Month: February 2016

John Donne on Friday

From a sermon preached at Lincoln’s Inn (1618)

[Man’s Misery]

First we contemplate man, as the receptacle, the ocean of all misery. Fire and air, water and earth, are not the elements of man; inward decay, and outward violence, bodily pain, and sorrow of heart may be rather styled his elements; And though he be destroyed by these, yet he consists of nothing but these. As the good qualities of all creatures are not for their own use, (for the sun sees not his  own glory, nor the rose smells not her own breath: but all their good is for man) so the ill conditions of the creature, are not directed upon themselves, (the toad poisons not itself, nor does the viper bite itself)  but all their ill pours down upon man. As though man could be a microcosm, a world in himself, no other way, except all the misery of the world fell upon him. Adam was able to decipher the nature of every creature in the name thereof, and the Holy Ghost hath deciphered his in his name too; In all those names that the Holy Ghost hath given man, he hath declared him miserable, for, Adam, (by which name God calls him, and Eve too) signifies but redness, but a blushing: and whether we consider their low materials, as it was but earth, or the redness of that earth, as they stained it with their own blood, and the blood of all their posterity, and as they drew another more precious blood, the blood of the Messias upon it, every way both may be Adam, both may blush. So God called that pair, our ifrst parents, amn in that root, Adam: But the first name, by which God called man in general, mankind, is Ish, Therefore shall a man leave his father, etc. [Gen. 2:24] And Ish, is but a sonitu, a rugitu [from a sound, from a cry]: Man hath his name from crying, and the occasion of crying, misery, testified in his entrance into the world, for he is born crying; and our very laws presume, that if he be alive, he will cry, and if he be not heard cry, conclude him to be born dead. And where man is called Gheber, (as he is often) which is derived from greatness, man is but great so, as that word signifies; It signifies a giant, an oppressor, great in power, and in a delight to do great mischiefs upon others, or great, as he is a great mark, and easily hit by others. But man hath a fourth name too in Scripture, Enosh, and that signifies nothing but misery. When David says, Put them in fear O Lord, that the nations may know they are but men [Ps. 9:20]; there’s that name Enosh, that they are but miserable things. Adam is blushing, Ish is lamenting, Geber is oppressing, Enosh is all that; but especially that, which is especially notified for  the misery in our text, Enosh is Homo aeger [a sick man], a man miserable, in particular by the misery of sickness, which our next step, Non sanitas, There is no soundness, no health in me…

 

 

 

 

Selection take from: John Donne: A Critical Edition of the Major Works,  edited by John Carey; Oxford: OUP, 1990

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NT Wright and Simply Christian

In advance, the following is a paper that I wrote reviewing a portion of NT Wright’s “Simply Christian”  for an ethics class for my second Master’s degree. It’s not a review of the full book, because our class was broken into groups and each member of the group covered different portions of the book. Thus, in the following, I’m looking at Chapters 8-10. You’ve been warned.

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N.T. Wright’s book, Simply Christian, is a love filled attempt to provide a description of what Christianity is about being an explanation to Christians and commendation to non-Christians (ix).  Every page pours forth love.  There is no mistaking it: Wright is a faithful, wise, and sincere lover of Jesus Christ and he communicates Jesus’ love to others magnificently.  Last week, we covered the first four chapters that discuss the echoes of justice, the quest for spirituality, the desire for relationships, and the draw of beauty.  This week, the reading took us further into the Bible story.  Wright, in chapters 5-7, walks the reader through who God is and what His relation to  Heaven and Earth is (pantheism? Panenthies? Or Overlapping, Interlocking?); who Israel is and what they believed and hoped for; and, finally, Jesus and the coming of God’s kingdom.  In chapters 8-10, Wright covers a description of who Jesus was (and is), the Holy Spirit, and the effecting work of the Spirit in the life of the believer (living by the Spirit).  For the purposes of this paper, I will be focusing on chapter 8: “Jesus: Rescue and Renewal”.  There will first be a summary of the chapter, followed by a critique of Wright’s understanding of Jesus’ awareness of his divinity and what I believe to be a lack of discussion of God’s wrath and the Cross.

Wright begins by attempting to answer the question “why did Jesus’s followers hail him as Messiah?” especially since he didn’t act like the expected Messiah (106).  Jesus was not a military leader nor did he instigate any military uprisings (intentionally) (106).  There was no mention of rebuilding the Temple (106).  He spoke with knowledge and wisdom (like a prophet) and he did miraculous works; but, according to Wright, this is not enough to call him the Messiah (107).  The Messiah, it was believed in Jewish tradition, would be a Ruler, a mighty king like David, the one who would lead “the triumphant fight against Israel’s enemies” (Wright 107).  Jesus was none of these.  Rather, He suffered and died; and this, says Wright, His followers could never have understood, no matter how many times Jesus told them (107).

Jesus was a royal and suffering servant, as it was recorded in Isaiah.  “…it is in Isaiah…that we find …God’s coming kingdom, the renewal of creation expressed not least in remarkable healings, the power of God’s ‘word’ to save and restore, the ultimate victory over all the ‘Babylons’ of the world, and the figure of the Servant itself” (107-8).  What was not understood about the Messiah was that in order for evil to have its true end, the Messiah, the propitiation for sins, had to suffer the result of sin: death; and be resurrected to defeat it.  Wright phrases it this way, “God’s plan to rescue the world from evil would be put into effect by evil doing its worst to the Servant–that is, to Jesus himself–and thereby exhausting its power” (108).

Wright then turns his attention to Jesus and his relation to the Temple.  As we know from the bible, Jesus attacks the Temple (for example, turning over tables) with the intent to challenge “…in the name of Israel’s God, the very place where God was supposed to live and do business with his people….God would destroy the city and the Temple, and would vindicate not the Jewish nation as a whole, but Jesus himself and his followers” (109).  The enemy was not Rome, “but the powers of evil that stood behind human arrogance and violence, powers of evil with which Israel’s leaders had fatally colluded” (110).  The rescue was coming, “not from mere political enemies, but from evil itself, from the sin which had enslaved them.  His death would do what the Temple, with its sacrificial system, had pointed toward but had never actually accomplished” (110).  Jesus was the intersecting point of the in-breaking of the kingdom, turning what people considered truth on its head, just as he had done to the merchant tables in the temple.  He would be the unexpected royal and suffering Messiah (110).  Nothing could have prepared his followers for this: not anything from the history of paganism nor the “puzzling, shadowy prophecy” in the Old Testament (Wright 111).  Wright puts it excellently, “The death of Jesus of Nazareth as the king of the Jews, the bearer of Israel’s destiny, the fulfillment of God’s promises to his people of old, is either the most stupid, senseless waste and misunderstanding the world has ever seen, or it is the fulcrum around which world history turns….Christianity is based on the belief that it was and is the latter” (111).

The next item on Wright’s agenda is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, and, subsequently, the rise of Christianity.  He writes, “…we are talking here about resurrection, not resuscitation” (112).  He poses two theories that attempt to contradict the reality of Jesus’ resurrection.  The first is “cognitive dissonance”, which is, “the phenomenon whereby people who believe something strongly go on saying it all the more shrilly when faced with contrary evidence” (112).  Wright explains how this theory fails by using the example of self-proclaimed Messiah, Simeon ben Kosiba, who was killed by the Romans in AD 135 (ref. 106), “nobody went around afterward saying he really was the messiah after all, however much they had wanted to believe that he had been” (112).  The second is the argument that the concept of “resurrection”  was a common characteristic of religions in the ancient Near East.  “Dying and rising ‘gods,’ yes…But–even supposing Jesus’s very Jewish followers knew any traditions like those pagan ones–nobody in those religions ever supposed it actually happened to individual humans“ (113).  Wright, I think, comes to the correct conclusion about Jesus’ resurrection and the rise of the church, “…the best explanation…for the rise of Christianity is that Jesus really did reappear, not as a battered, bleeding survivor, not as a ghost…but as a living, bodily human being” (113).  A bodily resurrection it was; for had it not been (had it been “Ghost” like), Jesus’ well-read Jewish followers would have described his body as a shining star, the way the righteous appear at the resurrection in Daniel 12:3 (113).  Jesus’ interaction with Thomas (plus other examples) indicates that His body was real in His resurrection.

Believing the resurrection is not an easy thing to do, especially considering our post-modern, skeptic, science based worldview (Wright 114).  Believing, says Wright, requires a worldview switch.  “Sometimes, to make sense of the actual evidence before us, we have to pull our worldview, our sense of what’s possible, into a new shape.  That is the kind of thing demanded by the evidence about Easter” (114).  Believing in the resurrection is more than just the comforting thought of an afterlife, which, according to Wright, has been the significant “wrong turn” by Western Christendom (114).  Wright explains, “Resurrection isn’t a fancy way of saying ‘going to heaven when you die.’  It is not about ‘life after death’ as such.  Rather, it’s a way of talking about being bodily alive again after a period of being bodily dead.  Resurrection is a second-stage postmortem life: ‘life after ‘life after death’” (115).  In other words, since Jesus has been raised, God’s kingdom has been ushered in, “and that means we have a job to do.  The world must hear what the God of Israel, the creator God, has achieved through his Messiah” (114-5).  The resurrection is one more event of heaven and earth intersecting and interlocking (Wright 115).  By the resurrection of the Suffering God–one who really does know our pain and anguish–the world and humanity have been renewed and revived, lifted up and given new breath, with a commission to go and “make new creation happen in the world” (Wright 116).

The final portion of the chapter deals with Jesus divinity.  Jesus is, according to Wright, not merely an echo but the actual voice, “a voice which speaks of rescue from evil and death, and hence of new creation” (116).  Historically, Wright explains, those who followed Jesus “had never imagined that a Messiah would be divine” (116).  However, the early Christian Church adhered to Jewish monotheism while affirming that Jesus was divine; this occurred not many centuries later after much thought and contemplation, but within a single generation of the event of the Cross, resurrection, and ascension (Wright 117).

Though the early Church was aware of Jesus’ divinity, Wright explains that Jesus was not (118).  What Wright argues is “…not to diminish the full incarnation of Jesus but to explore its deepest dimension, is that Jesus was aware of a call, a vocation, to do and be what, according to the Scriptures, only Israel’s God gets to do and be.  That, I believe, is what it means to speak about Jesus being both truly divine and truly human(118).  Wright explains, “The closer we get to the cross, the clearer the answer we get to the question, Who did Jesus think he was?” (118).  The closer we get to the Cross the better we see Jesus as fulfilling what God wanted to do: return Israel to himself, to judge and to save, assuming authority over the Temple (Wright 118).  Did Jesus, who had this divine sense of vocation ever think he was mad?  Wright affirms, “certainly”; yet,

“Jesus was certainly shrewd enough to be aware of the possibility of delusion.  But …he was sustained not only by his reading of scripture, in which he found so clearly the lines of his own vocation, but also by his intimate prayer life with the one he called Abba, Father.  Somehow, Jesus both prayed to the Father and took upon himself a role which, in the ancient prophecies, was reserved for YHWH–that of rescuing Israel and the world.  He was obedient to the Father, simultaneously doing what only God can do” (118-9).

Wright closes by emphasizing that Jesus was not aware of his divinity as you and I are aware of our gender or the temperature outside (119).  Jesus’ awareness was closer to a deep awareness of a vocation; like I know I want to be a professor, Jesus had a deep knowledge, “a powerful and all-consuming belief…that within the very being of God there was a give-and-take, a to-and-fro, a love given and received.  Jesus seems to have believed that he, the fully human prophet from Nazareth, was one of those partners in love” (119).

Wait.  What?  What did he just say?

It’s not often I get to see an overlap between 1990’s British Teen-Pop with 2000’s British  Brilliance.  Recently, I was listening to the Spice Girls all time chart busting tune: “Wannabe” (don’t judge).  This song explains what it takes to be their “lover”: essentially, you have to be accepted by their friends.  But there’s more to the song.  The songwriters want to tell you what they really want, (really, really, really want).  But they don’t.  Essentially, they say, “I’m gonna tell you what I want and it’s “zigazig ha”.  Wait. What?  I don’t know what that even is.  I, the listener, am dragged along thinking I’m gonna know, finally, what they really want…yet I end up disappointed with nothing really explained.  I’m left with “zigazig ha”.

This is how I feel here, with N.T. Wright’s understanding of Jesus’ awareness of His divinity.  Wright seems to explain Jesus’ awareness of His divinity as an hyper-enlightened man who intuitively got his vocation right.  “Zigazig ha”.  While I appreciate Wright’s ability to play-up Jesus’ humanity, he simultaneously down-plays (in a significant way) Jesus’ divinity.  With the events of the Transfiguration and Jesus’ Baptism rattling around in my head, I cannot help but be confused by Wright’s language.  How could  Jesus’ experience, at His Baptism, when the dove floated down from heaven with God’s voice booming above, “This is my son.  My chosen one.  Listen to him” (Luke 9).  Or, certainly, if not at His baptism Jesus would have had an awareness (the real awareness) that he was divine (though also human) at the Transfiguration.  In addition, throughout Jesus’ ministry, he knew he had the power to forgive sins, which only God could do; and He said that if you’ve seen Him (Jesus) you’ve seen the Father.  Not to mention all the people recorded as referring to him as the Lord, as in God.  All of this indicates that at some level Jesus was aware of his divinity in more of an active way than just a deep knowledge of a vocation.  I feel that Wright has given his reader “zigazig ha”.

Yes, I am attempting to be comical (Wright’s writing is significantly better than the Spice Girls’); yet, I feel that what Wright has done at many penultimate moments within his book is drop his reader short of really understanding something truly beautiful, truly brilliant.  For instance, in chapter 8, there is virtually no discussion about Jesus being the sacrifice to end all sacrifices, the one upon whom God would fully unleash His wrath.  Wright correctly identifies Jesus as the Suffering Servant–suffering for the world because of sin; yet, he seems hesitant to make reference to God’s just wrath over sin and how Jesus is the perfect propitiation, the Judge judged in our place.  This is one of the primary points of the Cross:  we are the ones who failed, we are the ones who deserve God’s wrath, yet, through Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross God’s wrath is fully mete out, fully satisfied, once and for all.  By faith in Jesus we are justified, pronounced “not guilty”, and able to stand in God’s presence (in Christ, not on our own); this is the message that I need to hear daily.  This is the message I long to hear in Wright’s book, but I don’t.

 

 

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Not Self-Righteous Pricks: In Defense of the Runner

My husband and I have a joke: when I get back from a long run, he asks, “So, how much more righteous are you than me because of your run?” And I laugh, “Honey, I was completely more righteous than you when I got up at 6 am!”    We laugh;  both being Law/Gospel theologians, we know righteousness is only imputed to us by Christ and faith in Him. Nonetheless, truth lingers in the joke: runners have a bad rap; we’re often viewed as self-righteous pricks.

Yes, I’m sure there’s been that runner somewhere who rightfully earned said title of self-righteous prick, but I’ve never met him…or her and I know a lot of runners. Unicorn! So, I’ve no choice but believe that most of us (maybe even all?) are mislabeled and radically misunderstood. We are just runners out running and rarely are we running and thinking, Man, I’m so damn awesome..too bad that sucker over there isn’t more like me.  I mean, seriously, I’ve never had that thought and those whom I know–who are also runners, even competitively so–don’t think that way either. We’re just running, minding our own business, our footsteps, and oncoming traffic. “Other People” and any comparison to said “other people”–in terms of awesomeness and righteousness–falls in to the very distant background, especially when we’re facing mile 3 of a 14 mile long run. Oh, Good Lord, do I really have 11 more?…i think I may die…let’s burn this candle!

Too many times I’ve either heard in casual conversation or read in blog-posts that all of us runners are out to achieve our righteousness, that we give head nods to each other as we pass each other because we both know what we are really doing out on the road at 6am. And the later part of that statement is true, we do know what we are out doing but it’s FAR FROM trying to run to achieve righteousness. Runners know how fleeting (like sand through your fingers fleeting) trying to hold on to a sense of righteousness from running is.  So, we’re not running toward righteousness; rather, what is more likely is that we’re running from our unrighteousness, from our failures, from our emotional and spiritual turmoil and pain. We’re running at all times of the day and in degrees varying from 0-95 because that small scope of time while we’re out running is a reprieve from the things that haunt us present, past, and future. The head nod to another runner at 6am is the head nod of camaraderie, camaraderie of brokenness.  You, too? Yeah, me too. 

More often than not, when I get to know another runner, there is something in their past that jump started the running, something bad, something painful, something that altered their lives in a radical way. For me, running blossomed as a way to deal with the pain and suffering from being sexually assaulted. When I initially tried to self-destruct, I was eventually turned toward running, and running gave me that break from my pain that I needed. As my foot hit the ground and pulled my body forward, I felt the strength of the body God gave me, a body that is good, that is loved and not horrible and only fit for abuse. In that moment where I defied gravity and both feet flew through the air, I was weightless and I was flying, not burdened and weighed down. For those few moments, through those  many movements of my body, I did feel God’s pleasure…not because I was running, but because everything else in my cacophonous head was silenced long enough for me to sense it and feel it. Many of us runners have stories: stories of pain, abandonment, sorrow, grief, and loss  (in all their varying forms), and the backbone of our addiction and love of running stems from the very respite from those stories and current ones by getting picked up and carried away…even if  for only 30 minutes.

Far from being self-righteous pricks, most of us runners (all of the runners I know) are compassionate people who understand on a visceral level the limitations and brokenness and failure of the human body and mind. Running is our lover, yet we are more than aware that she is a very fickle one.  Just a few days of not running and our mile times drop. Too many  miles too fast will cause our joints to remind us the next day that we’re all too human. We’ll train for a race and bomb it…damn. We lose toe nails and gain blisters, neither one deterring nor hindering our running…because we’re addicts, and we know it. We understand the importance of community; we carry each other with words of encouragement and cheers and celebration for a long run well done…ah, heck, even if it’s just 3 miles…Way to go!!  Plus, no one else fully gets a runner like another runner (insert head nod here), so we runners kind of need each other, that’s why we can be clique-ish and why we speak a language that seems foreign to so many others, and if we need to apologize for anything it’s probably that. So: we’re sorry. (But here’s a website to help you translate our running lingo; you’ve now been sufficiently informed.)

We also love you, our non-running friend. There’s very little if any judgment towards you for not running because we are–if we’re honest–saving all of our judgment for ourselves and our slack-ass mile times. And, at least for me, sometimes I envy you my non-running friend, because you don’t look crazy at 5 in the morning running with 18,000 blinking lights and bedecked in safety green reflective material like some sort of whacked out neon Christmas tree. You’re sleeping like any sane person should at 5 in the morning; but as a runner, I’m not that sane so sometimes I’m jealous of your slumber and sanity.

So now you know. Now you know that we’re not self-righteous pricks, but fellow broken human beings, taking one step at a time just like you…albeit sometimes our steps are just quicker and well lit.

 

 

 

 

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John Donne on Friday

The Cross

 

Since Christ embraced the Cross itself, dare I

His image, th’ image of his Cross deny?

Would I have profit by the sacrifice,

And dare the chosen altar to despise?

It bore all other sins, but is it fit

That it should bear the sin of scorning it?

Who from the picture would avert his eye,

How would he fly his pains, who there did die?

From me, no pulpit, nor misgrounded law,

Nor scandal taken, shall this Cross withdraw,

It shall not, for it cannot; for, the loss

Of this Cross, were to me another cross;

Better were worse, for, no affliction,

No cross is so extreme, as to have none.

Who can blot out the Cross, which th’ instrument

Of God, dewed on me in the Sacrament?

Who can deny me power, and liberty

To stretch mine arms, and mine own cross to be?

Swim, and at every stroke, thou art thy cross,

The mast and yard make one, where seas do toss.

Look down, thou spiest out crosses in small things;

Look up, thou seest birds raised on crossed wings;

All the globe’s frame, and sphere’s, is nothing else

But the meridians crossing parallels.

Material crosses then, good physic be,

And yet spiritual have chief dignity.

These for extracted chemic medicine serve,

And cure much better, and as well preserve;

Then are you your own physic, or need none,

When stilled, or purged by tribulation.

For when that Cross ungrudged, unto you sticks,

Then are you to yourself, a crucifix.

As perchance, carvers do not faces make,

But that away, which hid them there, do take:

Let crosses, so, take what hid Christ in thee,

And be his image, or not his, but he.

But, as oft alchemists do coiners prove,

So may a self-despising, get self-love.

And then as worst surfeits, of best meats be,

So is pride, issued from humility,

For, ’tis no child, but monster; therefore cross

Your joy in crosses, else, ’tis double loss,

And cross they senses, else, both they, and thou

Must perish soon, and to destruction bow.

For if the’eye seek good objects, and will take

No cross from bad, we cannot ‘scape a snake.

So with harsh, hard, sour, stinking, cross the rest,

Make them indifferent; call nothing best.

But most the eye needs crossing, that can roam,

And move; to th’ others th’ objects must come home.

And cross thy heart: for that in man alone

Points downwards, and hath palpitation.

Cross those dejections, when it downward tends,

And when it to forbidden heights pretends.

And as the brain through bony walls doth vent

By sutures, which a cross’s form present,

So when thy brain works, ere thou utter it,

Cross and correct concupiscence of wit.

Be covetous of crosses, let none fall.

Cross no man else, but cross thyself in all.

Then doth the Cross of Christ work fruitfully

Within our hearts, when we love harmlessly

That Cross’s pictures much, and with more care

That Cross’s children, which our crosses are.

 

Selection take from: John Donne: A Critical Edition of the Major Works,  edited by John Carey; Oxford: OUP, 1990

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A Window into the Past: Women, Greco-Roman Society, and the Pastorals (part VII : 1Timothy 2:9-15)

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I don’t know what I was thinking running this skimpy post; it’s like I was being lazy and quick. But, going back through this portion, I see that more needs to be said and  teased out to give you, the reader, a better understanding into why Paul is saying some of these things and the meaning behind what he’s saying. So, let me try writing this post again…

For information about the difference between the letters to persons and the letters to churches, click here; the intro to that post will provide you with information I should’ve provided here.

1 Tim. 2:8-15

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling;likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire,but with what is proper…

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Tyranny of Jealousy: The Burden of the Delusional Mind

Under all the many facades I have and use throughout my day, lies a vicious beast. Her name is “Jealousy” and she’s no friend.  She’s a cruel task master that drives me; her whip, relentless against my conscience. I’ve no control over her; in her grip I’m no better than a child’s rag-doll: limp and spineless. Her tongue is swift; she’s capable to spin the most amazing tales that weave and wend through my ears to my mind, plaguing me with lies. I’m blindsided when she surfaces; joyous moments are turned–in the blink of an eye–into gloomy ones, gloomy edged with the red of anger. And while you can’t see her, I feel her burdensome presence heavy on my mind and heart, in my muscles and bones.

 

In the hands of God jealousy is a good thing used to show and express how much He loves us (cf. the entire bible); in my  hands, jealousy is a bad thing that exposes (to me) how much I want not to love you and, to be honest, how much I want to dominate and devour you. When jealousy rears her head, I see not a person before me but a thing that exposes all my failures and shortcomings, a thing to be conquered and quashed. When God says that He’s jealous for us, something beautiful happens: He sends His son, Jesus Christ, into the world to save all of us wandering whores; when I’m jealous, something ugly happens: i think only of myself and my next move to assert myself over you.

 

No matter how eloquently I speak of my jealousy and anthropomorphise it, the problem of my jealousy is neither eloquent nor an other thing/persona. My jealousy reveals that there is glitch in the system, my system; it reveals that there’s a problem, a big problem. And that problem is with me and my broken mind and hardened heart. Jealousy doesn’t happen to me,  but from within me.  Jealousy is a loud siren and bright flashing red light that all is not well, that I’m completely broken.

 

My mind is adept at creating a story-line that’s not real and then simultaneously swallowing it whole: hook, line, and sinker. In the spaces and gaps between the dots and facts my mind connects to create these false story-lines, jealousy is born. And since jealousy is embedded and born from my own mind, there’s no hope that I’ll solve this problem and silence her seductive whispers, from within. I can’t. The very thing I need to fix this problem–my mind–is being held captive by the problem.

 

I need another story-line. I need a true story-line.

 

And for this troubled and delusional mind, there is no better remedy than the Word of God which is Christ and His word the Gospel. The external and preached word of the Gospel is the sword that pierces my perceived reality and makes way for actual reality to enter into my world, my life, my mind. To hear that God loves me so much that He sent His only son to die for my transgressions and raised him for my justification (John 3:16; Rom 4:25) even in the midst of my current wretched jealous state, brings me to my knees; and I cry out: forgive me, a sinner; forgive me, I’m jealous! In hearing–shema hearing; deep-down-in-my-heart-hearing–what is actual, I am given the words to speak, words that are true and not merely mental fabrications and my false story-line begins to unravel. In hearing what is true and real, I’m given new language, language that accurately declares what a thing is. And being able to declare what a thing is, “calling a spade a spade,” is the beautiful linguistic characteristic that makes a theologian of the cross a theologian of the cross (Forde). Calling a spade a spade loosens the tyranny that thing has over you; it puts it in it’s proper place: at the foot of the cross and under the heal of Him who has crushed it’s head (Gen 3).

Wrapped up in the true story-line that is Jesus Christ and His word that is the Gospel–the doctrine of the justification of sinners (me, you, and the whole world)–we are given rest from concocting half baked notions because we have the facts, we have what is real, and we have the words to declare what a thing is.  Wrapped up in the story line of Christ, we are swept up into the arms of a very loving and jealous-for-us God, given the freedom to confess our errors and failures, our sickness and brokenness, and our hard and jealous hearts.  Wrapped up in the story-line of Christ, we can relinquish the burden of our delusional minds.

 

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

 

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John Donne on Friday

From A Litany:

 

IV

The Trinity

O Blessed glorious Trinity,

Bones to philosophy, but milk to faith,

Which, as wise serpents, diversely

Most slipperiness, yet most entanglings hath,

As you distinguished undistinct

By power, love, knowledge be,

Give me a such self different instinct,

Of these let all me elemented be,

Of power, to love, to know, you unnumbered three.

 

 

Selections take from: John Donne: A Critical Edition of the Major Works,  edited by John Carey; Oxford: OUP, 1990

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