Showing posts with label repentance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label repentance. Show all posts
Saturday, July 03, 2010
America: One nation under God
Here's a video of a humbling, inspiring painting by Jon McNaughton.
Watch this, then go to your knees in prayer.
God bless America -- first with repentance, then w. renewal.
Happy 4th of July!
Selah.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
A kiss that stops self-condemnation
The Goodness of God
P.T. Forsyth
"The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." Romans 2:4
The Cross of Christ is much more than a refuge from the repentance produced by God's holy law—it is the great and constant source of the truest repentance we can know. As the Cross retires from religion it becomes a religion more and more emptied of repentance.
... Culture, even moral culture, ousts theology, and its retreat goes with the abeyance of repentance. A humanist Christianity brings no repentance, or but a sentimental at most. There is a great phrase of Luther's which says "Theology makes sinners." Theology does. Orthodoxy does not, and philosophy does not, and litterae humaniores do not, nor does social reform. But theology does. It makes—not pedants (it is too near life), and not saints (it is too near the burning bush)—but it makes sinners, for God's love there makes repentance.
False culture says "No repentance. Sin is a superstition, a nightmare, the fancy of moral neurotics, the fiction of moral rigorists." False religion says "No more repentance. With your conversion, and your forgiveness, and your new sense that God is love, repentance has done its part. It is a frost to the blossom of Christian trust if it come again. Beware, for the sake of your healthy Christian growth, beware of a habit of repentance. Because some need grace, you may not. Or you may not need it all your life."
But you do not think that the prodigal settled in at home to a life of enjoyable religious interests; that he became a cheery and delightful optimist, of the sympathetic kind, which can be so devoid of any moral insight or measure of guilt. You do not think that he settled into his new spiritual place as dully as he found his brother settled in his social place. You do not think he was prepared to love everybody who was interesting enough to be loved, or important enough for him to wish to love, even if they laughed at the moral regulations of the old man's home or the costly passion of his grace. You do not think that he would settle down to hold his brother's view of their father to be as right in its way as his own, and as deserving of publication to the world.
When was his repentance deepest—on the way back, or in the new home? Was it while he expected his father's word of rebuke, or when he was overwhelmed by having no word of rebuke? Was it under the fear of condemnation, or under the experience of "no condemnation"? Was it in bracing himself for the penalty, or in his shock and bewilderment to find that there was none? Was it not, then, when he was taken aback by the absence of all censure, that he knew what guilt really was—when love was given him liberally, without upbraiding, without parade, or even indication, of its cost?
That is the word of the Cross. "I have seen to the judgment. I can provide for my own holiness. Let us not dwell on that now. That has been seen to. Thy sins are forgiven thee. Abide in My peace."
God says little of what His mercy cost Him—what it cost Him not to make it mercy, but because it was mercy. And in our wicked hours we say that if it had cost Him so much as some believe, He would not have been silent about it. How ignoble! If you did a fine thing which you paid for heavily, how would you regard the person who rasped out that if it had cost you so much we should soon all have heard of it? God is too great and royal to parade what it cost Him to save, and thrust His outlay in our face with His gift. But we cannot let it alone—the full mercy, the dreadful cost. His confessors, apostles, martyrs, say it for Him. The immeasurable love becomes the measure of our guilt. The prayer in an agony means the cost. The love which could find no utterance but the healing heartbreak of the Cross becomes an awful mercy. It is the goodness of God, His holy love, as it sinks in, that brings home to us what Schiller teaches, that "the greatest bane of life is guilt"; because it makes us first know and feel that the greatest boon of life is grace. Only the good know how bad they were. There are no pessimists like those who read the old ruin in the regenerating light. "Repent, for the kingdom of God is here." "Be confounded, for your Holy One is your Redeemer." Our greatest hope is our greatest humiliation. And where grace abounds there does sin abound. The Christian life is repentant praise; if much praise, much grief; if much good labour, also much deep sorrow; if much confidence, much amazement. And sin is always the more deeply confessed for ourselves and our world, because we confess much more than sin—a Saviour to our own worst depths and to the wide ends of the earth.
I found a verse of a foreign poetess once, just one verse quoted, and it set me thinking how the rest could have gone. I have translated the verse, and then gone on to continue the note.
Selah.
P.T. Forsyth, "The Goodness of God," Revelation Old and New: Sermons and Addresses by P.T. Forsyth, edited by John Huxtable (London: Independent Press, 1962) [A College Communion address, as reported in The British Congregationalist, 10th August, 1911]. Full address at Paul Moser's Idolaters Anonymous page here.
P.T. Forsyth
"The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." Romans 2:4
The Cross of Christ is much more than a refuge from the repentance produced by God's holy law—it is the great and constant source of the truest repentance we can know. As the Cross retires from religion it becomes a religion more and more emptied of repentance.
... Culture, even moral culture, ousts theology, and its retreat goes with the abeyance of repentance. A humanist Christianity brings no repentance, or but a sentimental at most. There is a great phrase of Luther's which says "Theology makes sinners." Theology does. Orthodoxy does not, and philosophy does not, and litterae humaniores do not, nor does social reform. But theology does. It makes—not pedants (it is too near life), and not saints (it is too near the burning bush)—but it makes sinners, for God's love there makes repentance.
False culture says "No repentance. Sin is a superstition, a nightmare, the fancy of moral neurotics, the fiction of moral rigorists." False religion says "No more repentance. With your conversion, and your forgiveness, and your new sense that God is love, repentance has done its part. It is a frost to the blossom of Christian trust if it come again. Beware, for the sake of your healthy Christian growth, beware of a habit of repentance. Because some need grace, you may not. Or you may not need it all your life."
But you do not think that the prodigal settled in at home to a life of enjoyable religious interests; that he became a cheery and delightful optimist, of the sympathetic kind, which can be so devoid of any moral insight or measure of guilt. You do not think that he settled into his new spiritual place as dully as he found his brother settled in his social place. You do not think he was prepared to love everybody who was interesting enough to be loved, or important enough for him to wish to love, even if they laughed at the moral regulations of the old man's home or the costly passion of his grace. You do not think that he would settle down to hold his brother's view of their father to be as right in its way as his own, and as deserving of publication to the world.
When was his repentance deepest—on the way back, or in the new home? Was it while he expected his father's word of rebuke, or when he was overwhelmed by having no word of rebuke? Was it under the fear of condemnation, or under the experience of "no condemnation"? Was it in bracing himself for the penalty, or in his shock and bewilderment to find that there was none? Was it not, then, when he was taken aback by the absence of all censure, that he knew what guilt really was—when love was given him liberally, without upbraiding, without parade, or even indication, of its cost?
That is the word of the Cross. "I have seen to the judgment. I can provide for my own holiness. Let us not dwell on that now. That has been seen to. Thy sins are forgiven thee. Abide in My peace."
God says little of what His mercy cost Him—what it cost Him not to make it mercy, but because it was mercy. And in our wicked hours we say that if it had cost Him so much as some believe, He would not have been silent about it. How ignoble! If you did a fine thing which you paid for heavily, how would you regard the person who rasped out that if it had cost you so much we should soon all have heard of it? God is too great and royal to parade what it cost Him to save, and thrust His outlay in our face with His gift. But we cannot let it alone—the full mercy, the dreadful cost. His confessors, apostles, martyrs, say it for Him. The immeasurable love becomes the measure of our guilt. The prayer in an agony means the cost. The love which could find no utterance but the healing heartbreak of the Cross becomes an awful mercy. It is the goodness of God, His holy love, as it sinks in, that brings home to us what Schiller teaches, that "the greatest bane of life is guilt"; because it makes us first know and feel that the greatest boon of life is grace. Only the good know how bad they were. There are no pessimists like those who read the old ruin in the regenerating light. "Repent, for the kingdom of God is here." "Be confounded, for your Holy One is your Redeemer." Our greatest hope is our greatest humiliation. And where grace abounds there does sin abound. The Christian life is repentant praise; if much praise, much grief; if much good labour, also much deep sorrow; if much confidence, much amazement. And sin is always the more deeply confessed for ourselves and our world, because we confess much more than sin—a Saviour to our own worst depths and to the wide ends of the earth.
I found a verse of a foreign poetess once, just one verse quoted, and it set me thinking how the rest could have gone. I have translated the verse, and then gone on to continue the note.
"I was able to laugh, my heart was light,
When I stiffened to Thy displeasure;
But it broke me down to be forgiven
Without rebuke or measure."
I had set my face for a grudging grace,
My rags I was half parading;
But I never did look for the crushing rebuke—
To be taken without upbraiding.
To be stopped with a kiss in upbraiding myself,
To be stript of the rags I clung to;
To be treated as more than servant or son,
To be feted and fed, and sung to.
And of cost to Thee, as of wrath for me,
Thou wert dumb, in Thy lordly way;
Of Thyself unspared while thou sparedst me,
Of the ransom Thyself didst pay.
But can I sit mute in my Father's house?
Or remember without amaze?
Can I ever live but to bless Thee and serve,
And the deeper to grieve in praise?
Do I dream? Can I sleep under mercy deep?
'Twas a whole world's guilt I shared.
And my Saviour feels in me anew
The wound we all prepared.
Selah.
P.T. Forsyth, "The Goodness of God," Revelation Old and New: Sermons and Addresses by P.T. Forsyth, edited by John Huxtable (London: Independent Press, 1962) [A College Communion address, as reported in The British Congregationalist, 10th August, 1911]. Full address at Paul Moser's Idolaters Anonymous page here.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
The role of true men & women in the life of a nation
Will our nation perish for lack of true men & women?
See how the ancient cities fell because their men were citizens and no more. They had no heavenly citizenship. They were not kindled by the vision of the righteous city of God, growing up through all the cities of men. They did not seek first the Kingdom of God. What have we among us to make men, to make good men and discredit bad ones? What is to protect us from that nation-killing passion for sport and pleasure, for instance, which is breeding gamblers and bleeding citizenship, which throngs to football but cannot be dragged to service?
We are in more danger from the slow perdition of subtle selfishness and popular materialism than from gross and palpable wickedness. The one is the soil in which the other thrives. On what is our citizenship, our public spirit to live in future? The men, who have done most for our cities in the past, have been moved by the faith, brotherhood, and Kingdom of God.
What are we trusting to, to keep that flame alive and burning in time to come? What is the tendency of our current religious life? It is making true humans or religious consumers, citizens or sectarians, mere delegates of interests, mere self-seekers even in their Salvation, mere fugitives from Hell?
"The sheep of my pasture are men, saith the Lord." What a text! And when God would save the world, He sent it a Man to set up a Divine Kingdom out of all the cities of earth. And if our public life is not made by men who are made by Christ, we have nothing to look for but the doom of the old Empires. The men we need are men who are not only unashamed of a Christian faith but men who consult the will of God in private about every great public movement or step in which they are engaged.
Selah.
P.T. Forsyth, "The Ideal City," preached at the Congregational Church, Llandrindod Wells, on 20th July, 1913. From Revelation Old and New: Sermons and Addresses by P.T. Forsyth, edited by John Huxtable (London: Independent Press, 1962).
See how the ancient cities fell because their men were citizens and no more. They had no heavenly citizenship. They were not kindled by the vision of the righteous city of God, growing up through all the cities of men. They did not seek first the Kingdom of God. What have we among us to make men, to make good men and discredit bad ones? What is to protect us from that nation-killing passion for sport and pleasure, for instance, which is breeding gamblers and bleeding citizenship, which throngs to football but cannot be dragged to service?
We are in more danger from the slow perdition of subtle selfishness and popular materialism than from gross and palpable wickedness. The one is the soil in which the other thrives. On what is our citizenship, our public spirit to live in future? The men, who have done most for our cities in the past, have been moved by the faith, brotherhood, and Kingdom of God.
What are we trusting to, to keep that flame alive and burning in time to come? What is the tendency of our current religious life? It is making true humans or religious consumers, citizens or sectarians, mere delegates of interests, mere self-seekers even in their Salvation, mere fugitives from Hell?
"The sheep of my pasture are men, saith the Lord." What a text! And when God would save the world, He sent it a Man to set up a Divine Kingdom out of all the cities of earth. And if our public life is not made by men who are made by Christ, we have nothing to look for but the doom of the old Empires. The men we need are men who are not only unashamed of a Christian faith but men who consult the will of God in private about every great public movement or step in which they are engaged.
Selah.
P.T. Forsyth, "The Ideal City," preached at the Congregational Church, Llandrindod Wells, on 20th July, 1913. From Revelation Old and New: Sermons and Addresses by P.T. Forsyth, edited by John Huxtable (London: Independent Press, 1962).
Monday, June 22, 2009
The state of affairs in economy
A long term reckoning on the way
Robert Samuelson comments on the current state of affairs, and the runaway welfare state of America [note: italics mine, hat tip Instapundit]:
With these underlying realities, it gives new light to the congressional threats Obama used in order to pass his budget and stimulus, and the subtle way he gifted unions in the auto takeovers. Take another look at the debt proposed by this administration -- what is now appearing as a best case scenario:
The best economists are saying even this untenable offer is going to be much worse. One has to ask: Are we are witnessing a collective will to destruction in America?
Is there a way to reverse this decline?
What does revelation say?
Selah.
Robert Samuelson comments on the current state of affairs, and the runaway welfare state of America [note: italics mine, hat tip Instapundit]:
In theory, expanding public welfare could offset eroding private welfare. President Obama’s health-care proposal reflects that logic. The trouble is that the public sector also faces enormous cost pressures, driven by an aging population and rising health costs. The Congressional Budget Office projects the federal debt will double as a share of the economy (gross domestic product) to 82 percent of GDP by 2019.
Any sober examination of figures like these suggests that the system has promised more than it can realistically deliver. We are borrowing not to finance investment in the future but to pay for today’s welfare — present consumption. Sooner or later, the huge debt will weaken the economy. Nor would paying for all promised benefits with higher taxes be desirable. Big increases in either debt or taxes risk depressing economic growth, making it harder yet to pay promised benefits.
The U.S. welfare state is weakening; insecurity is rising. The sensible thing would be to decide which forms of public welfare are needed to protect the vulnerable and to begin paring others. Our inaction poses another dreary parallel with GM. It was obvious a quarter-century ago that GM the auto company could not support GM the welfare state. But the union wouldn’t surrender benefits, and the company acquiesced. Inertia prevailed, and the reckoning came.
The same cycle, repeated on a national scale with sums many multiples higher, would be correspondingly more fearsome.
With these underlying realities, it gives new light to the congressional threats Obama used in order to pass his budget and stimulus, and the subtle way he gifted unions in the auto takeovers. Take another look at the debt proposed by this administration -- what is now appearing as a best case scenario:
The best economists are saying even this untenable offer is going to be much worse. One has to ask: Are we are witnessing a collective will to destruction in America?
Is there a way to reverse this decline?
What does revelation say?
Selah.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Living from one true center
Can a faithful person serve both flesh and Spirit?
A religion which teaches men to live from two centres instead of one, and that one the conscience, is a non-moral religion; it serves God and Mammon. It has a fearful looking for of judgment. It has the soul of schism in it, which takes effect in the wars of churches, classes, and nations.
Selah.
P.T. Forsyth, “Salvation Theological But Not Systematic,” The Justification of God: Lectures for War-Time on a Christian Theodicy (Independent Press LTD: London, 1957), 96.
A religion which teaches men to live from two centres instead of one, and that one the conscience, is a non-moral religion; it serves God and Mammon. It has a fearful looking for of judgment. It has the soul of schism in it, which takes effect in the wars of churches, classes, and nations.
Selah.
P.T. Forsyth, “Salvation Theological But Not Systematic,” The Justification of God: Lectures for War-Time on a Christian Theodicy (Independent Press LTD: London, 1957), 96.
The potential idolatry of postmodern intuition
A diseased and wasted church
Such views of theology as postpone experience to belief, practice to creed, conscience to assent, or regeneration to impression… are among the chief reasons why the Church has such a weak moral impact on the world, and why its theological foundations seem irrelevant to righteousness and impotent for crisis in history and society. They do not coincide with the foundations of the moral world. Therefore they are regarded as themes instead of being felt as powers. They are treated as academic principles instead of life-giving spirits.
Such considerations help to explain why the Gospel of God’s Kingdom… does not come home to the rations, why it does not take charge of the pubic conscience on a universal scale either to inspire courage or to sustain fortitude.
Selah.
P.T. Forsyth, “Salvation Theological But Not Systematic,” The Justification of God: Lectures for War-Time on a Christian Theodicy (Independent Press LTD: London, 1957), 95-96.
Such views of theology as postpone experience to belief, practice to creed, conscience to assent, or regeneration to impression… are among the chief reasons why the Church has such a weak moral impact on the world, and why its theological foundations seem irrelevant to righteousness and impotent for crisis in history and society. They do not coincide with the foundations of the moral world. Therefore they are regarded as themes instead of being felt as powers. They are treated as academic principles instead of life-giving spirits.
Such considerations help to explain why the Gospel of God’s Kingdom… does not come home to the rations, why it does not take charge of the pubic conscience on a universal scale either to inspire courage or to sustain fortitude.
Selah.
P.T. Forsyth, “Salvation Theological But Not Systematic,” The Justification of God: Lectures for War-Time on a Christian Theodicy (Independent Press LTD: London, 1957), 95-96.
Friday, May 15, 2009
A forever witness of a dead soldier
Chamberlain amidst death at Fredericksburg
In the preternatural cold night before Fredericksburg, sky alight with strange light, and haunting sounds of lead and shot and ball, missiles tearing through air and earth, flesh and blood and mud and bone, high-pitched whine of Minie balls and lower roar of cannon, hellish shriek of shell, Joshua Chamberlain lay on the battlefield with the torn remnants of his men from the 20th Maine. He survived only by lying among the stacked, faithful dead.
He spent the long cold night there, in horrid awe and wonder: sky dancing with Aurora Borealis so far South: what portent!
Wakened in the cold dawn by the renewed rifle fire, he made a sudden discovery. He moved his head -- pillowed on a corpse --, and from the pocket of the soldier that shielded him in death, a well-worn New Testament dropped out. Chamberlain was deeply moved. Listen to his words:
"Wakened by the sharp fire that spoke the dawn, as I lifted my head from its restful though strange pillow, there fell out from the breast pocket a much-worn little New Testament written in it the owner's name and home. I could do no less than take this to my keeping, resolved that it should be sent to that home in the sweet valley of the Susquehanna as a token that he who bore it had kept t he faith and fought the fight. I may add that sparing mercy allowed the wish to be fulfilled, and this evidence gave the stricken mother's name a place in the list of the nation's remembered benefactors."
Ah! What honor! The loyalty that kept Chamberlain at post, even with all hope gone; the last breath of this dead soldier, who even in death witnessed to life and saved a special life with his body; the enduring Word of God that sustained him to hopeless things -- shall this not echo into eternity?
Is this not what keeps my hand over my heart when I salute the flag?
Yeah, not the sins of my nation, but the destined valor of souls who gave their all that we might live -- live to be a light to the nations -- this, this captures my heart. I yet thrill when I hear the words, "America! America! God shed His grace on thee!"
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!
The words of Chamberlain, the life of this dead soldier... they live on.
Even with America plagued by those who hate what Chamberlain stood for... yea, something yet endures! In great deeds, something abides. On great fields, something stays. Forms pass and change, bodies disappear, but spirits linger, to consecrate ground as the vision-place of souls.
Selah.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Blackout: A metaphor of spiritual darkness
A parable for Lent
A prophetic word by Emil Brunner
During wartime blackout practices we noticed what life would be like without light, how weird everything was, how one took uncertain steps, how quickly one lost his way, how easily one collided. The blackout is said to have cost more lives in England than the war.
That may be a parable for us of what darkness in the spiritual sense means in the individual life of man and in the life of nations. You know, indeed, how it is when it is simply dark in us and around us, when we do not know in and out, when it is like a devilish darkening over our mind, and we ourselves think, feel, and do what the light shuns. That the Bible calls 'wandering in darkness.' But it can happen that one becomes accustomed to this darkness so that he does not notice how terrible, how inhuman, how contrary to sense all life then becomes. And as in individuals, so in the life of nations. Now is a blackout time in the whole world of nations, as perhaps never at all before.
For earlier one still knew that there is a God, that there is a righteousness, that finally a retribution comes, that there are holy laws and orders. But today there are millions and millions of Europeans – about the others I do not wish to speak – now who no longer know all that, who have radically struck God from their hearts and lives and who therefore live entirely in darkness and who do the works of darkness.
We see today and thank God; many who did not see it are now finally beginning to see it that one cannot live without God. But perhaps it is already too late; perhaps the darkness of godlessness must first give vent to its fury before better times can come. The power of darkness seems today to have received a free night from God that it may crush to pieces what it wills so that the nations realize to what place one comes when he abolishes God.
Selah.
Emil Brunner, I Believe in the Living God, 43-44.
A prophetic word by Emil Brunner
During wartime blackout practices we noticed what life would be like without light, how weird everything was, how one took uncertain steps, how quickly one lost his way, how easily one collided. The blackout is said to have cost more lives in England than the war.
That may be a parable for us of what darkness in the spiritual sense means in the individual life of man and in the life of nations. You know, indeed, how it is when it is simply dark in us and around us, when we do not know in and out, when it is like a devilish darkening over our mind, and we ourselves think, feel, and do what the light shuns. That the Bible calls 'wandering in darkness.' But it can happen that one becomes accustomed to this darkness so that he does not notice how terrible, how inhuman, how contrary to sense all life then becomes. And as in individuals, so in the life of nations. Now is a blackout time in the whole world of nations, as perhaps never at all before.
For earlier one still knew that there is a God, that there is a righteousness, that finally a retribution comes, that there are holy laws and orders. But today there are millions and millions of Europeans – about the others I do not wish to speak – now who no longer know all that, who have radically struck God from their hearts and lives and who therefore live entirely in darkness and who do the works of darkness.
We see today and thank God; many who did not see it are now finally beginning to see it that one cannot live without God. But perhaps it is already too late; perhaps the darkness of godlessness must first give vent to its fury before better times can come. The power of darkness seems today to have received a free night from God that it may crush to pieces what it wills so that the nations realize to what place one comes when he abolishes God.
Selah.
Emil Brunner, I Believe in the Living God, 43-44.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Tell her that her sins I cover
Comfort, comfort ye my people
Words: Johann G. Olearius, 1671; trans. Catherine Winkworth, 1863
Music: Psalm 42
Comfort, comfort ye my people,
speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
comfort those who sit in darkness,
mourning 'neath their sorrow's load;
speak ye to Jerusalem
of the peace that waits for them;
tell her that her sins I cover,
and her warfare now is over.
For the herald's voice is crying
in the desert far and near,
bidding all men to repentance,
since the kingdom now is here.
O that warning cry obey!
Now prepare for God a way!
Let the valleys rise to meet him,
and the hills bow down to greet him.
Make ye straight what long was crooked,
make the rougher places plain:
let your hearts be true and humble,
as befits his holy reign,
For the glory of the Lord
now o'er the earth is shed abroad,
and all flesh shall see the token
that his word is never broken.
Alleluia!
Selah.
Words: Johann G. Olearius, 1671; trans. Catherine Winkworth, 1863
Music: Psalm 42
Comfort, comfort ye my people,
speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
comfort those who sit in darkness,
mourning 'neath their sorrow's load;
speak ye to Jerusalem
of the peace that waits for them;
tell her that her sins I cover,
and her warfare now is over.
For the herald's voice is crying
in the desert far and near,
bidding all men to repentance,
since the kingdom now is here.
O that warning cry obey!
Now prepare for God a way!
Let the valleys rise to meet him,
and the hills bow down to greet him.
Make ye straight what long was crooked,
make the rougher places plain:
let your hearts be true and humble,
as befits his holy reign,
For the glory of the Lord
now o'er the earth is shed abroad,
and all flesh shall see the token
that his word is never broken.
Alleluia!
Selah.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Repentance: Facing the Apocalypse
How penitence renews us in covenant protection
The rush of natural disasters, hurricanes, wind and fire, the march of terror and war, the hint of economic crash… these things we can no longer ignore. People now ask me, “Is this the beginning of the end?”
It is a serious question.
I try to answer it in biblical terms. Scripture never emphasizes the when of apocalypse, but always emphasizes the what of apocalypse, as in, “What should be our response in such a time as this?” “How then should we live?”
The Hebraic prophets called for repentance when faced with national disaster. Such teaching is totally opposite our postmodern intuitions. What? A spiritual response to physical disaster? Surely not!
We then ask, “Why?” Why would the prophets call for a moral response to material calamity? Why would Jesus finish His sermon on apocalypse by saying, “Watch, therefore…”? In other words, ‘Live a certain way.’
Is there some link between moral and physical reality? Scripture answers this, a resounding “Yes!”
Scripture asserts that our spiritual thoughts, our mental and internal status, affect physical reality. Our universe is first a spiritual universe. All that is, is held together by the Spirit of God. ‘In Him we live and move and have our being.’ ‘And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.’ ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made…’‘You send forth your Spirit and they are created…”
So when faced with physical calamity, the prophets say, “Repent.”
When humans repent, we bring our lives into line with the Spirit that holds the whole together. An actual connection with the eternal occurs – whether we realize it or not.
This is why it is no mere child’s game to say that our prayers affect even physical disasters, such as hurricanes or economic crash. The prophets emphasized this, repeatedly. And they were only applying the specific covenant promise of God. 2 Chronicles 7:14:
It is the same promise that God offered them in when He brought them out of Egypt:
In covenant repentance, God acts on behalf of His children. “I am your healer; I will heal your land.” Penitence and prayer thus become the most powerful things in the universe – things that re-connect us to the One who renews us, even if silent and unseen
Physical reality is connected with spiritual actions. Sara Yoheved Rigler, a Jewish writer, puts it this way:
Our repentance, covenant repentance, means that the power of God comes to bear, to forgive past offenses and grant healing. God promises himself as healer and deliverer.
Covenant repentance: exactly what is it? Since it is so compelling, how does it happen?
2 Chronicles 7:14 gives the pattern: humble the self, pray, seek the face of God, and turn from personal unrighteousness. It is simply taking relation with God seriously, accepting the fact that God is a Holy God. This is biblical penitence: Humility, committed prayer, wholehearted seeking of God, and turning away from known sin: Life in light of the gracious choice of God.
It is so powerful, it could save a nation. It could save a city. It could save a family. It could save a relationship. It could save you.
C. S. Lewis frames repentance as lived remorse, “where we lay down our [weapons] and surrender, say we're sorry, realize we're on the wrong track, and move full speed astern.” Repentance, he says, is “the only way out of a hole.”
In practical terms, penitence is humbly living in the grace of God – and this to such degree that we bring God into the details of daily life, into the small things. This is the test of grace.
Francois de Fenelon says:
Righteousness is letting God into the small things, and then realizing that He owns all things.
Our defense against the day of apocalypse is the action of this day. This day! ‘Today, if you will hear my voice,’ says the Lord. ‘Harden not your heart as in the day of provocation…’ ‘Now is the appointed time. Today is the day of salvation…’
Today!
Hear the voice that calls for repentance, and face the Apocalypse. It could be that your prayers will avert the day of disaster. Your prayers might save a relation or save the nation.
Alleluia!
Selah.
[1] S.Y. Rigler, “A spiritual response to disaster,” Society Today, http://www.aish.com/societyWork/society/Reacting_to_the_Tsunami.asp
The rush of natural disasters, hurricanes, wind and fire, the march of terror and war, the hint of economic crash… these things we can no longer ignore. People now ask me, “Is this the beginning of the end?”
It is a serious question.
I try to answer it in biblical terms. Scripture never emphasizes the when of apocalypse, but always emphasizes the what of apocalypse, as in, “What should be our response in such a time as this?” “How then should we live?”
The Hebraic prophets called for repentance when faced with national disaster. Such teaching is totally opposite our postmodern intuitions. What? A spiritual response to physical disaster? Surely not!
We then ask, “Why?” Why would the prophets call for a moral response to material calamity? Why would Jesus finish His sermon on apocalypse by saying, “Watch, therefore…”? In other words, ‘Live a certain way.’
Is there some link between moral and physical reality? Scripture answers this, a resounding “Yes!”
Scripture asserts that our spiritual thoughts, our mental and internal status, affect physical reality. Our universe is first a spiritual universe. All that is, is held together by the Spirit of God. ‘In Him we live and move and have our being.’ ‘And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.’ ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made…’‘You send forth your Spirit and they are created…”
So when faced with physical calamity, the prophets say, “Repent.”
When humans repent, we bring our lives into line with the Spirit that holds the whole together. An actual connection with the eternal occurs – whether we realize it or not.
This is why it is no mere child’s game to say that our prayers affect even physical disasters, such as hurricanes or economic crash. The prophets emphasized this, repeatedly. And they were only applying the specific covenant promise of God. 2 Chronicles 7:14:
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
It is the same promise that God offered them in when He brought them out of Egypt:
There the LORD made for them a statute and a rule, and there He tested them, saying, ‘If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in His eyes, and give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer’ [Exodus 15:35, et al].
In covenant repentance, God acts on behalf of His children. “I am your healer; I will heal your land.” Penitence and prayer thus become the most powerful things in the universe – things that re-connect us to the One who renews us, even if silent and unseen
Physical reality is connected with spiritual actions. Sara Yoheved Rigler, a Jewish writer, puts it this way:
A person stealing $100 in Tel Aviv lowers the moral fiber in Mexico City and could encourage massive embezzlement in Melbourne. Conversely, a person [praying] in Haifa may avert an auto accident in London or prevent complications during open-heart surgery in Los Angeles. The spiritual channels of effect run far below the surface, untraceable but powerful.
Spiritual forces, like ocean waves, do not lose their power over distance.[1]
Our repentance, covenant repentance, means that the power of God comes to bear, to forgive past offenses and grant healing. God promises himself as healer and deliverer.
Covenant repentance: exactly what is it? Since it is so compelling, how does it happen?
2 Chronicles 7:14 gives the pattern: humble the self, pray, seek the face of God, and turn from personal unrighteousness. It is simply taking relation with God seriously, accepting the fact that God is a Holy God. This is biblical penitence: Humility, committed prayer, wholehearted seeking of God, and turning away from known sin: Life in light of the gracious choice of God.
It is so powerful, it could save a nation. It could save a city. It could save a family. It could save a relationship. It could save you.
C. S. Lewis frames repentance as lived remorse, “where we lay down our [weapons] and surrender, say we're sorry, realize we're on the wrong track, and move full speed astern.” Repentance, he says, is “the only way out of a hole.”
In practical terms, penitence is humbly living in the grace of God – and this to such degree that we bring God into the details of daily life, into the small things. This is the test of grace.
Francois de Fenelon says:
To do small things that are right continually…is much more important [than doing 'great things']. These small acts attack our pride, our laziness, our self-centeredness, and our oversensitive nature. It is much more appealing to make great sacrifices to God, however hard they might be, so that we might do whatever we want with the small decisions of life. Faithfulness in the little things better proves our love for God. It is the slow, plodding path [of daily obedience] that matters...
Righteousness is letting God into the small things, and then realizing that He owns all things.
Our defense against the day of apocalypse is the action of this day. This day! ‘Today, if you will hear my voice,’ says the Lord. ‘Harden not your heart as in the day of provocation…’ ‘Now is the appointed time. Today is the day of salvation…’
Today!
Hear the voice that calls for repentance, and face the Apocalypse. It could be that your prayers will avert the day of disaster. Your prayers might save a relation or save the nation.
Alleluia!
Selah.
[1] S.Y. Rigler, “A spiritual response to disaster,” Society Today, http://www.aish.com/societyWork/society/Reacting_to_the_Tsunami.asp
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Rise, help and redeem us
If we have forgotten the name of our Lord
Psalm 44 lined by J.B. Herbert
If we have forgotten the name of our God
Or unto an idol our hands spread abroad,
Shall not the Almighty uncover this sin?
He knows all our hearts and the secrets within.
Rise, help and redeem us, Thy mercy we trust;
Rise, help and redeem us, Thy mercy we trust.
Not trust will I place in my strength to defend,
Nor yet on my sword as a safe-guard depend;
In Thee, Who hast saved us and put them to shame,
We boast all the day, ever praising Thy name.
Rise, help and redeem us, Thy mercy we trust;
Rise, help and redeem us, Thy mercy we trust.
O why art Thou hiding the light of Thy face,
Forgetting our burden of grief and disgrace?
Our soul is bowed down, yea, we cleave to the dust;
Rise, help and redeem us, Thy mercy we trust.
Rise, help and redeem us, Thy mercy we trust;
Rise, help and redeem us, Thy mercy we trust…
Amen!
Selah.
J.B. Herbert on Psalm 44, "If We Have Forgotten the Name of Our Lord," Songs for Christian Worship: A Selection of Psalms and Hymn for Use in the Church, the Bible School, the Youth Groups, and the Home, Board of Christian Education of the United Presbyterian Church of North America (L.H. Jenkins: 1950), 225.
Psalm 44 lined by J.B. Herbert
If we have forgotten the name of our God
Or unto an idol our hands spread abroad,
Shall not the Almighty uncover this sin?
He knows all our hearts and the secrets within.
Rise, help and redeem us, Thy mercy we trust;
Rise, help and redeem us, Thy mercy we trust.
Not trust will I place in my strength to defend,
Nor yet on my sword as a safe-guard depend;
In Thee, Who hast saved us and put them to shame,
We boast all the day, ever praising Thy name.
Rise, help and redeem us, Thy mercy we trust;
Rise, help and redeem us, Thy mercy we trust.
O why art Thou hiding the light of Thy face,
Forgetting our burden of grief and disgrace?
Our soul is bowed down, yea, we cleave to the dust;
Rise, help and redeem us, Thy mercy we trust.
Rise, help and redeem us, Thy mercy we trust;
Rise, help and redeem us, Thy mercy we trust…
Amen!
Selah.
J.B. Herbert on Psalm 44, "If We Have Forgotten the Name of Our Lord," Songs for Christian Worship: A Selection of Psalms and Hymn for Use in the Church, the Bible School, the Youth Groups, and the Home, Board of Christian Education of the United Presbyterian Church of North America (L.H. Jenkins: 1950), 225.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
A connection between repentance and true love
Human interest, an expression of a spiritual and relational truth: on days of true penitence before God, young Jewish men and women were trusted to choose their mates -- at other times, parents and family arranged the matches, but in times of repentance they could choose for themselves... for it was then they could allow God to make the choice in them.
Listen to Rabbi Yonason Goldson:
The Talmud explains that on all other festive days, the Jewish court would dispatch officers to prevent young men and women from social contact that might lead to impropriety. But on Yom Kippur and Tu B'Av, the judges found no cause for concern. On both these days, the atmosphere of repentance and spiritual commitment permeated Jewish society so intensely that impure motives never entered the minds of young men and women seeking marriage. True, attractive women might flaunt their beauty and women from prominent families promote their lineage, but the rest would say, Make your choice for the sake of heaven.
Interesting, no?
If we want to understand and enter true love, the path is in prayer and penitential observance -- not in "You gotta get out more!" or the subtle pressure of our circle! Quite a lesson for our culture...
Selah.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Kierkegaard on repentance
True repentance is not momentary sorrow
True repentance does not belong to a certain period of life, as fun and games belong to childhood, or as the excitement of romantic love belongs to youth. It does not come and disappear as a whim or as a surprise. No, no. There is a sense of reverence, a holy fear, a humility, a pure sincerity which insures that repentance does not become vain and overhasty.
From the point of view of the eternal, repentance must come “all at once,” where in one’s grief there is not even time to utter words. But the grieving of repentance and the heartfelt anxiety that floods the soul must not be confused with impatience or the momentary feeling of contrition. Experience teaches us that the right moment to repent is not always the one that is immediately present. Repentance can too easily be confused with a tormenting agonizing or with a worldly sorrow; with a desperate feeling of grief in itself. But by itself, sorrow never becomes repentance, no matter how long it continues to rage. However clouded the mind becomes, the sobs of contrition, no matter how violent they are, never become tears of repentance. They are like empty clouds that bear no water, or like convulsive puffs of wind. This kind of repentance is selfish. It is sensually powerful for the moment, excited in expression – and, for this very reason, is no real repentance at all. Sudden, quick repentance wants only to drink down the bitterness of sorrow in a single draught and then hurry on. It wants to get away from guilt, away from every reminder of it, and fortify itself by imagining that it does not want to be held back in the pursuit of the Good.
What a delusion!
True repentance is not self-improvement
There is a story about a man who by his misdeeds deserved to be punished according to the law. After he had served his sentence he went back into ordinary society, reformed. He went to a foreign country, where he was unknown and where he became known for his upright conduct. All was forgotten. Then one day a fugitive appeared who recognized him from the past. The reformed man was terrified. A deathlike fear shook him each time the fugitive passed. Though silent, his fear shouted with a loud voice, until it became vocal in that dastardly fugitive’s voice. Despair suddenly seized him and it seized him just because he had forgotten his repentance. His self-improvement had never led him to surrender to God so that in the humility of repentance he might remember what he had once been.
True repentance: temporal and eternal
Yes, in the temporal and social sense, repentance may come and go. But in the eternal sense, it is a quiet daily commitment before God. In the light of eternity, one’s guilt is never changed, even if a century passes by. To think anything of this sort is to confuse the eternal with what it is least like – human forgetfulness.
One can tell the age of a tree by looking at its bark. One can also tell a person’s age in the Good by the intensity and inwardness of his repentance. It may be said of a dancer that her time is past when her youth is gone, but not so with a penitent. Repentance, if it is forgotten, is nothing but immaturity. The longer and the more deeply one treasures it, however, the better it becomes.
Repentance must not only have its time, but also its time of preparation. And herein lies the need of confession, the holy act that ought to be preceded by preparation. Just as a person changes his clothes for a celebration, so a person preparing for confession is inwardly changed. But if in the hour of confession one has not truly made up his mind he is still only distracted. He sees his sin with only half an eye. When he speaks, it is just talk – not true confession.
We mustn’t forget that the One who is present in confession is omniscient. God knows everything, remembers everything, all that we have ever confided to him, or what we have ever kept from his confidence. He is the One “who sees in secret,” with whom we speak even in silence. No one can venture to deceive him either by talk or by silence.
True repentance: Divine self-awareness
When we confess to God, therefore, we are not like a servant that gives account to his master for the administration entrusted to him because his master could not manage everything or be everywhere at once. Nor when we confess are we like one who confides in a friend to whom sooner or later he reveals things that his friend did not previously know. No, much of what you are able to keep hidden in darkness you only first get to know by revealing it to the all-knowing One. The all-knowing One does not get to know something about those who confess, rather those who confess find out something about themselves.
Prayer
Dear Abba, this Lenten season, may I discover and enter true repentance through the grace of Jesus Christ, my Lord. Grant me this in His name, and through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth who leads us into all truth. Amen.
True repentance does not belong to a certain period of life, as fun and games belong to childhood, or as the excitement of romantic love belongs to youth. It does not come and disappear as a whim or as a surprise. No, no. There is a sense of reverence, a holy fear, a humility, a pure sincerity which insures that repentance does not become vain and overhasty.
From the point of view of the eternal, repentance must come “all at once,” where in one’s grief there is not even time to utter words. But the grieving of repentance and the heartfelt anxiety that floods the soul must not be confused with impatience or the momentary feeling of contrition. Experience teaches us that the right moment to repent is not always the one that is immediately present. Repentance can too easily be confused with a tormenting agonizing or with a worldly sorrow; with a desperate feeling of grief in itself. But by itself, sorrow never becomes repentance, no matter how long it continues to rage. However clouded the mind becomes, the sobs of contrition, no matter how violent they are, never become tears of repentance. They are like empty clouds that bear no water, or like convulsive puffs of wind. This kind of repentance is selfish. It is sensually powerful for the moment, excited in expression – and, for this very reason, is no real repentance at all. Sudden, quick repentance wants only to drink down the bitterness of sorrow in a single draught and then hurry on. It wants to get away from guilt, away from every reminder of it, and fortify itself by imagining that it does not want to be held back in the pursuit of the Good.
What a delusion!
True repentance is not self-improvement
There is a story about a man who by his misdeeds deserved to be punished according to the law. After he had served his sentence he went back into ordinary society, reformed. He went to a foreign country, where he was unknown and where he became known for his upright conduct. All was forgotten. Then one day a fugitive appeared who recognized him from the past. The reformed man was terrified. A deathlike fear shook him each time the fugitive passed. Though silent, his fear shouted with a loud voice, until it became vocal in that dastardly fugitive’s voice. Despair suddenly seized him and it seized him just because he had forgotten his repentance. His self-improvement had never led him to surrender to God so that in the humility of repentance he might remember what he had once been.
True repentance: temporal and eternal
Yes, in the temporal and social sense, repentance may come and go. But in the eternal sense, it is a quiet daily commitment before God. In the light of eternity, one’s guilt is never changed, even if a century passes by. To think anything of this sort is to confuse the eternal with what it is least like – human forgetfulness.
One can tell the age of a tree by looking at its bark. One can also tell a person’s age in the Good by the intensity and inwardness of his repentance. It may be said of a dancer that her time is past when her youth is gone, but not so with a penitent. Repentance, if it is forgotten, is nothing but immaturity. The longer and the more deeply one treasures it, however, the better it becomes.
Repentance must not only have its time, but also its time of preparation. And herein lies the need of confession, the holy act that ought to be preceded by preparation. Just as a person changes his clothes for a celebration, so a person preparing for confession is inwardly changed. But if in the hour of confession one has not truly made up his mind he is still only distracted. He sees his sin with only half an eye. When he speaks, it is just talk – not true confession.
We mustn’t forget that the One who is present in confession is omniscient. God knows everything, remembers everything, all that we have ever confided to him, or what we have ever kept from his confidence. He is the One “who sees in secret,” with whom we speak even in silence. No one can venture to deceive him either by talk or by silence.
True repentance: Divine self-awareness
When we confess to God, therefore, we are not like a servant that gives account to his master for the administration entrusted to him because his master could not manage everything or be everywhere at once. Nor when we confess are we like one who confides in a friend to whom sooner or later he reveals things that his friend did not previously know. No, much of what you are able to keep hidden in darkness you only first get to know by revealing it to the all-knowing One. The all-knowing One does not get to know something about those who confess, rather those who confess find out something about themselves.
Prayer
Dear Abba, this Lenten season, may I discover and enter true repentance through the grace of Jesus Christ, my Lord. Grant me this in His name, and through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth who leads us into all truth. Amen.
Kierkegaard on repentance II
The fire of repentance
The fire of repentance and of the accusing conscience is like that Grecian fire which could not be put out with water – so, too, this one can be extinguished only with tears.
Repentance means to lament the sins one has committed and not to commit any more the sins one has lamented.
There is a Savior, not merely so that we can resort to him when we have sinned, receiving forgiveness, but precisely for the purpose of saving us from sinning.
That a person wants to sit and brood and stare at his sin and is unwilling to have faith that it is forgiven is itself a further guilt. It simply ignores what Christ has done.
Repentance: First nothing, then everything
That Christ makes something big out of something small, as at the feeding of the five thousand, is usually referred to as a miracle. But Christ also works a miracle inversely – makes something big (everything that wants to be something) into something little. He makes it infinitely nothing in humility.
God creates everything out of nothing – and all God is to use He first turns to nothing.
God in heaven, let me rightly feel my nothingness, not to despair over it, but all the more intensely to feel the greatness of your goodness.
God chooses and is closest to the despised, the castoffs of the race, the one single sorry abandoned wretch. He hates this business of the pyramid.
Attending to repentance in deeds and words
Our hearts often pay far greater toll to sin than do our words or deeds. They invite us to self-excusing. Thoughts invite us, more than words and deeds, to continue in sin; for thought can be concealed, while words and deeds cannot.
It is precisely our consciousness of sin that can lead us nearer to God. For there is hope of conquering the evil, if only, every time sin attacks us, it leads us nearer to God.
How shall God be able in heaven to dry up your tears when you have not yet wept?
To grumble about the world and its unhappiness is always easier than to beat one’s breast and groan over oneself.
Repentance as the path to true self-knowledge
The all-knowing One does not get to know something about the one who needs confession, rather the one who confesses gets to know something about himself.
Be not afraid of the penitential preacher, who perhaps has terror in his appearance and wrath in his voice, who chides and rebukes and thunders. No, in the inmost depths of every man’s heart there dwells his own preacher of repentance. When he has a chance to speak, he does not preach to others. He preaches before you alone. He does not preach in any church before an assembled multitude, he preaches in the secret chamber of the heart. He has nothing else whatever to attend to but to attend to you, and he takes good care to be heard when all around you is silence, when the stillness makes you lonely.
Repentance: A terrible, singular cure
The remedy seems infinitely worse than the sickness. “But if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.”
Whoever is intent upon confession is as solitary as one who is dying.
Teach me, oh God, not to torture myself and not to make a martyr of myself in suffocating introspection, but to take deep and wholesome breaths of faith!
Oh infinite love, I do desire to be involved with you! If I make a mistake, oh, you who are love, strike me so that I get on the right path again.
Prayer
Father in heaven, open the fountains of our eyes, let a torrent of tears like a flood obliterate all that which has not found favor in your eyes. But also give us a sign as of old, when you set the rainbow as a gateway of grace in the heavens, that you will no more wipe us out with a flood.
Father in heaven, let your face shine upon me, that I may walk in your ways and not stray more distantly from you, where your voice can no longer reach me. Oh, let your voice inspire faith and let me hear it, even if it overtakes me with its terrors upon my erring paths, where I live as one sick and tainted in spirit, apart and lonely, far from fellowship with you and with neighbor!
Lord Jesus Christ, you who came into the world to save the lost – you who left the ninety and nine sheep to seek that one which was lost – seek me, lost as I am upon my erring paths.
Good Shepherd, let me hear your voice, let me know it, let me follow it! Holy Spirit, come to me with groanings that cannot be uttered. Pray for me as Abraham did for Sodom, that if there be but one pure thought, one better feeling in me, the time of probation may be prolonged for the barren fig tree. And Holy Spirit, you who give birth to the dead and youth to the aged, renew me also; create in me a new heart.
I seek you alone, you the Omniscient. If I am guilty, enlighten my understanding that I may see my error and my depravity. I do not wish to escape suffering – that is not my prayer – but let me learn never to argue with you. I must conquer, even though the manner of it is infinitely different from what I can imagine.
Selah.
_____________
Soren Kierkegaard, P r o v o c a t i o n s: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, Compiled and Edited by Charles E. Moore. Reprinted from www.bruderhof.com. Copyright 2002 by The Bruderhof Foundation, Inc. Used with permission.
The fire of repentance and of the accusing conscience is like that Grecian fire which could not be put out with water – so, too, this one can be extinguished only with tears.
Repentance means to lament the sins one has committed and not to commit any more the sins one has lamented.
There is a Savior, not merely so that we can resort to him when we have sinned, receiving forgiveness, but precisely for the purpose of saving us from sinning.
That a person wants to sit and brood and stare at his sin and is unwilling to have faith that it is forgiven is itself a further guilt. It simply ignores what Christ has done.
Repentance: First nothing, then everything
That Christ makes something big out of something small, as at the feeding of the five thousand, is usually referred to as a miracle. But Christ also works a miracle inversely – makes something big (everything that wants to be something) into something little. He makes it infinitely nothing in humility.
God creates everything out of nothing – and all God is to use He first turns to nothing.
God in heaven, let me rightly feel my nothingness, not to despair over it, but all the more intensely to feel the greatness of your goodness.
God chooses and is closest to the despised, the castoffs of the race, the one single sorry abandoned wretch. He hates this business of the pyramid.
Attending to repentance in deeds and words
Our hearts often pay far greater toll to sin than do our words or deeds. They invite us to self-excusing. Thoughts invite us, more than words and deeds, to continue in sin; for thought can be concealed, while words and deeds cannot.
It is precisely our consciousness of sin that can lead us nearer to God. For there is hope of conquering the evil, if only, every time sin attacks us, it leads us nearer to God.
How shall God be able in heaven to dry up your tears when you have not yet wept?
To grumble about the world and its unhappiness is always easier than to beat one’s breast and groan over oneself.
Repentance as the path to true self-knowledge
The all-knowing One does not get to know something about the one who needs confession, rather the one who confesses gets to know something about himself.
Be not afraid of the penitential preacher, who perhaps has terror in his appearance and wrath in his voice, who chides and rebukes and thunders. No, in the inmost depths of every man’s heart there dwells his own preacher of repentance. When he has a chance to speak, he does not preach to others. He preaches before you alone. He does not preach in any church before an assembled multitude, he preaches in the secret chamber of the heart. He has nothing else whatever to attend to but to attend to you, and he takes good care to be heard when all around you is silence, when the stillness makes you lonely.
Repentance: A terrible, singular cure
The remedy seems infinitely worse than the sickness. “But if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.”
Whoever is intent upon confession is as solitary as one who is dying.
Teach me, oh God, not to torture myself and not to make a martyr of myself in suffocating introspection, but to take deep and wholesome breaths of faith!
Oh infinite love, I do desire to be involved with you! If I make a mistake, oh, you who are love, strike me so that I get on the right path again.
Prayer
Father in heaven, open the fountains of our eyes, let a torrent of tears like a flood obliterate all that which has not found favor in your eyes. But also give us a sign as of old, when you set the rainbow as a gateway of grace in the heavens, that you will no more wipe us out with a flood.
Father in heaven, let your face shine upon me, that I may walk in your ways and not stray more distantly from you, where your voice can no longer reach me. Oh, let your voice inspire faith and let me hear it, even if it overtakes me with its terrors upon my erring paths, where I live as one sick and tainted in spirit, apart and lonely, far from fellowship with you and with neighbor!
Lord Jesus Christ, you who came into the world to save the lost – you who left the ninety and nine sheep to seek that one which was lost – seek me, lost as I am upon my erring paths.
Good Shepherd, let me hear your voice, let me know it, let me follow it! Holy Spirit, come to me with groanings that cannot be uttered. Pray for me as Abraham did for Sodom, that if there be but one pure thought, one better feeling in me, the time of probation may be prolonged for the barren fig tree. And Holy Spirit, you who give birth to the dead and youth to the aged, renew me also; create in me a new heart.
I seek you alone, you the Omniscient. If I am guilty, enlighten my understanding that I may see my error and my depravity. I do not wish to escape suffering – that is not my prayer – but let me learn never to argue with you. I must conquer, even though the manner of it is infinitely different from what I can imagine.
Selah.
_____________
Soren Kierkegaard, P r o v o c a t i o n s: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, Compiled and Edited by Charles E. Moore. Reprinted from www.bruderhof.com. Copyright 2002 by The Bruderhof Foundation, Inc. Used with permission.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Repentance: The only way out of the hole
Our most alive times: Escaping the hells we create
Johann Christoph Arnold
We must change, or die. That is not only a biological fact, but a truth that holds the key to solving the great riddle of heaven and hell in our personal lives. Circumstances can't always be changed; other people, even if we may try to influence them, are still other people; the future is impossible to predict – even tomorrow is a mystery. In short, our best efforts cannot make heaven out of hell. But there is one thing we can do, and that is choose - to be selfish or selfless; to burn with lust or with love; to defend our power, or dismantle it. And that is why, instead of taking on the futile task of trying to change the whole world, we must, as Gandhi once advised, be the change we wish to see in it.
Real transformation is the opposite of self-improvement. It is one thing, for example, to spruce up an old wall by covering it with a new coat of paint; quite another to check for dry rot or termites and replace every damaged board. The cosmetic solution costs less, at least upfront, whereas the structural one, which requires far greater changes, also requires far more labor and time. But if that is what is needed, that is what must be done. Even if the new paint is shiny, the surface will soon prove itself insufficient to save the wall, and in the end, more will be lost than was temporarily saved.
As with the house, so with each of us. We can – as today's advertisers seem to have successfully seduced our generation into doing – spend the greater part of our lives repainting ourselves: Upgrading our computer, replacing the old car, shedding those extra pounds, going to the hairstylist to try the newest look. Deep down, however, we all know that none of these changes can bring lasting happiness. Deep down, all of us sense that to some extent, the hells of our lives are related to the brokenness of our own hearts and minds, and that this brokenness is the most vital thing we must examine and fix.
How we go about doing this is another story, for knowing that a problem exists does not mean knowing how to solve it. We are by nature divided; our souls are fissured, and we cannot bind or heal them any more than the victim of heart disease can carry out surgery on himself. And thus our transformation depends not only on us, but on another power, and on our willingness to submit to it, just as the patient submits to the surgeon's knife.
Because we fear pain [who looks forward to surgery?] most of us do everything we can to avoid it. And not only literally. To be inwardly cut to the quick – to have one's false fronts torn away and the lies behind them exposed, to have one's rough edges chipped away and one's ego cut down to size, to be "pruned," as the Gospels put it – simply is a painful thing.
That's why we often settle for more convenient, more comfortable ways to change. We aim to fine-tune our marriages, improve relationships at work. We work at being a better team player, a better listener, parent, or friend. We choose something we don't like about ourselves and resolve to do away with it, or at very least change it. But no matter how many such timid efforts we make, they will not help us any more than painkillers, which suppress symptoms but do nothing to truly combat disease. They simply cannot bring us the much greater relief that comes from having signed up for surgery, and from being able to emerge after it with a clean bill of health.
How different transformation looks to someone who grits his teeth and opts for the full treatment! Such a person knows the exhilaration of undergoing a thorough upheaval, and even if he later reverts to his old self – to weariness, boredom, sickness, or sin – he never forgets the experience so completely that he won't long for it again.
To use a familiar image from the natural world, we must undergo the same full-fledged metamorphosis as that of a caterpillar before it becomes a butterfly. Inside its chrysalis or cocoon, a caterpillar loses all of its defining characteristics: its skin color, shape, mouth, and legs. Even its internal organs and systems are altered during the pupal stage, and its appetites and habits as well. It loses everything that once made up its identity. It ceases to exist as a caterpillar. But that is not all. In submitting to the destruction of its old body, it is no longer confined to crawling on the underside of a leaf, but captures the eye with its beauty and its ability to flutter and float and soar. Whereas previously it could not reproduce, it can now mate and lay eggs: its [transformation] allows it to bear fruit.
What does it mean to "die," be transformed, and experience rebirth? First and foremost, I believe it means letting ourselves be dismantled – not partially, but completely. That, to me, is the crucial first step – giving up our dreams and ambitions, our worries and fears; yielding control over our social, political, and economic agendas; surrendering our most personal plans; even revealing our darkest secrets.
Equally vital is letting go of our goodness. Not surprisingly, that is difficult. In fact, having talked with countless people at critical moments in their lives, I've found that this is often the biggest sticking point. All of us want to change, to become better people, to get rid of the negative baggage we drag after ourselves. But when it comes down to the brass tacks, most of us are just as eager to preserve every inch of our old selves, or at least our good parts. Having gladly dropped everything we didn't like about ourselves, we still cling desperately to the rest, refusing to believe that it might be tainted, and hoping that it can still be rescued. Yet the fact is that even the most sincerely held virtue can be a great obstacle to transformation. That is because a subjective view of our own goodness is rarely in line with reality; that is to say, few of us are really as pure as we might imagine ourselves.
Simply put, rebirth is impossible for those who are in love with themselves in any way, and that goes for a "religious" person as much as anyone else. Confidence is one thing, of course, and no one can truly live or blossom without it. But the self-love of complacency – the sort that leads people to talk about how they are "saved" because they were "born again" (or how they are "enlightened" because they have "seen the light") – is quite another. In fact, it seems to me that those who claim such things are among the worst enemies of rebirth, if only because their smugness is often coupled with the assurance that the rest of the world is damned. Maybe that is why Jesus reserved His harshest words for His most pious countrymen – rebuking them as a "brood of vipers" and comparing them to "whitewashed tombs. It is surely why He also warned them – and us – that “whoever saves his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life will save it.”
There is another ingredient to finding new life, other than merely “letting go,” and that is repenting. Unfortunately, to many, the word implies hellfire and brimstone. In fact, repentance is just another word for remorse, or, to paraphrase C. S. Lewis, for laying down our arms and surrendering, saying we're sorry, realizing we're on the wrong track, and moving full speed astern. Repentance, he says, is "the only way out of a hole.”
Selah.
This is excerpted from Johann Christoph Arnold’s article, ‘Our Most Alive Times: Escaping the Hells We Create,’ from Bruderhof Community.
Johann Christoph Arnold
We must change, or die. That is not only a biological fact, but a truth that holds the key to solving the great riddle of heaven and hell in our personal lives. Circumstances can't always be changed; other people, even if we may try to influence them, are still other people; the future is impossible to predict – even tomorrow is a mystery. In short, our best efforts cannot make heaven out of hell. But there is one thing we can do, and that is choose - to be selfish or selfless; to burn with lust or with love; to defend our power, or dismantle it. And that is why, instead of taking on the futile task of trying to change the whole world, we must, as Gandhi once advised, be the change we wish to see in it.
Real transformation is the opposite of self-improvement. It is one thing, for example, to spruce up an old wall by covering it with a new coat of paint; quite another to check for dry rot or termites and replace every damaged board. The cosmetic solution costs less, at least upfront, whereas the structural one, which requires far greater changes, also requires far more labor and time. But if that is what is needed, that is what must be done. Even if the new paint is shiny, the surface will soon prove itself insufficient to save the wall, and in the end, more will be lost than was temporarily saved.
As with the house, so with each of us. We can – as today's advertisers seem to have successfully seduced our generation into doing – spend the greater part of our lives repainting ourselves: Upgrading our computer, replacing the old car, shedding those extra pounds, going to the hairstylist to try the newest look. Deep down, however, we all know that none of these changes can bring lasting happiness. Deep down, all of us sense that to some extent, the hells of our lives are related to the brokenness of our own hearts and minds, and that this brokenness is the most vital thing we must examine and fix.
How we go about doing this is another story, for knowing that a problem exists does not mean knowing how to solve it. We are by nature divided; our souls are fissured, and we cannot bind or heal them any more than the victim of heart disease can carry out surgery on himself. And thus our transformation depends not only on us, but on another power, and on our willingness to submit to it, just as the patient submits to the surgeon's knife.
Because we fear pain [who looks forward to surgery?] most of us do everything we can to avoid it. And not only literally. To be inwardly cut to the quick – to have one's false fronts torn away and the lies behind them exposed, to have one's rough edges chipped away and one's ego cut down to size, to be "pruned," as the Gospels put it – simply is a painful thing.
That's why we often settle for more convenient, more comfortable ways to change. We aim to fine-tune our marriages, improve relationships at work. We work at being a better team player, a better listener, parent, or friend. We choose something we don't like about ourselves and resolve to do away with it, or at very least change it. But no matter how many such timid efforts we make, they will not help us any more than painkillers, which suppress symptoms but do nothing to truly combat disease. They simply cannot bring us the much greater relief that comes from having signed up for surgery, and from being able to emerge after it with a clean bill of health.
How different transformation looks to someone who grits his teeth and opts for the full treatment! Such a person knows the exhilaration of undergoing a thorough upheaval, and even if he later reverts to his old self – to weariness, boredom, sickness, or sin – he never forgets the experience so completely that he won't long for it again.
To use a familiar image from the natural world, we must undergo the same full-fledged metamorphosis as that of a caterpillar before it becomes a butterfly. Inside its chrysalis or cocoon, a caterpillar loses all of its defining characteristics: its skin color, shape, mouth, and legs. Even its internal organs and systems are altered during the pupal stage, and its appetites and habits as well. It loses everything that once made up its identity. It ceases to exist as a caterpillar. But that is not all. In submitting to the destruction of its old body, it is no longer confined to crawling on the underside of a leaf, but captures the eye with its beauty and its ability to flutter and float and soar. Whereas previously it could not reproduce, it can now mate and lay eggs: its [transformation] allows it to bear fruit.
What does it mean to "die," be transformed, and experience rebirth? First and foremost, I believe it means letting ourselves be dismantled – not partially, but completely. That, to me, is the crucial first step – giving up our dreams and ambitions, our worries and fears; yielding control over our social, political, and economic agendas; surrendering our most personal plans; even revealing our darkest secrets.
Equally vital is letting go of our goodness. Not surprisingly, that is difficult. In fact, having talked with countless people at critical moments in their lives, I've found that this is often the biggest sticking point. All of us want to change, to become better people, to get rid of the negative baggage we drag after ourselves. But when it comes down to the brass tacks, most of us are just as eager to preserve every inch of our old selves, or at least our good parts. Having gladly dropped everything we didn't like about ourselves, we still cling desperately to the rest, refusing to believe that it might be tainted, and hoping that it can still be rescued. Yet the fact is that even the most sincerely held virtue can be a great obstacle to transformation. That is because a subjective view of our own goodness is rarely in line with reality; that is to say, few of us are really as pure as we might imagine ourselves.
Simply put, rebirth is impossible for those who are in love with themselves in any way, and that goes for a "religious" person as much as anyone else. Confidence is one thing, of course, and no one can truly live or blossom without it. But the self-love of complacency – the sort that leads people to talk about how they are "saved" because they were "born again" (or how they are "enlightened" because they have "seen the light") – is quite another. In fact, it seems to me that those who claim such things are among the worst enemies of rebirth, if only because their smugness is often coupled with the assurance that the rest of the world is damned. Maybe that is why Jesus reserved His harshest words for His most pious countrymen – rebuking them as a "brood of vipers" and comparing them to "whitewashed tombs. It is surely why He also warned them – and us – that “whoever saves his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life will save it.”
There is another ingredient to finding new life, other than merely “letting go,” and that is repenting. Unfortunately, to many, the word implies hellfire and brimstone. In fact, repentance is just another word for remorse, or, to paraphrase C. S. Lewis, for laying down our arms and surrendering, saying we're sorry, realizing we're on the wrong track, and moving full speed astern. Repentance, he says, is "the only way out of a hole.”
Selah.
This is excerpted from Johann Christoph Arnold’s article, ‘Our Most Alive Times: Escaping the Hells We Create,’ from Bruderhof Community.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Archbishop of Anglican Communion seeks adoption of Islamic Law
Ok, my mind is blown now.
The leader of Anglicanism is advocating for a future adoption of Islamic Law in England. Read his transcript here, and check out the positive nuance with which he spins the acceptance of sharia. Read these comments, and if you've read That Hideous Strength, you'll shiver at the chill: it's like hearing the character Withers talk -- except this time as leader of the "One True ChurchTM ."
Looks like the faithful persons in the Anglican Communion will have to discover another One True ChurchTM or somehow discover the New Testament definition of the Church [the truth uncovered in the Reformation]! Or, be left serving Allah and Muhammad by proxy, with the One True ChurchTM...
Another article here: Canterbury Tales of Dhimmitude.
Hmm... do we need Lent this year or what? Repentance, confession, humility... to our prayers!
Selah.
Glen Reynolds adds incisive commentary:
Hmm...
The leader of Anglicanism is advocating for a future adoption of Islamic Law in England. Read his transcript here, and check out the positive nuance with which he spins the acceptance of sharia. Read these comments, and if you've read That Hideous Strength, you'll shiver at the chill: it's like hearing the character Withers talk -- except this time as leader of the "One True ChurchTM ."
Looks like the faithful persons in the Anglican Communion will have to discover another One True ChurchTM or somehow discover the New Testament definition of the Church [the truth uncovered in the Reformation]! Or, be left serving Allah and Muhammad by proxy, with the One True ChurchTM...
Another article here: Canterbury Tales of Dhimmitude.
Hmm... do we need Lent this year or what? Repentance, confession, humility... to our prayers!
Selah.
Glen Reynolds adds incisive commentary:
It's interesting, however, that Rowan Williams need have no fear for his personal safety after saying that Sharia is inevitable in England, while had he said bad things about Sharia the reverse would have been true. Under such circumstances, is behavior like his surprising?
Plus this: "I've just been speaking with a Muslim friend who has always opposed sharia law. 'Where does it leave me', he asks, 'when the Archbishop of Canterbury is calling for sharia?' The beautifully hostile press reaction to Rowan Williams' disgusting views is the only aspect of this story that could provide any hope. But the story is running big across the Middle East, and people there are seeing Britain's surrender to sharia played out on a news-loop. Do we think that Islamic extremists in the Middle East and beyond will be be more demoralised or more emboldened by this news?"
Hmm...
Thursday, November 01, 2007
A giving of knowledge by taking knowledge away
So stuffed full of stuff that we cannot see
When a man has filled his mouth so full of food that for this reason he cannot eat and it must end with his dying of hunger [or eating himself to death], does giving food to him consist in stuffing his mouth even more or, instead, in taking a little away so that he can eat? Similarly, when a man is very knowledgeable but his knowledge is meaningless or virtually meaningless to him, does sensible communication consist in giving him more to know...or does it consist, instead, in taking something away from him? When a communicator takes a portion of the copious knowledge that the very knowledgeable man knows and communicates it to him in a form that makes it strange to him, the communicator is, as it were, taking away his knowledge, at least until the knower manages to assimilate the knowledge by overcoming the resistance of form.
Soren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments
Note: consider this prophetic insight in an age when all people, even the most dull of mind, have non-stop information -- a culture gorged on electronic info 24/7 and yet still so illiterate and non-seeing in spirit...
Selah.
When a man has filled his mouth so full of food that for this reason he cannot eat and it must end with his dying of hunger [or eating himself to death], does giving food to him consist in stuffing his mouth even more or, instead, in taking a little away so that he can eat? Similarly, when a man is very knowledgeable but his knowledge is meaningless or virtually meaningless to him, does sensible communication consist in giving him more to know...or does it consist, instead, in taking something away from him? When a communicator takes a portion of the copious knowledge that the very knowledgeable man knows and communicates it to him in a form that makes it strange to him, the communicator is, as it were, taking away his knowledge, at least until the knower manages to assimilate the knowledge by overcoming the resistance of form.
Soren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments
Note: consider this prophetic insight in an age when all people, even the most dull of mind, have non-stop information -- a culture gorged on electronic info 24/7 and yet still so illiterate and non-seeing in spirit...
Selah.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Kierkegaard on true repentance
True repentance is not momentary sorrow
By Soren Kierkegaard
True repentance does not belong to a certain period of life, as fun and games belong to childhood, or as the excitement of romantic love belongs to youth. It does not come and disappear as a whim or as a surprise. No, no. There is a sense of reverence, a holy fear, a humility, a pure sincerity which insures that repentance does not become vain and overhasty.
From the point of view of the eternal, repentance must come “all at once,” where in one’s grief there is not even time to utter words. But the grieving of repentance and the heartfelt anxiety that floods the soul must not be confused with impatience or the momentary feeling of contrition. Experience teaches us that the right moment to repent is not always the one that is immediately present. Repentance can too easily be confused with a tormenting agonizing or with a worldly sorrow; with a desperate feeling of grief in itself. But by itself, sorrow never becomes repentance, no matter how long it continues to rage. However clouded the mind becomes, the sobs of contrition, no matter how violent they are, never become tears of repentance. They are like empty clouds that bear no water, or like convulsive puffs of wind. This kind of repentance is selfish. It is sensually powerful for the moment, excited in expression – and, for this very reason, is no real repentance at all. Sudden, quick repentance wants only to drink down the bitterness of sorrow in a single draught and then hurry on. It wants to get away from guilt, away from every reminder of it, and fortify itself by imagining that it does not want to be held back in the pursuit of the Good.
What a delusion!
True repentance is not self-improvement
There is a story about a man who by his misdeeds deserved to be punished according to the law. After he had served his sentence he went back into ordinary society, reformed. He went to a foreign country, where he was unknown and where he became known for his upright conduct. All was forgotten. Then one day a fugitive appeared who recognized him from the past. The reformed man was terrified. A deathlike fear shook him each time the fugitive passed. Though silent, his fear shouted with a loud voice, until it became vocal in that dastardly fugitive’s voice. Despair suddenly seized him and it seized him just because he had forgotten his repentance. His self-improvement had never led him to surrender to God so that in the humility of repentance he might remember what he had once been.
True repentance: temporal and eternal
Yes, in the temporal and social sense, repentance may come and go. But in the eternal sense, it is a quiet daily commitment before God. In the light of eternity, one’s guilt is never changed, even if a century passes by. To think anything of this sort is to confuse the eternal with what it is least like – human forgetfulness.
One can tell the age of a tree by looking at its bark. One can also tell a person’s age in the Good by the intensity and inwardness of his repentance. It may be said of a dancer that her time is past when her youth is gone, but not so with a penitent. Repentance, if it is forgotten, is nothing but immaturity. The longer and the more deeply one treasures it, however, the better it becomes.
Repentance must not only have its time, but also its time of preparation. And herein lies the need of confession, the holy act that ought to be preceded by preparation. Just as a person changes his clothes for a celebration, so a person preparing for confession is inwardly changed. But if in the hour of confession one has not truly made up his mind he is still only distracted. He sees his sin with only half an eye. When he speaks, it is just talk – not true confession.
We mustn’t forget that the One who is present in confession is omniscient. God knows everything, remembers everything, all that we have ever confided to him, or what we have ever kept from his confidence. He is the One “who sees in secret,” with whom we speak even in silence. No one can venture to deceive him either by talk or by silence.
True repentance: Divine self-awareness
When we confess to God, therefore, we are not like a servant that gives account to his master for the administration entrusted to him because his master could not manage everything or be everywhere at once. Nor when we confess are we like one who confides in a friend to whom sooner or later he reveals things that his friend did not previously know. No, much of what you are able to keep hidden in darkness you only first get to know by revealing it to the all-knowing One. The all-knowing One does not get to know something about those who confess, rather those who confess find out something about themselves.
Prayer: Dear Abba, this Lenten season, may I discover and enter true repentance through the grace of Jesus Christ, my Lord. Grant me this in His name, and through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth who leads us into all truth. Amen.
By Soren Kierkegaard
True repentance does not belong to a certain period of life, as fun and games belong to childhood, or as the excitement of romantic love belongs to youth. It does not come and disappear as a whim or as a surprise. No, no. There is a sense of reverence, a holy fear, a humility, a pure sincerity which insures that repentance does not become vain and overhasty.
From the point of view of the eternal, repentance must come “all at once,” where in one’s grief there is not even time to utter words. But the grieving of repentance and the heartfelt anxiety that floods the soul must not be confused with impatience or the momentary feeling of contrition. Experience teaches us that the right moment to repent is not always the one that is immediately present. Repentance can too easily be confused with a tormenting agonizing or with a worldly sorrow; with a desperate feeling of grief in itself. But by itself, sorrow never becomes repentance, no matter how long it continues to rage. However clouded the mind becomes, the sobs of contrition, no matter how violent they are, never become tears of repentance. They are like empty clouds that bear no water, or like convulsive puffs of wind. This kind of repentance is selfish. It is sensually powerful for the moment, excited in expression – and, for this very reason, is no real repentance at all. Sudden, quick repentance wants only to drink down the bitterness of sorrow in a single draught and then hurry on. It wants to get away from guilt, away from every reminder of it, and fortify itself by imagining that it does not want to be held back in the pursuit of the Good.
What a delusion!
True repentance is not self-improvement
There is a story about a man who by his misdeeds deserved to be punished according to the law. After he had served his sentence he went back into ordinary society, reformed. He went to a foreign country, where he was unknown and where he became known for his upright conduct. All was forgotten. Then one day a fugitive appeared who recognized him from the past. The reformed man was terrified. A deathlike fear shook him each time the fugitive passed. Though silent, his fear shouted with a loud voice, until it became vocal in that dastardly fugitive’s voice. Despair suddenly seized him and it seized him just because he had forgotten his repentance. His self-improvement had never led him to surrender to God so that in the humility of repentance he might remember what he had once been.
True repentance: temporal and eternal
Yes, in the temporal and social sense, repentance may come and go. But in the eternal sense, it is a quiet daily commitment before God. In the light of eternity, one’s guilt is never changed, even if a century passes by. To think anything of this sort is to confuse the eternal with what it is least like – human forgetfulness.
One can tell the age of a tree by looking at its bark. One can also tell a person’s age in the Good by the intensity and inwardness of his repentance. It may be said of a dancer that her time is past when her youth is gone, but not so with a penitent. Repentance, if it is forgotten, is nothing but immaturity. The longer and the more deeply one treasures it, however, the better it becomes.
Repentance must not only have its time, but also its time of preparation. And herein lies the need of confession, the holy act that ought to be preceded by preparation. Just as a person changes his clothes for a celebration, so a person preparing for confession is inwardly changed. But if in the hour of confession one has not truly made up his mind he is still only distracted. He sees his sin with only half an eye. When he speaks, it is just talk – not true confession.
We mustn’t forget that the One who is present in confession is omniscient. God knows everything, remembers everything, all that we have ever confided to him, or what we have ever kept from his confidence. He is the One “who sees in secret,” with whom we speak even in silence. No one can venture to deceive him either by talk or by silence.
True repentance: Divine self-awareness
When we confess to God, therefore, we are not like a servant that gives account to his master for the administration entrusted to him because his master could not manage everything or be everywhere at once. Nor when we confess are we like one who confides in a friend to whom sooner or later he reveals things that his friend did not previously know. No, much of what you are able to keep hidden in darkness you only first get to know by revealing it to the all-knowing One. The all-knowing One does not get to know something about those who confess, rather those who confess find out something about themselves.
Prayer: Dear Abba, this Lenten season, may I discover and enter true repentance through the grace of Jesus Christ, my Lord. Grant me this in His name, and through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth who leads us into all truth. Amen.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Kierkegaard: Thoughts of repentance
Repentance
The fire of repentance and of the accusing conscience is like that Grecian fire which could not be put out with water – so, too, this one can be extinguished only with tears.
Repentance means to lament the sins one has committed and not to commit any more the sins one has lamented.
There is a Savior, not merely so that we can resort to him when we have sinned, receiving forgiveness, but precisely for the purpose of saving us from sinning.
That a person wants to sit and brood and stare at his sin and is unwilling to have faith that it is forgiven is itself a further guilt. It simply ignores what Christ has done.
That Christ makes something big out of something small, as at the feeding of the five thousand, is usually referred to as a miracle. But Christ also works a miracle inversely – makes something big (everything that wants to be something) into something little. He makes it infinitely nothing in humility.
God creates everything out of nothing – and all God is to use He first turns to nothing.
God in heaven, let me rightly feel my nothingness, not to despair over it, but all the more intensely to feel the greatness of your goodness.
God chooses and is closest to the despised, the castoffs of the race, the one single sorry abandoned wretch. He hates this business of the pyramid.
Our hearts often pay far greater toll to sin than do our words or deeds. They invite us to self-excusing. Thoughts invite us, more than words and deeds, to continue in sin; for thought can be concealed, while words and deeds cannot.
It is precisely our consciousness of sin that can lead us nearer to God. For there is hope of conquering the evil, if only, every time sin attacks us, it leads us nearer to God.
How shall God be able in heaven to dry up your tears when you have not yet wept?
To grumble about the world and its unhappiness is always easier than to beat one’s breast and groan over oneself.
The all-knowing One does not get to know something about the one who needs confession, rather the one who confesses gets to know something about himself.
Be not afraid of the penitential preacher, who perhaps has terror in his appearance and wrath in his voice, who chides and rebukes and thunders. No, in the inmost depths of every man’s heart there dwells his own preacher of repentance. When he has a chance to speak, he does not preach to others. He preaches before you alone. He does not preach in any church before an assembled multitude, he preaches in the secret chamber of the heart. He has nothing else whatever to attend to but to attend to you, and he takes good care to be heard when all around you is silence, when the stillness makes you lonely.
The remedy seems infinitely worse than the sickness. “But if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.”
Whoever is intent upon confession is as solitary as one who is dying.
Teach me, oh God, not to torture myself and not to make a martyr of myself in suffocating introspection, but to take deep and wholesome breaths of faith!
Oh infinite love, I do desire to be involved with you! If I make a mistake, oh, you who are love, strike me so that I get on the right path again.
Father in heaven, open the fountains of our eyes, let a torrent of tears like a flood obliterate all that which has not found favor in your eyes. But also give us a sign as of old, when you set the rainbow as a gateway of grace in the heavens, that you will no more wipe us out with a flood.
Father in heaven, let your face shine upon me, that I may walk in your ways and not stray more distantly from you, where your voice can no longer reach me. Oh, let your voice inspire faith and let me hear it, even if it overtakes me with its terrors upon my erring paths, where I live as one sick and tainted in spirit, apart and lonely, far from fellowship with you and with neighbor!
Lord Jesus Christ, you who came into the world to save the lost – you who left the ninety and nine sheep to seek that one which was lost – seek me, lost as I am upon my erring paths.
Good Shepherd, let me hear your voice, let me know it, let me follow it! Holy Spirit, come to me with groanings that cannot be uttered. Pray for me as Abraham did for Sodom, that if there be but one pure thought, one better feeling in me, the time of probation may be prolonged for the barren fig tree. And Holy Spirit, you who give birth to the dead and youth to the aged, renew me also; create in me a new heart.
I seek you alone, you the Omniscient. If I am guilty, enlighten my understanding that I may see my error and my depravity. I do not wish to escape suffering – that is not my prayer – but let me learn never to argue with you. I must conquer, even though the manner of it is infinitely different from what I can imagine.
So grant it, Lord Jesus Christ!
Amen.
_____________________
Soren Kierkegaard, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, Compiled and Edited by Charles E. Moore. Reprinted from www.bruderhof.com. Copyright 2002 by The Bruderhof Foundation, Inc. Used with permission.
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Guardsmen sense ghostly presence in NO
Shadows and ghosts
In a CBS article by Janet Yee, members of the U.S. military are quoted as saying that something spooky is going on, that "it's not just images of death and destruction that haunt them."
It's not as if this city of New Orleans is any stranger to these kinds of stories. But coming after such powerful act of nature or God, it is thought-provoking.
Bibles opened to the Book of Revelation
Even more interesting, from a biblical or apocalyptic point of view, Bibles were found opened by the storm to the same passage in the Book of Revelation.
At this, Janet comments cryptically, "Like the power of nature, there is a power at work in New Orleans that defies explanation."
Indeed. I'd be interested to know exactly what passage in Revelation was opened. Was it Revelation 22:15?
Or, was it Revelation 22:10-11?
Or, was it Revelation 8:5-6, 13?
If we are wise, we will read the signs of the times. And lift up a voice of prayer, and intercession. Who knows but that our city might be spared? Our land granted a stay? As Abraham found before the Lord, for the sake of ten righteous…even Sodom would have been granted a stay.
The Hebrew prophets always called for confession and prayer in times of disaster. It was the default reaction for people of God. And, as Sara Yoheved Rigler noted at a prior disaster, it is for good reason…
So then let us confess and pray!
Who knows what good may yet come?
In a CBS article by Janet Yee, members of the U.S. military are quoted as saying that something spooky is going on, that "it's not just images of death and destruction that haunt them."
By all accounts, the Sophie B. Wright Middle School in New Orleans sits empty and evacuated except for military personnel who have taken over the campus as a staging site for missions around the battered city.
But the men in uniform have the feeling that they're not alone. It prompted a chaplain to utter this directive: “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you Satan to leave the dark areas of this building.”
Said Sgt. Robin Hairston of the California National Guard: “I was in my sleeping bag and I opened by eyes and in the doorway was a little girl. It wasn't my imagination.”
Hairston wasn't the only one seeing things. Spc. Rosales Leanor had her own close encounter.
"I was using the restroom and I just saw a little shadow,” Leanor said. “Kind of looming in front of me.”
Another member of the Guard unit said that she saw and heard a little girl laughing when she opened a closet that contained cleaning supplies.
It's not as if this city of New Orleans is any stranger to these kinds of stories. But coming after such powerful act of nature or God, it is thought-provoking.
Bibles opened to the Book of Revelation
Even more interesting, from a biblical or apocalyptic point of view, Bibles were found opened by the storm to the same passage in the Book of Revelation.
At a Baton Rouge marina, boats were strewn like trash, but not a shred of paper could be found. Except for the pages of a Bible that was found by a soldier. It was open to the Book of Revelation.
At a nearby church, nearly destroyed, another Bible was found, showing the exact same passage from Revelation.
At this, Janet comments cryptically, "Like the power of nature, there is a power at work in New Orleans that defies explanation."
Indeed. I'd be interested to know exactly what passage in Revelation was opened. Was it Revelation 22:15?
But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.
Or, was it Revelation 22:10-11?
And he said to me, 'Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand.
He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still.'
Or, was it Revelation 8:5-6, 13?
Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake.
So the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound...
And I looked, and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, "Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the...angels who are about to sound!"
If we are wise, we will read the signs of the times. And lift up a voice of prayer, and intercession. Who knows but that our city might be spared? Our land granted a stay? As Abraham found before the Lord, for the sake of ten righteous…even Sodom would have been granted a stay.
The Hebrew prophets always called for confession and prayer in times of disaster. It was the default reaction for people of God. And, as Sara Yoheved Rigler noted at a prior disaster, it is for good reason…
So then let us confess and pray!
Who knows what good may yet come?