes on to say that by reflecting on the process by which the Scriptures have come into existence, we might better understand how to pray through "divine reading."

(1)  All authentic Scripture takes its origins from a real experience of God by a 'seer' or a prophet.  It is the privilege of such a man to be granted an intuition of the divine activity through some concrete historical event.....for this experience, of course, faith is essential...it is through this faith that the seer grasps what he has experienced of God's activity through which he has deigned to reveal himself to men.

(2) Because he realizes that the precious self-revelation on the part of God has been committed to him for the instruction of the community, the prophet accepts as a sacred duty the commission to proclaim the message.  He is impelled to announce his experience 'in the Spirit' to those to whom he is sent.

(3) Ultimately, the message is set forth in writing, by the prophet himself or some other author guided by the Spirit of God.  It becomes 'scripture' (written down) under the divine impulse because the seer has come to see its value for future members of the community.

In reversing this three-fold process, we as believers begin with the sacred text, reading by faith and reflecting in prayer, to reach through a moment of divine inspiration and grace to an experience of what God is saying to us now.  Jesus had promised that when the Paraclete arrived, "He will teach you everything and cause you to remember all that I have said to you" (Jn. 14:26).

John said, "These things have been written in order that you may deepen your faith that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name."  An ancient Christian document speaks of Christ as "He who appears as new, is discovered to be from of old, is daily born anew in the hearts of the faithful."

My dream, although 30 + years old, has become for me "new again" through the words of Henri Nouwen, who reflecting on his own experience of the Risen Christ, wrote about clowns.  In the same way, Biblical events that occurred 2000 or 4000 years ago can become alive and meaningful for us today through the action of the Holy Spirit breathing life and meaning into the sacred text.  Suddenly, we "get" what God is saying to us about those events, and He uses them to reveal to us that He is still with us, creating, sending light into the darkness, and unfolding His plans for us today. 

Water in the Desert

When I was teaching at Delgado, I used to take the summers off so that I could return fresh and enthusiastic in the fall.  After one summer hiatus, I was greeted by a colleague of mine:  Gayle, it's so good to see you again!  It's like water in the desert!

His words sent a chill through me, as I realized the implications of his metaphor.  The words of Jesus were literally -- not metaphorically-- true:

He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him (Jn. 7:38).

You might think that I tell this story to, in the words of St. Paul, "puff myself up."  I do not.  The reason a chill went through me at that moment was that I realized the Source of the Living Water Morgan referred to, and I also realized that I could never then or in the future have manufactured anything close to it from myself.

In the 4th chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well -- you know, the one who had been married 5 times already, the one who had to come to the well at noon instead of early in the morning, when all the village women would meet and exchange gossip -- about her, no doubt.  In fact, scholars tell us that this well was not in the village itself, but about a mile on the edge of the village.  Did she go out to the remote well instead of going to the one in the middle of the village, just so she would not run the risk of meeting anyone?

But Jesus was there, waiting for her.  "Give me a drink," He asked her.  Startled, she wanted to know why He spoke to her.  If you know anything about Saudi Arabia today, you understand her confusion: no man would dare speak in public to a strange woman.  No Jew would descend to speak to a Samaritan, even if he were dying of thirst.

He promised her "a spring of water welling up to eternal life (zoe)."  She was desperate for this water; in her desperation, she became the very first missionary.  Dropping her water jug, she ran back to the village to tell everyone that she had met the Messiah, and they came out with her to see Jesus and to hear him.  He stayed with them two days, and many of them became believers.  [After His resurrection, Mary Magdalene also became 'the Apostle to the Apostles,' telling them that she had seen Jesus alive.]

Okay, so that's not the end of the story.  In John, Chapter 7, during the great festival of water, Jesus stood up in the Temple area and said, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in Me....streams of living water will flow from within him. 

Both Mary Magdalene and the woman at the well were thirsty enough to drink from the Spring of Water welling up to eternal life.  They were not just a little thirsty -- they were parched to the point of drying up inside.  To them, Jesus was not just an itinerate preacher with a few choice words; He was Water in the Desert of their lives.  He was Life Itself!  And drinking thirstily from the Source of Living Water, they themselves, without knowing how, became a stream of living water poured out to those around them.

No one can take any credit at all for being thirsty, or for being more thirsty than anyone else.  It just happens when nothing else can satisfy your thirst.  Those who have found the Source of Living Water keep returning to drink deeply of its satisfying drafts.  And somehow, that Living Water becomes a stream in the desert, flowing out from within the believer.

Sirach 24 has always been one of my favorite readings:

Now, I, like a rivulet from her stream [Wisdom's],

channeling the waters into a garden,

Said to myself, "I will water my plants,

my flower bed I will drench;"

And suddenly this rivulet of mine became a river,

then this stream of mine, a sea.

Thus do I send my teachings forth shining like the dawn,

to become know afar off.

Thus do I pour out instruction like prophecy

and bestow it on generations to come.

Many people want to do great things; I just want to drink deeply from the Water of Life; I want to water my own little garden and keep the plants alive.  I cannot create the water; I can only channel it.  But the more I drink in, the more it seems to flow out of me to the world around me.

St. Paul once wrote, "I wish that all men could be like me."  His words were not arrogance at all, as they might seem.  Rather, they came from a deep realization of the gift he had been given:  to know Christ Jesus as the Source of all Life, as the Source of deep satisfaction, as the Water of Eternal Life flowing into a thirsty world:  I have come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly.

Divine Reading

In each of us, as the whole tradition of the Church attests, Holy Scripture becomes our saving word only when heard in prayer that leads to the submission of faith.  Lectio divina, a practice dating back to the earliest days of religious life in the church, supposes that the reader surrenders to God who is speaking and granting him a change of heart under the action of the two-edged sword of Scripture continually challenging to conversion.

(-from the Documents of the 31st General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, 1967)

My husband brought me this article he found in the archives of St. Ben's Abbey because he knew I'd love it.  Written by a Jesuit, the article attempts to bring together the scholastic tradition of the Jesuits (and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius) with the monastic tradition of the Benedictines.

What a wonderful insight by David Stanley, S.J.!  Finally, someone has really pointed out something that has frustrated me for a long time.  The Catholic Church offers many bible studies, but they all tend to be more in the scholastic tradition, with historic background, cultural explanations, etc.  This is the kind of tradition that Benedict XVI did not disparage, but said that it did nothing to reveal to him "the face of Jesus."  He wrote his own book Jesus of Nazareth as a personal search for the person of Jesus.

There is nothing wrong with Bible Study, but if it is a quest for intellectual enlightenment, it will do nothing for us, except maybe make us more knowledgeable about the background to the Bible.  And we do have to be knowledgable if we are not to be stupid.  However, being more knowledgeable is not the same thing as drawing closer to Christ; it is not the same thing as what I wrote about yesterday -- knowing the saving hand of God in our own lives, knowing that He has drawn us out of murky waters that were threatening to drown us. 

The program started by a woman from New Orleans, Lord, Teach Me to Pray, based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, as I understand it, teaches people to enter into the Scriptures to hear what God might be saying to them right now.  It teaches people to open their ears and hearts to receive the personal, living Word of God, speaking aloud to them at this moment.  It does not matter if we are "knowledgeable" about how the bible came to be written -- that can come later, if we are really interested.  All that matters is our present-moment conversation with the living God Who cannot wait to begin really conversing with us, face-to-face, as a man talks to his friend.

The principal purpose of reading scripture is to have a spiritual experience, in other words, to be united with God through Christ, The Word.  He is the Word we speak to God; He is the Word God speaks to us.  We now have a common language that is understood and embraced wholly by both speakers. 

Lectio Divina, or this kind of Scripture reading is not at all identified with scientific study; in fact, it goes in the opposite direction.  Scientific study reconstructs the past; the Christian reading scripture begins with today, listening to what the Eternal Word wants to say to him today.

Dom Hubert Van Zellar says this:

Prayer rises out of reading as song rises out of music.  Reading is the most appropriate prelude to prayer.  To the degree that "faith is from hearing," prayer is from reading.  Just as hearing does not complete the work of faith, so neither does reading complete the work of prayer.

St. Benedict built lectio divina into his rule of life for the monks, because in his mind, divine reading "embraces unresticted access to prayer and contemplation."

If we truly want to hear the voice of God speaking to us, to me, in this day and age, let us "take up and read," in the word spoken to St. Augustine.  But let us read slowly, meditatively, waiting for the words to leap into our hearts as living words from the Spirit.  And if we do not know where to begin reading, let us first just hold the book on our laps, asking the Holy Spirit to open it to the place we need to begin.  That in itself is a wonderful place to begin the walk of faith--the belief that God is with us, speaking to us, listening to us.

The Power of a Story

All we have to give one another is our stories.  A few days ago, I wrote about "Ebenezer," the memorial rocks that the Israelites set in place as they settled in Israel, the rocks that would be testimonies to the next generation, and the one after that, of where and how "God has helped us" in this place.  Jesus said that if the children did not cry out his praise, the rocks themselves would shout out their testimonies:  here is where God has helped us!

The Bible is a book of stories:  this is what happened to me, to us.  Here is where God showed Himself to me, to us.  Here, in this place, is where I/we witnessed the glory, the help, the compassion of Yahweh, the One faithful to His people and to His promises.

In their stories, we find our stories.  We have the courage to believe that as they were helped, so shall we be helped.  In the Gospels, there was a man who wanted to follow Jesus, but Jesus told him, "Go back to your village and tell people what God has done for you."

Until we have experienced the profound comfort of God, until we have been washed by Him, or rescued by Him, Psalm 18 will be just a beautiful hymn to us:

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;

He drew me out of deep waters.

He rescued me from my powerful enemy,

from my foes, who were too strong for me.

They confronted me in the day of my disaster,

but the Lord was my support.

He brought me out into a spacious place;

He rescued me because He delighted in me.

Once we have experienced being rescued from our enemies, who were too strong for us, though, Psalm 18 becomes our story, our hymn of praise and thanksgiving to God.  It's our "Ebenezer Rock:" here is where God has helped me!  Now, it's personal.

When the Bible becomes personal, it becomes a living book, expressing our innermost thoughts, giving words to what we ourselves can hardly express.  The church desperately needs witnesses to the truth -- "that God hears the cry of the poor, and those bowed down in suffering, He saves."  The church needs to hear not just Old Testament stories, but the stories of those who today have experienced the love of God.  We need to hear that The Lord is my shepherd...He guides me into paths of righteousness...and prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

It is no good teaching children that God loves them unless we ourselves know that to be true from our own experience.  Unless we are willing to share our own stories, our words will be beautiful, but not necessarily real.  One great place to start "believing from hearing" is GuidePosts Magazine.  Each month, we can read real stories of real people who have experienced the truth of God's love and help in a time of need.  Their stories give us hope; from them we can dare to believe that, just as God heard their cry, so will He also hear our cry.

When I tell my own stories to my students, it is not because I think I am special, but because I believe that what God has done for me, He will also do for them.  How I would love to see a place where the church of God could share their stories with one another, building up the faith of each one, putting down testimonial "rocks" that would shout out to the next generation:  Here is where God has helped us!

We are trapped!

When Moses went to Pharoah, the message was, Let my people go, that they may go out into the desert and worship Me.

God looked upon the Israelites and was concerned about them (Ex. 2:25). 

I'm wondering if He is looking upon us now with concern.  We have become so "plugged in" to the world around us that it is almost impossible for us to hear the quiet, still voice of our own spirits and of God.  We wake up in the morning and turn on the morning news; we check our cell-phones for e-mail (someone else's thoughts, not our own); even on vacation now, we do not unplug -- we must be in constant communication with the world of celebreties, politics, gossip, you-tube videos, and our friends.

Someone posted an article this morning on fb:  "Our Morning Routines are Making Us Dull."  In other words, by switching on the tv and radio first thing, we have snuffed out the creativity shouting in our own souls.  Before I read that, in my quiet time this morning, I had a life-sized image that made me laugh:  I "saw" Jesus and all 12 Apostles walking down a dusty Jerusalem road checking their i-phones for the latest messages.  None of them were conversing, listening, thinking, turning over ideas, or absorbing energy from one another.  All of them were tuned in somewhere else --- and none of the sites to which they were tuned in had even the least importance!

Why was God "concerned" about the Israelites in Egypt?  Why did He want them to "go into the desert to worship" Him?  Worship is intimately connected with freedom.  As long as we are groaning under the burden of slavery, we have no freedom to choose another path.  We have no leisure to discern the good and the right.  And we are now slaves to constant communication; the ads now ridicule people who are even 27 seconds "behind" in getting the latest news.

Worship is intimately connected with wisdom.  The writer of Ecclesiastes says this:  Who can possibly know what is best for a man to do in life---the few days of his fleeting life? For who can tell him what the future holds for him under the sun? .... The secret of what happens is elusive and deep, deep down; who can discover it?  Yet God reveals His secrets to His servants -- a theme that runs throughout the Bible from beginning to end.  In worship, we receive truth, and truth sets us free, so that we are no longer enslaved to the "latest" opinion, viewpoint, or revelation.

Jesus told Nicodemus: You are a teacher in Israel, and you do not know these things?  If you do not understand when I speak to you about things on earth, how will you comprehend when I speak to you of things of heaven? (Jn. 3).    Somehow I recall a phrase -- I thought it was from Ecclesiastes, but cannot now find it -- that went like this:

What is on earth is exceedingly deep,

but what is in heaven, how shall we find it out?

The natural man cannot discern the things of the spirit (I Cor. 2:14), but they are revealed to us in worship, or spirit-to-Spirit communication.  If we have the chance to walk with Jesus early in the morning, or to sit with Him in the evening, let us not be plugged into our electronic devices listening to and watching the latest "news."  I remember years ago one of my colleagues asking if I had listened to the morning news.  I told her that I never listened to the morning "news;" morning was when I listened to the "eternities."

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

Jesus answered, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.  From now on, you do know him and have seen him" (Jn. 14:5-7).

I am the way.....The new sect of believers in Jesus Christ followed "The Way" before they were first called "Christians" at Antioch.  "The Way" meant at first only that they had accepted Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, that they worshipped only Him, that they wanted to know all they could about him (thus producing finally the Gospels as they sought to know all they could find out about him).  After the First Council in Jerusalem, where the apostles debated how much of the Jewish law had to be followed in "The Way," they wrote to the new, young assemblies that all that was required was to abstain from food polluted by idols, from the meat of strangled animals, from blood, and from sexual impurity (Acts 15).  When the apostles -- all Jews -- saw that "God had given the Holy Spirit [to the Gentiles] just as He did to us," they too accepted God's plan of salvation. 

Jesus said that He is "The Way."  He gave one commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.  He even told us how to "love:"  Remain in Me, and I will remain in you....Remain in my love.

The church is the gathering of those who want to remain in Jesus; they want to teach and learn from one another how to "remain in Him" by hearing testimonies, studying the scriptures, sharing their faith.  They love hearing stories of those whose faith in Jesus was not disappointed, despite martyrdom and suffering.  They love seeing examples of Jesus carrying out His mission through those who remain in Him -- feeding the poor, healing the sick, releasing the prisoners, building churches, hospitals, schools, hospices and so on.  Sometimes they need to come together to pray and to seek answers to difficult questions.  They need someone who can speak with authority regarding what the church as a whole assembly has discerned to be the leading of the Holy Spirit. 

I am the Truth....there are many opinions, but Truth resides in One Person.  If we want to know the Truth, we must "remain in Him."  We cannot seek the opinions of the many who do not remain in Him.  If there is someone who remains in Him more than we ourselves, we can seek advice, counsel, insight....but only so that we ourselves can enter the Truth and remain in Him through constant and fervent prayer.  This is the key:  to seek Jesus Christ.  Our only question should be, "How do we seek Him?  How do you seek Him?"  If we want to know the Truth, we must come to know Him.  There is no other way.

St. Seraphim said that there is only one purpose behind our prayers, good works, giving, or whatever we do -- and that is to draw closer, to receive the Holy Spirit.  When someone came to him to seek the way to God, Seraphim told that person to notice the warmth, the peace, the joy that was flooding the seeker's soul at the moment.  Seraphim had not preached, had not even prayed aloud, had not given much wisdom or opinion or learning from books, but remaining in Christ, he was able to point out the Gift of God bestowed on one who was seeking the truth.

I am the Life....He didn't use the Greek word "bios," meaning physical life, but "zoey" meaning eternal, everlasting life, the kind of life God breathed into Adam's physical body to animate it.  He IS God's breath in us; He IS our life -- and that life gives animation also to our physical bodies, as well as to our mind and emotions (psyche, in Greek).  As the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted to the Son to have life in himself (Jn. 5:26).  All of John's Gospel from beginning to end speaks of the LIFE that Jesus grants (breathes into) all who come to Him.  He takes it for granted that all who come to Him are sinners and need a new birth.  When He washed the feet of the apostles at the Last Supper, He told Peter, "Unless I wash you, you will have nothing to do with Me."  He alone washes us and brings us to eternal life.

Christians are as different from one another as were Peter the fisherman and John "the Divine."  They are all in the process of learning The Way, the Truth, and of receiving Life.  They are all struggling to remain in Him, who Alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  He says, "I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world....Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth" (Jn. 17: 14-17).

If we want to know the Way, if we want to know the Truth, if we want eternal Life, there is no other way to the Father.  We must seek Jesus Alone and remain in Him.  He is the Life and the Light of the world.  If we do not believe this, we make His words of no account.   On the last day, there will be "many" who say, "We have done great things in your name." But His answer to them is, "I never knew you."  He can do great things for the world without us, but He can only "know" (experience) us if we come to Him and remain in Him. 

On Hebrew Poetry

The first chapter of Genesis tells of Creation.  Gen. 1:26, however, sets apart the creation of the human from all the rest of the story by using poetry.  One of my most basic requirements for the selection of a biblical translation is that it indicates where poetry is used -- not all translations do.  But poetry conveys meaning that prose cannot; it uses different techniques to convey meaning.  Without the use of poetry, we just do not get the same meaning as the author originally intended.

Here is an unexpected quote from Albert Einstein;  here, the great scientist honors the intuitive and mystical mind over the rational and scientific.  Poetry is neither "scientific" nor "rational," and yet it often conveys truth beyond both science and reason.

One of the most noticeable features of Hebrew poetry is parallelism, or repetition from one line to the next to convey meaning.  If the two lines say the same thing, we have synonymous parallelism, as in Psalm 19:  The heavens/ are telling/ the glory of God
               And the firmament /is proclaiming/ the work of his hands.

Notice the parallelism of the word-units, separated here by slashes.  Often the second line will add one new element to advance the thought one more step.  Here, the work of his hands parallels the glory of God, making creation (the work of his hands) echo His glory. 

The following translation of Genesis 1:26 keeps the original Hebrew word order and links the English words that are one word in Hebrew so that each clause has the same number of words or word-groups as in the original Hebrew:

and-created/ God/ the-human/ in-his-image;

in-the-image of/ God/ created-he/ him;

male/ and-female/ created-he/ them.

If we color-code (or draw lines) to match up the word-units, we uncover meanings that are difficult to explain any other way.  In all three clauses, we can parallel "created-he."  In the first two lines, we can parallel "in the image of" (or "in his image").  That leaves us to line up "the human" with "him" and "them," and then we have to do the same with "God" and "male and female."

The biblical writer, in speaking of God, alternates in Genesis between the singular and the plural forms ("Let us create man in our image and likeness." )  In speaking of "the human," he does the same thing: "him -them."  According to the literary structure, there is one nature (man=human) but 2 persons.  Adam is lonely and incomplete -- we could almost say "not fully human" -- until he finds Eve, "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh."  He has discovered that Paradise and dominion over the earth have no meaning unless it is shared.  We are made for union and intimacy; to be "in the image of God" is to be in relationship, as He Himself is. 

The Hebrews were forbidden to make images, as all the people around them did.  So the biblical writer actually risks shocking his reader by saying that 'the human/ male-and-female' is "the image of God" on earth.  Even today, in countries such as Iran, there are "images" all over the country so that people will not forget who has dominion over the land.  The first thing that happens when a new leader emerges is the creation of new "images" (and maybe destruction of the old ones).

Biblical poetry seems to be telling us that if we want to see God, the creator of heaven and earth, we should look to 'his image and likeness:'  that is, mankind in union with (of the same breath with) his creator, his fellow - man, and with the earth itself.  That is the harmony of paradise, where God freely walks and talks with man, where man freely walks and talks with his companion(s), and where man freely walks and talks with all of the earth.

Jesus Christ, Son of God

Someone said to me the other day, "What does it matter what you believe as long as you're a good person?"  It started me thinking about why it does matter what we believe about Jesus.

If we believe He was the natural son of Joseph, then His birth was just an historical event, like the birth of Martin Luther King -- a man who made a great change, a man whose outlook, philosophy, and actions we can emulate, a man we can look up to.  But we can never "be" Martin Luther King.  Times change; we might find another subject for non-violent protest, but whether anyone will join us in that protest is doubtful.

If we believe that Jesus was Incarnate -- made flesh -- by the power of the Holy Spirit in Mary, that He was born of a virgin, then His birth can occur in us in our time by the same power of the Holy Spirit.  We surrender; we offer our own flesh as His vehicle to reach the world; we are overshadowed by the Spirit of God, who brings to birth in us the only Son of God, Jesus, the Savior of the world.  We do not have to start large movements for His action to make a difference in us.  We can simply "be available" to Him and to the world around us.  He will act in us, sometimes without our even being aware of what He is doing.

Once I was invited to a New Year's Eve party.  I really did not want to go, as the only person I would know there would be the hostess, and frankly, I prefer to spend New Year's Eve in my bed.  But I prayed that it would be as if Jesus attended the party in me.  I went; I was polite; I smiled, ate, and drank, and went home as soon as I could.  The next day, the hostess called me -- we knew one another only because our daughters were friends from gymnastics class.  She started by saying, "I don't know why I think you might have an answer for me, but I'm about to scream.  I go to church and feel like a numb, dumb Catholic.  There just has to be something more!  The priest yells at people coming in late, and I want to stand up and say, 'Maybe if you gave us a reason for being here, we'd be on time!'  Do you know a solution?"

I laughed.  Of course I did.  I myself had found it in the baptism of the Holy Spirit -- which of course I told her about.  In a very short time, the fire that Jesus had come to cast on the earth was aflame in her.  But here's my question:  how on earth did she know to call me and ask that question?

And here's another story:  Shortly after I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, someone that had helped me with the children several years previously, but whom I had not seen in the meantime, called and asked if we could get together again.  We agreed to meet at the Cinema in the Lakeside Shopping Center and see a movie together.  As luck would have it, I could not find a parking place close to the theater, so had to park on the other side of the shopping center.  She stood in front of the theater and watched me walk across the lot toward her.  When I got there, she immediately said, "What has happened to you?  Something has changed you completely!"  (And this, before I had said a word.)  We never made it into the theater that day.  Instead, we had lunch in the shopping center as I explained to her how I came to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Again, what was the clue?  How did she know?  This was not a person who knew me well, but only a brief previous acquaintance.  If I had been trying to start a movement, as did Martin Luther King, I would be out beating the bushes for followers.  But if Jesus Christ has somehow come alive in me through the action of the Holy Spirit, if He is still alive in this world (somehow through me), then He is still making people stop and take notice.  "No one comes to me unless the Father draw him."  All I can believe is that He is still "drawing" people, even when I think I am going to a party or to the movies. 

Yes, it does make a difference what we believe about Jesus Christ!

Inexhaustible Source

Back in the 70's when I really began searching, I read Corrie Ten Boom's books:  My Father's House and The Hiding Place.  These real-life stories of the Ten Boom family hiding Jews, and as a result being sent to concentration camps, started me wondering.  I knew that Jesus had said to love your enemies and do good to them that persecute you, but how do you do that?  I knew the power would not within me to love my enemies in the face of that kind of hatred and persecution. 

At the time, I belonged to a group of seekers called Yokefellow, based on Elton Trueblood's work in California.  We would meet once a week to explore our faith or lack of faith, to ask questions of the Gospel and of one another.  One evening, they brought in a Hari Krishna guru to speak, and I listened to him.  I don't remember anything he said because all the time I was thinking that he would know the answer to my question.  After his talk, I raised my hand and asked my question:  where does the strength come from to love your enemies? 

I remember being so disappointed because he could not answer my question.  He did not know!

At the time, although I went to church faithfully and although I did love God, what I did not know was the nature of Christianity.  I, like so many others, thought it meant practicing your religion and being a moral person.  Until I met Jesus Christ personally, I did not know that Christianity is simply allowing Him to live His life through us.  It has nothing to do with "trying to live a good life."  It is more an "exchanged life," where we hand over our pitiful, sinful, and selfish lives to Him, and in exchange, He moves into our hearts and minds to live His life through us. 

I cannot forgive; He can and does forgive in me.
I cannot love my enemies; He can and does love them through my eyes, hands, mouth, and words.
I cannot do the good I wish to do; He can and does do good even when I am not aware of it.
I have no water with which to quench the thirst of the poor; He is the Living Water given from above.

Corrie Ten Boom said this:  When God tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.  In the desert, Jesus came to the end of His own human strength, that the power of God's word might be His very life:  Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God, He said.  And Isaiah 55 tells us that the word "which goes forth from my mouth" does not return empty, but accomplishes the purpose for which He sent it.  When God said, "Light, Be!" light came into the world and never departed from it.  So, too, when He says, "Love your enemies," His words are not "good advice," but they actually create in us the love which He commands. 

Whatever or whenever we find lack in ourselves, if we can just find the Scripture which has the power to "do" in us what we cannot do for ourselves, we will find that the words of His mouth can accomplish more than we can ask or imagine.  And the Christ, the Living Word of God, in us can do all that seems to us impossible.

"You"

Back in the early 80's, after I had been in the Charismatic Movement for a few years, and had even been co-leading the group, I entered into a period of extreme quiet in my soul.  At first, I was confused by the change:  I found that I could no longer read the Bible, which I had been devouring daily since 1977.  I could no longer really "pray" the way I had learned to pray.  And the Lord seemed to be moving me out of active leadership of the group.  Looking back on it now, I can see how He was preparing me for something else, but at the time, I did not understand what was happening at all. 

Sometime during that period, I saw a very clear image of a bubbling brook (narrow and shallow, moving along the rocks, happily singing) that quite suddenly dropped into a small hole in the ground and then dropped about a hundred feet into a dark cave until it reached a deep, still, underground pool.  I saw that the brook represented my soul, and then I also saw myself sitting quietly beside the pool, in the dark cave, lighted only by the small opening in the ground through which the brook had dropped.  Now, instead of being troubled and confused by my lack of activity, I felt very content to stay beside the deep pool, and just to sit without knowing when I would leave the cave.  My soul grew very still within me.

For the next 8 months, as I recall now, there were only 3 prayers which I could really pray:  The Our Father, which I prayed very, very slowly, phrase by phrase; The Sinner's Prayer [Jesus, Son of David, be merciful to me, a sinner], and a mysterious third prayer: "You!"   That's all there was to the third prayer -- "You!" -- and yet it satisfied my soul entirely, completely, totally -- more than any prayer I have ever prayed before or since. 

"You!"  Even today, when I pray that prayer, I need nothing else.  I need to say nothing else.  That is all and everything I need, and I am still.  What a gift I was given in that prayer!  "You!"

During the time I stayed in the cave, I learned a deep and quiet peace and joy.  I learned that I needed nothing else.  During all of that time, I discovered that I could not read my Bible, though I could and did hold it on my lap or against my chest.  I seemed to be absorbing it, not by reading, but by osmosis.  Whenever I would try to read it  -- at first, I thought it was laziness that was keeping me from reading -- it was as though I could not absorb the words from the page.  In fact, I could hardly even see them. The words could have been the telephone book, meaningless because I didn't know what they referred to.

Then, one day, as I tried to discipline myself to read, the Lord spoke to me:  Let Me feed you! Suddenly, I understood.  Up to then, I had been feeding myself, choosing for myself the words (or menu) I would eat for the day.  Now, he wanted me to relinquish control; He Himself wanted to choose my diet for the day.  Once I let go and submitted to His direction and choice for me, I found Scriptures would come to me softly, and they would lead me in directions I would not have thought of. 

"The School of the Holy Spirit!"  All we need to do is show up.  He has planned the lesson for the day.  He knows how to teach it.  Be still and know that I am God.

Today, I would not trade that cave experience for anything in the world.  It was there I truly learned the words of Zachariah:  Not by might, not by strength, but by My Spirit, says the Lord God of hosts.

You!  How much that prayer echoes the Name God gave to Moses:  I Am!

Born From Above

What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit (Jn. 3--Jesus to Nicodemus).

Can we look at our lives and tell what is born of flesh and what is born of spirit?  I think we can, if we will only look carefully.  If we cannot tell for ourselves, there is always Galatians 5:22 to help us focus: 

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.  I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.



But the fruit of the spirit is love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Just because we "obey the law and follow the rules," it does not mean that we are born of the spirit.  We can for the most part, if we are strong, obey the letter of the law without having the fruits of the spirit within us.  Those who do obey the law for fear of God rather than seeking the respect of men are on the path to righteousness; they are "trying" to do the right thing -- and they are obedient unto God (like Nicodemus, I presume, who came to inquire of Jesus.)  And that obedience will lead them to the new birth that Jesus told Nicodemus about.  Jesus said, "Everyone who loves the Father loves the Son"  --and the Son is the author of the new birth.

My point is this:  we cannot, by our own efforts, give ourselves love, peace, patience, etc.  We can "practice" self-control by the hardest, but that is not the same thing as the fruit of the Spirit rising within us to clothe us from on high with self-control.  I remember doing everything in my own power to "give myself" peace before being baptized in the Holy Spirit.  I tried yoga, transcendental meditation, Unitarianism, positive thinking ---- all of which went out the windom in times of exteme stress.  I was never a "strong character;" I always seemed to need help from above.

Those of us who are weak know why it was the sinners who first responded to Jesus; they had no strength of their own on which they could depend.  They were the first to experience the "new birth" because they had no trust in "the flesh."  Those who are well-groomed, well-fed, well-strengthed, well-educated, of strong character can walk awhile in their own "goodness."  The alcoholic, the drug-addict, the lustful, the poor, the outcast, the prostitute, the weak -- all know they need what AA calls "a Higher Power," which is stronger than they are, which can carry them through their own weakness to victory over the flesh.

I would say that those who are "born from above" all have one thing in common:  Ps. 138:3 --

On the day I called, you answered me;

you increased the strength of my soul.

The English word translated "soul" is the same as the Greek "psyche" -- referring to the mind and the emotions, the two parts of ourselves over which we seem to have the least control.  We can "obey the law" but we cannot give ourselves peace in the inner man.  Only the Spirit that descends from above can do that.  Those who cling to the Lord with their whole hearts, their whole minds, and their whole strength may not even appear to be keeping the law at first.  Jesus said He came to fulfill the law, but sometimes -- most times-- it takes days, months, years for Him to work out in us the years of abuse, weakness, fear, anxiety, etc., to the point that we are "walking in the truth." 

In the meantime, though, He continues to give us peace and joy despite our failings to be perfect.  He gradually works into our hearts and minds His own peace, His own patience, His own kindness and goodness -- as a woman works yeast into the whole batch of dough.  I once met a street-walker, a young girl, that I bonded with.  As we parted company, she impulsively took off a beautiful bracelet she was wearing and insisted that I take it as a gift.  This girl was wearing a dog-collar with spikes facing outward; she was tatooed all over her body; she was wearing spiked hair and heels longer than her skirt -- but I think she might have been closer to the kingdom of God than some of us who are in church every Sunday.  Because of what she suffered from within and from without, she no longer depended on her own strength, and she obviously had the spirit of love, generosity, and kindness living within her.  Whenever I see that bracelet, I think of her with love.

Does not God see us the same way?

Scary Stuff

"It is written," he said to them, 'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you have turned it into a 'den of thieves'." (Matt. 21:13).

The leaders of the Temple in Jerusalem would surely have recognized Jesus' reference to Jeremiah 7:11:  Do you consider this House, which bears My name, to be a den of thieves?  As for Me, I have been watching--declares the Lord. 

The Book of Jeremiah opens (after the call to prophesy) with these words:

The word of the Lord came to me:  What do you see, Jeremiah?

I replied: I see a branch of an almond (shaqed) tree.

The Lord said to me:

You have seen right,

For I am watchful (shoqed) to bring My word to pass.

And the word of the Lord came to me a second time:

What do you see?  I replied:

I see a steaming pot,

Tipped away from the north.

And the Lord said to me:

From the north shall disaster break loose

Upon all the inhabitants of the land!

For I am summoning all the peoples

Of the kingdoms of the north,

declares the Lord (1:11-15).

Jeremiah clearly saw the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon, and he was sent to prophesy what he saw coming.  He prophesied for 40 years, from the death of King Josiah to the beginning of the Babylonian Exile in 587 B.C.E.  But he also prophesied that the people would return to the land after the period of exile.  He agonized over the words God made him speak to his people; he suffered at the response of the people to his message -- they actually threw him down a deep well where no one could hear him words any longer, and left him to die.

When Jesus said, "You have turned [My house] into a den of thieves," the Temple leaders must have been terrified.  I'm sure they ran to the scroll of Jeremiah to refresh their memories on the context of those words:

Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel:  Mend your ways and your actions, and I will let you dwell in this place.  Don't put your trust in illusions and say, "The temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these [buildings]."  No, if your really mend your your ways and your actions; if you execute justice between one man and another; if you do not oppress the stranger, the orphan, and the widow; if you do not shed the blood of the innocent in this place; if you do not follow other gods, to your own hurt ---then only will I let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers for all time.  See, you are relying on illusions that are of no avail.  Will you steal and murder and commit adultery and swear falsely, and sacrifice to Baal, and follow other gods whom you have not experienced, and then come and stand before Me in this House which bears My name and say, "We are safe"? -- to do all these abhorrent things!  Do you consider this House, which bears My name, to be a den of thieves?  As for Me, I have been watching--declares the Lord.

Was Jesus, like Jeremiah, prophesying the coming destruction of Jerusalem and of the Second Temple?  If so, he, like Jeremiah, needed to be gotten rid of.  The message was unthinkable:  it could not happen twice!  The temple leaders were already treading on thin ice with the occupation of Rome and with Roman soldiers watching their every move.  They could not tolerate any movement which threatened the shaky stability they had --- and here is this Fellow maybe prophesying the destruction of the city once again.  Never mind that Jeremiah was right all along; their ancestors did not want to hear what he was saying.

Indeed, God had already told Jeremiah: You shall say all these things to them, but they will not listen to you; you shall call to them, but they will not respond to you....For the people of Judah have done what displeases Me -- declares the Lord.  They have set up their abominations in the House which is called by My name, and they have defiled it.  

Chapter 7 of the Book of Jeremiah is pretty scary, saying, "they acted worse than their fathers."  If Jesus was calling attention to that chapter, it might have been well to listen to Him.  But as we now know, the Second Temple and the city of Jerusalem were both utterly destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.  Whoever had not escaped from the city beforehand was sold into slavery:  men, women, and children.  What was unthinkable in 30 A.D. actually occurred 40 years later!

Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 of Jeremiah have such parallels in the time of Jesus.  Chapter 8 ends with Jeremiah saying this:

Because my people is shattered, I am shattered;

I am dejected, seized by desolation.

Is there no balm in Gilead?

Can no physician be found?

Why has healing not yet

Come to my poor people?

Oh, that my head were like water,

My eyes a fount of tears!

Then would I weeep day and night

For the slain of my poor people (8:21-23).

Jeremiah wept for 40 years over what God had shown him would happen.  Jesus, too, wept over Jerusalem because they had not recognized the time of their visitation.  Unfortunately, even today, we see statues of Jesus and of Mary shedding tears.  And for 31 years, Mary has been appearing at Medjugore, warning us that she will be the "last prophet on earth."  If the 40 year timeframe holds up, that leaves us precious little time to heed the message.

Seeking God's Face: Part 3

Before the "Golden Era" of David's reign as king of Israel, the people passed along their history as oral history, in stories told in tents and around nightly campfires.  When we study the Bible as Literature, we are able to see and hear a closer version of what the Israelites might have heard -- that is, the literary qualities of the text, with its repetitions, puns, assonance, alliteration, and word-play.  Like poetry, these literary elements convey as much meaning as the story itself. 

Sometimes I think that God led me into studying and explicating literature early in my life so that I could even more enjoy the Word of God in all of its richness.  Even in high school, I was gifted with a teacher that I am sure should and would have been teaching in college if she had not been a nun.  She made us explicate poetry and directed us to rich sources of explication with which she had well-stocked our high-school library.  She made us read How Does A Poem Mean? by John Ciardi, so that we would understand that meaning does not reside only in the story itself, but in the subtle choice of words placed in proximity to one another so that each meaning would enhance the other's.  She made us "hear" the bubbling of a brook in the sounds of a poem and the clanging of the bells in Poe's "The Bells."

When I began to teach The Bible as Literature in college, I invested $50.00, a great sum of money at the time in The Five Books of Moses, a translation by Everett Fox which attempts to capture in English the sounds, puns, and word-play that comes across in the original Hebrew Old Testament, or Tanack.  In that version, we can derive so much more meaning from the stories by the play on words that we miss entirely in our "good English" versions. 

In the story of Jacob, there is so much double-entrendre that we can hardly understand the meaning at all if we do not hear and see the double meanings.  Jacob's name itself means "cheater" or "grabber." When Esau returns from hunting to seek his father's blessing, Isaac says, "Your brother came with deceit and took away your blessing."  Esau says, "Is that why his name was called Ya'qob/ Heel-Sneak?  For he has now sneaked (ya'qebeni) me twice:  My first-born right (bekhorah) he took, and now he has taken my blessing (berakhah)!"  

You can see from just this sentence how much fun it would have been to listen to the story being told and "catching" the double-meanings and wordplay, and that double meaning goes throughout the entire story:  the cheater is himself cheater over and over again until he finally lets go of his ambition and seeks only the blessing of God in his life. 

One of the over-riding motifs (designs, patterns) of the Jacob story is the play on the word "face."  After Jacob has been cheated many times by his father-in-law Laban, but has learned that God only is his provider and increaser of wealth, Laban's sons become disgruntled that Jacob's wealth keeps increasing.  They go to their father and complain.  Then Jacob sees "by Lavan's face that he was no longer with him as yesterday and the day before" (Gen. 31: 2).  Jacob calls his wives and says to them, "I see by your father's face: indeed, he is no longer toward me as yesterday and the day before.  But the God of my father has been with me!"  It is now time for Jacob to return to his homeland.

As Jacob returns home, he is afraid to "face" his brother Esau whom he had cheated so many years before.  He believes that Esau will still want to kill him, as he declared he would do as soon as Isaac was dead.  As Jacob enters the land of promise, but before he encounters his brother, he sends peace offerings ahead of himself to Esau, thinking to himself:

I will wipe the anger from his face

with the gift that goes ahead of my face;

afterward, when I see his face,

perhaps he will lift up my face!

The gift crossed over ahead of his face,

but he spent the night on that night in the camp (32:20-22).

That night, before he meets his brother, Jacob has an encounter with an angel of the Lord, with whom he wrestles until the break of day:  I will not let you go until you bless me.  When the angel asks his name, Jacob is forced to confess who he is:  Jacob/ Heel-Sneak/ Cheater/ Grabber.  The angel says to him: not as Yaakov/Heel-Sneak shall your name be henceforth uttered, but rather as Yisrael/ God-fighter, for you have fought with God and men and have prevailed.

Jacob called the name of the place Peniel/Face of God, for I have seen God face-to-face, and my life has been saved.  Now, finally, Jacob is ready to "face" the one he has wronged and to make amends.  When the two brothers meet, Esau grabs his brother's neck and tells him to keep his gifts, for "I have plenty, my brother, let what is yours remain yours."  But Jacob says, "No, I pray!  take this gift from my hands.  For I have, after all, seen your face, as one sees the face of God!"

Is this not absolutely beautiful in the original?   Now we can finally "get it!"  When we show our own faces to God, admitting who we are, we see Him face to face, as did Moses, Abraham, and Jacob.  Then and only then, after we know that God has blessed us, has changed our name from "cheater" to "overcomer" and that we have nothing to fear in any realm, can we truly show our faces to our brothers, whom we have cheated.  Then and only then will their faces "be like the face of God" to us. 

On Sunflowers and Daylillies

After the devastation of Katrina's storm surge, the tree-cover of my landscape was gone, and I had to start all over, creating a sun, rather than a shade, garden.  My first thought was daylillies; I've always wanted a yard full of daylillies in every color.  So I planted what I could afford to buy in the most prominent of my front beds -- the one I managed to restore first.  The only problem was that the bed lies south of my front porch, so when the daylillies began to bloom, all of their little faces were turned toward the sun (south) and away from my sight.  All I could see was the back of their heads.  After two years of not being able to see their faces, I pulled all of them up and transplanted them to the back yard.  Now I have bought more daylillies, but I was careful to plant them on the north side of my property, where I'll see their faces as they turn toward the sun each day. 

I remember my first exposure to sunflowers, too.  I was ten years old and spending the summer with my aunt in Illinois.  She had sunflowers at the edge of her property.  I had never before seen sunflowers, and each morning, the first thing I did was to look out of the window to see if they were facing the sun, as my aunt told me they would always do.  During the day, I re-checked -- and sure enough, they were always slightly turning to face the sun, wherever it was in the sky.

In the Second Book of Chronicles, we find a great example of the Israelites acting like sunflowers and daylillies -- turning their faces toward God, no matter what is happening in their lives.  Jehoshaphat was one of the few really good kings of Judah.  The seer Jehu told him, "There is some good in you, for you rid the land of the Asherah poles and set your heart on seeking God."  Jehoshaphat was not a perfect king, but his outstanding quality was that he always turned his face toward God, like a sunflower.  (See Chapter 19.)

At one point in his reign, he received a report that the armies of Moab and Ammon were advancing against the small kingdom of Judah.  Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the Lord, and he proclaimed a fast for all Judah.  The people of Judah came together to seek help from the Lord.  Indeed, they came from every town in Judah to seek him.....Jehoshaphat stood up in the assembly and said......'O our God, will you not judge them?  For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us.  We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.'

All the men of Judah, with their wives and children and little ones, stood there before the Lord. 
                                                                                                                                    (2 Chron. 20:12).
[like sunflowers and daylillies, with their faces turned toward the sun.]

I've always loved this story because of the total helplessness of the small band of people standing there "not knowing what to do," but inquiring of the Lord.  You should really read the rest of the story in 2 Chronicles 20.  Of course, the Lord told them what to do through Jahaziel, when "the Spirit of the Lord" came upon him as they stood there.  His most memorable line was this:  Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army.  For the battle is not yours, but God's.

If our first response in time of crisis is to turn our faces toward the Lord, like a sunflower, and just to stand there inquiring of Him, will He not send us an answer?  If we do not turn away our faces from His face, will we not see what we should do? 

Yesterday, I wrote about seeking the Face of the Lord.  If we were to begin at the first page of the Bible and study every reference to "face" in the Old Testament, we would undoubtedly emerge from that study with faces as radiant as that of Moses when he emerged from the Presence of the Lord God.  Tomorrow, I'll give just one example of such a study from Genesis.  In the meantime, I'll quote from one of the most popular songs from the Charismatic Movement of the 70's:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus;

Look full in His wonderful face --

and the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

in the light of His glory and grace.

Just picture a field of sunflowers and daylillies with their faces open and turned toward the Son.  That is all we need to know.

Seeking the Face of God

To you, O my heart, he has said, "Seek my face!"

Your face, O Lord, I will seek (Ps. 27:8).

The very first time I came across this scripture, my heart lept.  I knew for sure that this was "my lifetime scripture," a term I had not heard before, but which I later recognized when I did hear it.

"Seek my face!"  How do we seek the face of God?  Pope Benedict XVI wrote a book called Jesus of Nazareth as his own journey toward seeking the face of Jesus.  Despite all of his theological training and familiarity with world-wide scripture scholars, Benedict confessed that none of that scholarship helped him find 'the face of Jesus Christ' that he sought. 

In the Book of Exodus, Moses, who had heard the Lord Yahweh speaking to him in the desert, now begs to see the Face of the One Who Spoke to him.  In one of his many exchanges with the Most High, Yahweh tells Moses: My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest (Ex. 33:14).  Moses replies, If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here...What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?

God promises to do what Moses has asked, and then Moses becomes even bolder:  Now show me your glory (which can also be translated as "Presence/ Weight/ Substance").  In other words, "Show me your face."  Yahweh's answer was that He would cause all of His goodness to pass before Moses and that He would proclaim His Name in Moses' presence, and that He would hide Moses in the cleft of the rock and cover him with His hand, but "My face must not be seen....for no one can see me and live."

Someone reading Exodus might recall as he reads Chapter 33 that a previous chapter (24) revealed that Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel had gone up on the mountain and "saw the God of Israel.....but God did not raise his hand against the leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank" (a way of saying that they continued to live in the flesh).

And even the opening sentences of Chapter 33, the chapter which says, "no one can see me and live," has this to report:  The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. (After Moses had been speaking face to face with Yahweh, he was obliged to cover his face with a veil because the glory of the Lord so reflected in his own face that the Israelites could not bear to gaze upon him until the glory subsided.)

Taking these verses as the basis for a discussion I think would be most fruitful:  which is it, can we see the face of God or not?  Can we speak to God face to face, as a man speaks to his friend, or must we stand far off, like the Israelites who were afraid, and beg that God speak to us through an intermediary like Moses?

I think it depends on whether we hear God speaking to us in our hearts:  To you, O my heart, He has said, "Seek my face!"  If we hear His voice, how could we not seek His face?  And how could He say to us, "Seek my face," if He did not want us to see Him face to face? 

If we do not hear His voice inside of us, all that is left for us is to hear Him speak to us through an intermediary---and time after time, He graciously acceded to the demand of the people to do so---that is, to speak to them through Moses, or through a king, or through a priest, because they were too afraid to approach the Almighty themselves.  They wanted to hear with their ears, but not with their hearts.

We are all "there," where the Israelites were.  Many years ago, the Lord showed me that people tend to sit in church wherever they feel comfortable with Him.  That is, some sit way, way, in the back; they do not want to hear the Voice of God speaking to them.  They are happy to hear God speaking through an intermediary; it is much safer that way, requiring no response -- and they can get out before the crowd that way, too.  Some will come a little closer; they feel a little safer in the Presence -- but not too close.  They don't want to be 'exposed' in the front pews.  And some will come boldly into the Presence of God, not caring about escaping and not afraid to be seen by the Most High, despite their sins and failings.  These are the ones who want to speak to Yahweh face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.  They don't want "all the others" standing between themselves and the face of God.  They don't want to be distracted by what everyone else is doing; they want to know only what God is doing.  They want to hear His voice directly, without interference or interpretation from another.  See how few people are sitting in the front!

[Some will come to the front because they are bringing their children, and they want the children to see for themselves; not worrying too much about themselves, their focus is on what they can give to their children.]

Fortunately, our God is loving and gracious.  He does not despise those who stand far off, afraid to come closer.  He was pleased to send to "those far off" His own Son, "the exact image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, by whom all things were created, in whom dwells all the fullness of God, so that through Him God could reconcile to himself all things" (Col. 1: 15-19).  Like Moses, Jesus veiled within himself the glory of God in order that we could converse with Him face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.  No one was afraid to come to Him, no matter how "far off" they were standing -- unless, or course, they were afraid to reveal their own faces to Him.  

In C.S.Lewis' last novel, Til We Have Faces, the main character, Oreuel, wants to know why the gods do not speak to her when she asks them to.  At the end of the book, she discovers that she has not heard them speaking because she would not reveal her own face.  And God cannot speak to us "until we have faces."  That, I think, is a clue to the answer I asked:  which is it, can we see the face of God or not?  When we ourselves are willing to "go to the front of the church," despite our many sins; when we ourselves are willing to reveal ourselves to God without fear --- then, we will hear Him speak to our hearts, saying, "Seek My Face!"   Your Face, O Lord, I do seek! 

What are we looking for?

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures (Luke 24).

And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself (Luke 24).

In these 2 sentences, I think Luke gives us a most powerful insight into the power of the Resurrection.  Before the Resurrection, during Jesus' ministry in the flesh, He often expressed almost frustration at the "slowness" of the apostles to understand Him:  how slow you are to understand.....will you also go away?.....do you still not "get it"? (my translation).  Until Peter's flash of revelation:  You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God, the disciples themselves thought they were following a Jewish rabbi.  They knew He was the Messiah, but did not understand much beyond that.

After the Resurrection, however, Jesus is able to "open their minds" to "understand the Scriptures."  We are talking here about Jews, whose entire life revolved around study, explication, and adherence to the Scriptures ---- but obviously, there was something about them they did not understand, because they all pointed to Jesus.  Until people met Him, they could not understand what the Scriptures were saying.

So too Paul, who studied under Gamaliel, one of the greatest Jewish teachers of his time.  Paul "knew" the Scriptures, but until he met Jesus, he did not understand them.  That is the power of his teaching---that he is so familiar with the Old Testament -- but now his excitement about what it means carries throughout all his letters.  He has discovered the central reference point of all the Scriptures --- the Living Word, Jesus Christ. 

I have listened to great scholars of Scripture, both Jewish and Christian, and although what they were teaching was interesting, my heart was not "burning within me" until I met Jesus Himself through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  He was the One who opened my mind and heart to understand the Scriptures, the One who made me forever hungry to hear and understand more of His truth, the One who lit a fire in me that has never diminished.  Through Him alone has God fulfilled the prophecies of Joel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah:  I will put my law (teaching) in their minds and write it on their hearts...No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest (Jeremiah: 31:33).

Anyone who truly seeks the Lord will find Him, for we would not seek Him unless He had already found us.  Anyone who seeks wisdom will find it.  Anyone who seeks truth will find it.  Anyone who seeks understanding will find Jesus, who alone can open our minds to understand.  Anyone who seeks Jesus will understand the Scriptures.  It is possible for those who cannot read Scripture to understand it, because it is written in their hearts.

Years ago, I heard a priest tell of a woman who had spent her entire adult life in Carville, the leper colony.  A simple woman, she had never learned to read.  As she lay dying, he entered the room to hear her say these words:

Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come with me.

See! the winter is past; the rains are over and gone.

Flowers appear on the earth;

the season of singing has come,

the cooing of doves is heard in our land.

The fig tree forms its early fruit;

the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.

Arise, come, my beloved;

My beautiful one, come with me (Song of Songs, 2:10-13).

If that was not an example of Jesus speaking the words of Scripture to a dying woman, it is hard to explain what else it could be.  We do not have to wait until our moment of death, though, to hear Him speak to us.  All we need to do is to sit with our bibles -- even closed-- and ask Him to open our minds to hear His words.  He promised us:  Ask, and it will be given; seek and you shall find; knock and the door will be opened.  If we do not ask, do not seek, and do not knock, we will never know whether His words are true.  But I tell you today that He will never disappoint or turn us away if we do ask, seek, and knock.

Nehemiah, the Re-builder

So here's Nehemiah, still in Babylonian, serving as cup-bearer to the king, Artaxerxes, the Persian ruler.  A. notices how downcase Nehemiah is and asks for the reason.  N. tells him and requests permission to return to Jerusalem, "where my fathers are buried, so that I can rebuild it."

Nehemiah clearly has a burden from God to restore the city of Jerusalem and to bring peace to his "family," his people who are still scrabbling for subsistence there and who are still vulnerable to the attacks of their enemies.  The king gives him all the resources he needs and tells him to go do what is in his heart. 

Nehemiah travels to Jerusalem, but does not tell anyone what is in his heart.  At night, under cover of darkness, he sets out to survey the damage.  He gathers a small group of people -- not telling the officials of his plan -- and slowly begins the process of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.  At first, he is ridiculed and mocked for daring to think he could achieve his plan.  But little by little, the people take hope and begin to help.  Sanballat, one of the Samaritan officials (just north of Jerusalem) said this in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria:

What are those feeble Jews doing?  Will they restore their wall?  Will they offer sacrifices?  Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble--burned as they are?

But Nehemiah kept encouraging the people to pray and to put their trust in God:  So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.  Then the attacks became more than verbal, so some of the people had to stand with swords in hand while the others continued building.  The story is worth reading, but here's why I started it:

The name "Nehemiah" is from the same Hebrew root as "Noah," meaning "Comfort."  Our English word comfort comes from the Latin: with strength.  The current usage does not communicate its original meaning, but instead communicates more softness than strength.  Going back to its origin helps us to understand the story. 

When Noah was born, his father said, "He will bring us comfort from the painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed."  Both Noah and Nehemiah were Comforters and Sources of Refuge from pain and destruction in their time.    Both were builders and preservers of life.

Jesus called the Holy Spirit "The Comforter."  Like Nehemiah, the Holy Spirit broods over the broken-down walls of our personalities, the places where we are vulnerable to attack, the groveling life we lead.  He wants to rebuild the broken-down walls of our life, so He secretly, under cover of night, without telling anyone, surveys the damage, gathers the people and resources He needs to succor us, and begins the work.  Immediately, as our heads lift and confidence begins to build in us, we come under attack:

Who do you think you are?  You....?   What do you think you can do?  Why are you even trying?

Like the people of Jerusalem listening to their enemies, we become discouraged, thinking the voices of those around us are right.  There is no use trying; we never succeeded in the past; we will fail again.

But the Holy Spirit calls those in the church to take up swords (connected to the Word of God in the N.T.) in our defense and quietly encourages us, bringing to our side people who can help us.  He is not discouraged; He knows exactly what needs to happen, and He is directing the work. 

The Comforter is rebuilding the weak and defenseless areas of our personalities.  He knows what He is doing.  Nehemiah brought the work of rebuilding Jerusalem to completion.  Let us trust ourselves and our families to the powerful and watchful care of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter!

Repair and Restoration

In the time of the Babylonian Exile, when the city of Jerusalem had been totally destroyed, its walls reduced to rubble, when all of the important people had been deported to Babylon, where they missed their language, their culture, their way of life, Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied that the exiles would not only return to Jerusalem, but that:

your people will rebuild the ancient ruins

and will raise up the age-old foundations;

you will be called "Repairer of Broken Walls,

Restorer of Streets with Dwellings (Is. 58:12).

Jeremiah encouraged the exiles with these words (he had remained in Jerusalem, but sent letters to the exiles in Babylon):

'All who devour you will be devoured;

all your enemies will go into exile,

Those who plunder you will be plundered;

all who make spoil of you I will despoil.

But I will restore you to health

and heal your wound,'

declares the Lord,

'because you are an outccast,

Zion for whom no one cares.'

'I will restore the fortunes of Jacob's tents

and have compassion on his dwellings;

the city will be rebuilt on her ruins,

and the palace will stand in its proper place' (Jer. 30:16-18).

Jerusalem had been destroyed in 587 B.C. and the people taken away to Babylon.  In 538 B.C., Cyrus, King of Persia conquered Babylon and began to rule there.  In his first year, someone showed him the prophecy of Isaiah, made some 50 years previously, where he mentioned Cyrus by name (while the Babylonians were still in power, probably while Cyrus the Persian was still in diapers):

I am the Lord....

who says of Jerusalem, 'It shall be inhabited,'

of the towns of Judah, 'They shall be rebuilt,'

and of their ruins, 'I will restore them.....'

who says of Cyrus, 'He is my shepherd

and will accomplish all that I please;

he will say of Jerusalem, "Let it be rebuilt,"

and of the temple, "Let its foundations be laid."

In truth, the book of Ezra tells us that Cyrus issued an edict in 538 B.C. that anyone among the exiles who wished might return to Jerusalem to re-build the temple.  Cyrus also ordered survivors of the destruction to provide freewill offerings of silver and gold, goods and livestock, to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.  In order to understand Cyrus' motivation, we need to continue reading Isaiah 45, God's further words to Cyrus.  

The Book of Ezra describes the return of the first wave of exiles to Jerusalem and the re-building of the temple under Zerubbal and Jeshua.  But still, the people were downcast and discouraged because the wall of their city was still a pile of rubble, and they were like the people of present-day Haiti, picking out make-shift dwellings among the stones. 

God was not finished with Jerusalem, however.  The ancient prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah were not yet fulfilled.  The second Temple had been completed in 515 B.C., but the heart of the people was not in worship (see Malachi 1:13).  Their hearts were still far from the Lord.  Nehemiah, who had remained in Babylon as cup-bearer to the king, was grieving over the reports he was getting from his relatives in Jerusalem: Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace.  The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.  In his grief, Nehemiah began to fast and pray to Yahweh (Neh. 1: 4-10).

Tomorrow....the rest of the story.....

God Speaks to the Soul

Way down deep in the recesses of our hearts, there is a tiny, almost indistinguishable, spark -- not really yet a flame, but a persistent spark waiting to be noticed.  "I think I'd like to.....;"   "Maybe I could...;"   "What if.....?"

Immediately as we feel the spark, we extinguish it:  But I couldn't;   it would be impossible;   I don't think so;    What would people think?   I've got too much going on now;     How could I.........?

The spark re-kindles.  This time, it lingers a bit longer, and takes from us more argument against it.  More rationalization.  More reasons why it would never happen......    Again, we firmly douse the would-be flame in our hearts.

But it does not go away.  Persistently, it does not accept our firm decision to ignore it.  It comes back again, burning quietly this time -- more than a spark:  Why couldn't I......;   I think maybe....   No, No; let's just leave well enough alone.

Quiet persistence.  Unyielding to our best arguments.  God is preparing the way for a new thing in us.
He refuses to be put off, but still, the choice is ours.  "Come," He says, "I'll show you the way."  And still, we hesitate. 

He will not force us.  He knows exactly how long it will take for us to yield to Him.  He waits.  And He waits some more.  He knows that He will win in the end. 

Finally, our tentative, wavering "Yes, let it be done unto me according to your word."  And the spark in us bursts into flame.  It surprises us; it carries us along.  We did not think we could do it, but it is being done somehow in us.  We laugh for joy.  If only we had known all along how easy it would be!

God laughs, too.  "I told you so," He says.  "I told you so!"