Notes from D.J.

Revelation, Part 2: Three Faces of Christ

Jesus appears in three ways in Revelation. We first encounter him as the Son of Man in 1:13:

clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force (1:13-16).

This is Jesus the warrior, as we will see in 19:11. Yet Jesus’ weapon is his tongue. We are told,

his name is called The Word of God…From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty (19:13-14).

It’s noteworthy, however, that the word ποιμανεῖ, translated as the verb “to rule,” is more appropriately translated “to shepherd;” the same root appears in Jesus’ command to Peter in John 21:16: “Shepherd (or feed) my sheep.” Despite the warlike images Revelation offers, Jesus’ “war” is conducted with Truth, not steel, and his goal is to care for, not conquer. If this seems ironic, presumably it is meant to be; like the Gospel of John, Revelation contains a great deal of irony.

The Son of Man appears again in Chapter 14:

“Then I looked, and there was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like the Son of Man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand!” (14:14).

Here, Christ the majestic becomes the reaper of the earth. The text does not say exactly what was reaped. In the following passages, angels reap grapes and make wine (14:17-20).

The second appearance of Jesus is in Chapter 5. Here we find more irony, as the elder tells John that only “the Lion of Judah, the root of Davis” can open the scroll. But what John sees is not a lion, but lamb “standing as if slaughtered” (5:6). It is not Jesus’ power and glory but his sacrificial death on the Cross that makes him worthy to open the scroll.

As the seals are broken and the story unfolds, we are told more about the Lamb. Washing robes in his blood makes them white (7:14), he will shepherd (the same verb ποιμανεῖ is used as in 19:14) to the water of life (7:17, cf John 4:10, 10:11), he keeps the book of life (13:8, 21:27), and he is “Lord of lords and King of kings” (17:14). The “great multitude” (7:9) has been saved, we are told, because “they have washed their robes and made the white in the blood of the lamb” (7:14, cf 1 John 1:7). It is not only belief in the Lamb that saves, but participation in his blood sacrifice. “They will hunger no more and thirst no more” (7:16, cf John 6:35, Isaiah 49:10).

We should note here that despite the plagues being unleashed on the people of earth (which I’ll discuss in another post), what believers are called to do is to remain firm in their faith, even in the face of persecution. There is no allowance here for violence. In no way do the followers of Jesus participate in God’s judgment. They are called instead to a radically nonviolent response in the face of gathering armies and falling empires.

In Chapter 12, we see the third representation of Jesus: the innocent infant. He is described as ““a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne…” (12:5). (Note the use of the word ποιμαίνειν, another form of the verb “to shepherd”.) Here, in the midst of God’s Kingdom being declared, we encounter the birth of Jesus, the hope for the future. In Part 1, I argued that John intends to place these events outside our concept of time, a topic I’ll return to again; this is surely more evidence of that intent.

There is one final appearance of Jesus that stands out. In the closing passage, John writes:

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me;but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your comrades the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God!” (22:8-9).

But a few lines later, this very same speaker tells him,

“It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star” (22:16).

As we read Revelation, we find a great deal of ambiguity between Jesus and God, as we do also in the Gospel of John (e.g. John 14:7, 14:10-11). In this particular verse, we find ambiguity between Jesus and his servants, suggesting that just as there can be oneness between Jesus and God, there can also be oneness between Jesus and those who serve him (note the language in 22:9: “I am a fellow servant”). Again, this echoes the Gospel of John: “Abide in me as I abide in you” (e.g. John 15:4a).

Books could be written about Jesus as he appears in Revelation (and they have been). However, this short summary of the three (or four) representations of Jesus do give us an overall feel for where Revelation is taking us. Jesus is the Savior, and Jesus is the Word. Yet despite the warlike language describing him, Jesus does not fight his battles with military force. Instead Jesus conquers through Truth and through his own sacrifice on the Cross– a ritual execution by a conquering power that, to readers of the 1st century, was conventionally associated with defeat.

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April 23

Revelation, Part 1: The Context

The Revelation to John is one of the most difficult books in the Bible. It is gory, frightening, and complex. And it has frequently been abused. I recall over 30 years ago, a Christian man I worked with insisted that Babylon, as portrayed in Revelation, was the Soviet Union. He was convinced that the End Times were at hand, and he laid out who all the players were. Thirty years later, the End Times have not come upon us, and the Soviet Union no longer exists.

(I would add here another caveat: If Revelation is about imminent events, which nation do you really think is “Babylon the great… [of whom] all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxury” (Rev 18:2-3)? Does that really sound like the Soviet Union or Russia?)

What are we to do with such a complex and disconcerting work? Only now, after reading it multiple times and reading several commentaries on it, do I feel that I am remotely competent to add anything to this question.

The first thing to consider is this: Who was it written for? That makes a difference. Was it written to Christians in 1985? To Christians today? Clearly it was not. It is addressed to “seven churches that are in Asia,” namely what we refer to as Asia Minor, or Turkey. And it was written during the first century, only a few decades after the death of Jesus. We must assume that it had meaning for them, otherwise they would have discarded it. And we must assume that the symbolism John used had meaning for them. In other words, we cannot assume that the images John describes are of nuclear war, for example, There were no nuclear weapons in the first century.

The second thing to consider is this: The book was chosen (admittedly with some disagreement among the early Church fathers) to be part of Scripture. Thus, we must assume that it expresses some form of eternal truth. What was said to those churches in Asia must have something to say to us. Yet it is also clear that its message cannot be that TEOTWAWKI is imminent. If that were the case, its first readers would have been gravely disappointed. It’s now 2,000 years later, and it hasn’t yet happened. Or, alternatively, the world as its current residents knew it has ended multiple times, from the imperialization of Christianity to the fall of Rome, from the Black Death to World War II, from the discovery of penicillin to the universal presence of computers and the internet, and from the rise to the fall of the Soviet Union and its empire.

The third thing to consider is the timeline John offers for the events he describes. This is more difficult, because John mixes his verb tenses confusingly. Consider the following passage (emphasis added):

When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prisonand will come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them for battle; they are as numerous as the sands of the sea.They marched up over the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from heaven and consumed them.And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. (Rev 20:7-10)

Here is a question especially pertinent for literal readers: Is this going to happen, or has it already happened? (Let’s count the verb tenses: 4 future, 2 present, 6 past.) Clearly this cannot be set literally in the past, present, or future unless we claim that John didn’t say what he meant.

We can see a similar conundrum in the Fall of Babylon cycle. The angel announces that “Babylon the Great is fallen” (it has already happened, 18:2), and “in one hour your judgment has come” (it has already happened, 18:10). But there is yet time for her people to come out of her (18:4). The shipmasters “stood far off, and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning” (already happened, 18:17-18), yet the kings “will weep” for her as they stand far off (not yet happened, 18:9-10).

There are two possible approaches to this problem. The first is the “already-but-not yet” view, which many use to describe the Kingdom itself. In other words, it has already happened in God’s view of time , but we haven’t experienced it yet. This view places the events in the eschatological future, beyond our view of history. I see this as the “distant hope” view: that all things will be made right in this world at some point in the far future that we will never live to see.

The second possible approach is one I find more satisfying: the events described take place outside our concept of time. That is, they are eternal; they are continually happening in a cosmological sense. Put another way, they happen not in chronos time, but in kairos time.

As we consider that, let’s look at another passage:

“The second woe has passed. The third woe is coming very soon. Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.” (Rev 11:14-15)

These two verses set a context: God’s Kingdom has been established, even though the woes are not yet over. Does that mean, as in the “already-but-not-yet” view, that the Kingdom is established but we will never see it in our experience of time? Or does it mean that, despite the ongoing woes, God’s Kingdom exists and is perpetually established (and being established)?

As I mentioned above, we must assume that Revelation contains some form of eternal truth, else it would not be part of Scripture. As I read the text, as a writer I am struck by the confusing use of verb tenses, blurring past, present, and future. Respect for the text demands, I believe, that we allow a reason for that blurring. What reason can there be other than that the events John describes are not anchored in time? John is describing not a series of future events, historical or otherwise, but a series of processes that are always in play. The Kingdom has been and is continually being established. Satan has been and is continually being defeated. Judgment has been and is continually being served. Salvation was, is, and will be at hand.

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April 20

The Ludlow Massacre

Today is the 103rd anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre. On April 20, 1914, private security guards and Colorado National Guard troops attacked a tent city occupied by 1,200 striking miners. Twenty-six men, women, and children, were killed.

My family has a personal interest in the massacre. My wife’s great-great grandfather was one of the union organizers, and was present for the massacre. He and his family survived, but the family memory is still strong.

Giuseppe DiGiovanni was born in Italy and emigrated to the U.S. He moved to Colorado, where he worked as a coal miner. According to one source, “In 1912, the death rate in Colorado’s mines was 7.055 per 1,000 employees, compared to a national rate of 3.15.” They were also forced to live in “company towns,”in which all stores were controlled by the mining company– the background to the song “Sixteen Tons.” Appalled by the conditions the miners had to endure, Giuseppe became an organizer for the United Mine Workers of America. Banned for his organizing activities, he changed his name twice in order to get work, first to Joe White, and then to Joseph DiJohn.

The union presented demands to the three major coal companies, which included safety protocols, limits on hours worked, and pay for non-producing activities like laying track and setting braces. Miners at the time were paid only by the ton produced. In September, 1913, the companies rejected these demands, and the miners went on strike.

The companies responded by hiring a private security firm to bring in strike breakers. These were supported by the Colorado National Guard, which was also strongly pro-company. Their union-busting activities included “unofficial martial law includ[ing] the suspension of habeas corpus, mass jailings of strikers in ‘bullpens,’ a cavalry charge on a demonstration of miners’ wives and children, the torture and beating of prisoners, and the demolition of a striker tent colony at Forbes.” However, the state was nearly bankrupt, and most of the National Guard units were disbanded.

On April 20, 1914, the day after the camp celebrated Orthodox Easter, private security and the remaining National Guard troops surrounded the damp at Ludlow. The miners, as shown in the photos, had some bolt-action rifles. Their opponents had machine guns, including at least one Browning M1895. One of their more frightening weapons was an armored car with a machine gun mounted in the back, which the miners called the “Death Special.”

The attack began about 9:00 am and went on for ten hours. The miners and their families were trapped, until dusk when a passing freight train blocked the attack from one side and allowed them to escape. By 7:00 pm, the camp was razed and burning. The camp leader, Louis Tikas, was captured and executed.

News of the massacre spread quickly, and resulted in the Ten Day War, in which miners all over Colorado attacked mine sites and destroyed mining equipment. This continued until President Woodrow Wilson sent in federal troops, which disarmed both sides.

In the aftermath, over 400 miners were arrested, and over 300 charged with murder. Only one was convicted, strike leader John Lawson, and his conviction was later overturned by the State Supreme Court. Of the National Guard troops, ten were charged but only one was convicted– the man who executed Louis Tikas– though he only received a slap on the wrist. None of the security guards were ever charged.

The UMWA failed to gain recognition, but John D. Rockefeller did implement reforms and allowed the miners to form a “company union.” The clash represents one of the deadliest conflicts in American labor relations, and in the aftermath, Congress imposed new labor laws, including restrictions on child labor.

While I have issues with the role of unions in our post-modern economy, I remain very much aware of the work they have done and the lives they have lost to change working conditions across the country. The Ludlow Massacre was a tragedy, but it also was a turning point. These brave miners, most of the immigrants, gave their lives to ensure that American workers would have a better future.

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April 17

Science:Religion::?

I woke up at 2:00 this morning thinking about analogies. My brain is funny that way. Specifically, I thought about the relationship between science and religion.

I have a friend who would probably describe it this way:

Science:Religion::Nonfiction:Fiction

To him, science is real and religion is made up. Yet fiction does capture and express important ideas. Why else do we still enjoy Shakespeare? And even today, who can read The Grapes of Wrath and not be moved? With a nod to my friend, fiction can also promote negative ideas. Consider, for example, the global impact of certain people’s interpretation of Atlas Shrugged!

And yet there’s more to it than that. Science provides facts, but not morality. When it does provide morality, it is frequently unpalatable–utilitarianism and Social Darwinism, for example. The latter argues that if the point of existence is survival of the species, then only the strongest should survive, a view used to justify the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity. The former argues that humans are inherently replaceable, one is the same as another, and are thus disposable. One Australian ethicist argues not only that abortion should be legal throughout pregnancy, but that children should be allowed to be killed even after birth! It seems to me that science is a better source for facts than it is for morality.

So perhaps the analogy should look this way:

Science:Religion::Dictionary:Literature

This still doesn’t capture the full picture, however. Science measures what exists as matter and energy in the physical (corporeal) world, and theorizes based on that and only that. It does tell a story, though that story is based in a conservatively historical perspective: events happened in this order, with no apparent underlying theme.

Religion looks at the corporeal world, and beyond it to the noncorporeal world that we encounter in glimpses, seeking links between the two. (Yes, even eminently pragmatic Buddhism believes in the noncorporeal.) Religious truths are generally Ultimate Truths that are difficult to express in words. So perhaps we might look at it this way:

Science:Religion::Prose:Poetry

This seems appropriate in the sense that science tells us things we can (or at least some people can) readily understand, while religion tends more toward imagery. But there’s one aspect that is still missing. Religion brings many of us comfort and meaning. Admittedly this can, in extreme forms, become pretty ugly, justifying prejudice, hatred, and violence. But it can also bring service, justice, and peace. So here’s yet another way to look at it:

Sceince:Religion::Nutrition:Cuisine

Nutrition gives you everything you need to survive. I’ve been told if I ate bran muffins, beans, and kale, I could live forever. Or maybe it would just seem like forever. What would life be without fried chicken, cheese, and strawberry pie? (Or bengan bharta, tom kha kai, and papusas?) They may not be biologically necessary, but life is pretty dismal without them. Cuisine gives us comfort and identity. It gives us a place to gather and pause together. It brings joy and hope to a landscape littered with bran muffin wrappers and empty water bottles.

For me, this highlights the primary shortcoming of science in the absence of religion: it lacks humanity. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe the universe was created for my own needs and desires. Let me put it another way: science explains the creation of the Helix nebula and allows us to see it. But it’s not science that causes us to perceive it as beautiful.

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April 16

Thoughts on the Resurrection

Sometimes skeptics ask me if I believe in the literal Resurrection– that Jesus’ body actually came back to life on the third day after he was executed. Here’s the honest truth: I’m autistic, and I have trouble believing things I haven’t seen. I used to look at the Resurrection as figurative, symbolic of the idea that death is not the end, and that the Spirit of Christ is still among us even after his death. (Why did the people who had traveled with Jesus for three years fail to recognize him at the tomb, John 20:14, and on the road to Emmaus, Luke 24:15-16, for example?)

Lately, though, I’m inclined to take the Resurrection more literally. Why? Let me tell you a story…

About ten years ago, when we were raising goats and making cheese, we had a goat named Wind. She was one of the first two goats we bought, and she was a real character. But because of her breeding (part Nigerian), she tended to have kids that were too big for her. The first year, she threw a kid we named Luna, who was born with her front legs all curled up. She started life walking on her elbows. We splinted her, and her legs straightened out, and she grew up to be the strongest goat in the yard.

Wind with her fist kid, Luna, before splinting.

The second year, Wind got toxemia. Her legs swelled up to where she couldn’t even stand. We made a sling to keep her from having to lie on the ground all the time, but it was clear she wasn’t doing well. As her due date approached, in consultation with our vet, we decided to induce labor so she could (hopefully) deliver her kids and get healthy again. She went into labor, but she didn’t dilate. The contractions weakened her, and we finally decided we had to take stronger measures. About midnight one night, I began massaging her cervix according to directions my wife found on the internet. By 4:00 am my fingers were exhausted, but her cervix had finally dilated enough for the first kid to come out. It was a boy, and he was born alive and breathing, but died within minutes. This was our first loss, and it hurt–especially before dawn after several sleepless nights.

The second kid was born soon after, a girl, but she wasn’t breathing. Something came over me, and I somehow knew “This one will live.” I rubbed her down, swung her around by her feet to clear her lungs, and then breathed into her nose and mouth.

She began breathing.

Brisa was born not breathing on April 6, 2009.

We “bumped” Wind to see if she had any more kids in her, but didn’t feel any. Wind wasn’t producing milk, so we put one of the other recent mothers in the milking stand so the baby could nurse and get colostrum. Then we went to bed.

The next night, Wind developed a high fever. The vet came out and discovered that she did indeed have one more kid in her, but it was dead and had gone septic. She removed the dead kid– our second loss– and treated Wind for infection. We tended Wind night and day, but she was just too weak to recover. As her body temperature dropped, I lay down next to her with a blanket over us both, but there was nothing to be done. At about 3:00 am, we called the vet and told her, “We’re losing her!” Ten minutes later, we called the vet and told her to go back t sleep. Wind was gone, having died in our arms.

But her one kid, the one born not breathing, survived. We named her Brisa (“little wind”). She grew up to be the best milker we ever had, producing twice as much as our next best milker. At eight years old, she’s still going strong, and is now living at Red Acre Farm, where I’m told she delivered two healthy kids this year. (Luna is also there with her.)

Brisa as a doeling. She become our best milker.

What does this have to do with the Resurrection?

Any goat farmer will tell you that a kid not breathing isn’t going to survive. But Brisa did.

One day it occurred to me: If God can do that through my hands, who am I to say what he can’t do?

I still have trouble believing in what I haven’t seen. But I’m no longer going to say it didn’t happen.

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April 16

Book Excerpt: An Easter Sermon Gets Hijacked by the Spirit

This is an excerpt from the book Steve’s Grace by D. J. Mitchell.

“Christ is risen!” I begin. “Imagine the sorrow his mother must have felt, going to the graveside to mourn her son, whom she watched die just three days before. But instead of a grave and a memory, she finds an empty tomb and the question, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?’ What a shock that must have been!”

So begins my Easter sermon. I perform it for my family on Good Friday, two days before I will give it to the congregation. They seem to love it. Cindy and Zephyr both proclaim it the best one yet, and even Susan seems impressed.

That doesn’t keep me from being nervous Easter morning. I focus on each step of the service so I don’t obsess about the moment I will stand before the congregation and preach.

After the hymn, I read from the Gospel of Luke.

Then the moment comes. I stand before the congregation, spread my hands and arms upward, and begin.

“Christ is risen!” I proclaim.

Then I pause. The next line won’t come out. I know what I’m supposed to say, but I can’t say it.

I’m not expecting what happens next.

“Christ is risen!” I repeat. “He who was dead now lives. Christ is risen in me!”

I continue in a softer voice.

“He is risen in every one of us who was once dead through sin, yet now we live through the Grace of God and the Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ! We have been redeemed, that we may escape the death penalty for our sins and live in Grace!”

“Do we fall short of what God wants us to do?” I ask. “Let’s be honest. I fall short far too often. How about you?”

I raise my hand. About half the congregation raises theirs, too.

“Do we try to play God in our own lives, and the lives of other people?” I ask. “I do.”

I raise my hand. More hands go up.

“Are we sinners?” I ask.

I open my hands, inviting an answer as I repeat, “Are we?”

“Yes!” they reply.

“Yes,” I agree. “But we found new life through Jesus Christ. Amen?”

“Amen!” they reply.

“Did you ever have an experience when something strange was happening in your life and you couldn’t figure out why? Then later, you looked back and realized it was God?”

I pause, and see heads nodding.

“That’s what happened to the disciples of Jesus,” I continue. “They were walking on the road to Emmaus, and a man joined them and talked to them. And it was only after they had walked for some time that they realized that man was Jesus.

“That’s a little odd, don’t you think?” I ask. “They spent three years traveling with Jesus. He was their teacher. They saw Him after the Resurrection. They saw the holes in His hands and feet. Yet here is a man they don’t recognize, and it turns out to be Jesus?

“Maybe he was in disguise,” I suggest.

Some people chuckle.

“Or maybe,” I continue, “Jesus appeared in a guise they didn’t recognize at first as being Him.

“Has this ever happened to you?” I ask. “Something in your life happens, and it seems so painful or wrong that it doesn’t even occur to you that it could be God working in your life? But later you realize that’s exactly what it was?

“It happened to me,” I say. “I was comfortable in an ungodly life, but God shook it up for me. At the time, it didn’t occur to me that this could be God working in my life. I mean, I got into a situation where I did some bad things and almost lost my family over it. I should have gone to prison. How could that be God?

“And it wasn’t,” I say. “I did those things, not God. Just like the man on the road to Emmaus who was not Jesus. But he was. They saw the Risen Christ in a stranger. And I can look back now and see the hand of God even in that most despicable moment of my life. That’s what it took for God to get my attention. I had to fully live up to my capacity for sin in order to realize I needed God. Because how can I ask for redemption if I don’t know I need it?

“I am a sinner,” I say. “I was raised from the dead by Jesus Christ. How many of you are willing to say that with me?”

“I am a sinner,” I repeat. “I was raised from the dead by Jesus Christ.”

About half of the congregation says it with me.

“Let’s say it again,” I suggest.

This time, everyone joins in.

“Christ is risen!” I proclaim. “His tomb is empty!”

Then, in a softer voice, I add, “And so is ours.

Steve’s Grace is available here.

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April 14

Something Missing

This cartoon was inspired by the ongoing conversation between Mennonites and Charismatics….

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April 9

Jerusalem and the Kingdom of God

The synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) portray Jesus’ ministry as an inexorable journey of Jesus to Jerusalem where he enters the city in triumph on Palm Sunday. “Hosanna!” the people shout. Their king, the Messiah, has arrived, bringing with him great expectations. Yet, as we know, actual events were not what the people expected. Jesus did not take the throne, nor did he inaugurate a new political structure based in justice and peace. Instead, he was arrested and executed as a common criminal. We can only imagine the disappointment of his followers on Good Friday. Not only were their expectations disappointed, but the man they looked to (yes, they saw him as a human being) died in disgrace. Their hopes for their future and their confidence in this man both lay in tatters before the Cross.

Palm Sunday is thus a day of hope, and yet also a day of impending despair. Through its lens, our hopes for the imminent Kingdom appear to be misplaced.

And yet, to this story of temporal disappointment, John adds an important perspective that offers hope.

The Gospel of John is clearly different from the other three. He focuses not on Jesus’ temporal ministry, but on the spiritual nature of that ministry. Instead of a birth narrative, he tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). He emphasizes the eternal presence of Jesus.

John tells us,

“He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.” (John 1:10-11)

In the very next chapter, Chapter 2, John tells us that “Jesus went up to Jerusalem” where he cleansed the temple (John 2:14ff). Yet it is not until Chapter 12 that Jesus enters Jerusalem as King (John 12:12ff). Clearly this diverges from the accounts of the synoptic Gospels. But if we concern ourselves with the historical issue of chronology (Did Jesus go to Jerusalem before Palm Sunday or not?), we miss the point. John is telling us something deeper than names, dates, and historical facts: Though we as humans perceive Jesus’ ministry as linear, though we perceive his entry into Jerusalem as a triumphal and climactic event, he was already there, just as he was already among us before his birth. But we couldn’t recognize him.

Why does this matter? Because it says something important about the Kingdom of God as well. The synoptic Gospels portray Jesus preaching that “the Kingdom of God has come near” (e.g. Mark 1:15). Other translations use the words “at hand” or “nigh.” The implication is that the Kingdom is imminent. We can reach out and touch it. And yet we can’t see it. Clearly the Kingdom is not the driving force in this broken world of ours. Paul expected the Kingdom to be established before his death (e.g. 1 Thess 4:15). And people have been waiting expectantly for it for two millennia.

We’re still waiting.

But John gives us another perspective. He tells Pilate,

“My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here… You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.“ (John 18:36-37)

John uses the word “kingdom” very infrequently, choosing instead the language of “abiding” and “being.”

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” (John 14:18-21)

“You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:3-5)

And yet John’s vision is not of a group of disciples who sit around, content to abide in Jesus:

“Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:11-12)

For John, Jesus is the King, and belief in Jesus brings us into the Kingdom. Yet there is an expectation that being in the Kingdom will motivate and empower us to do the works that Jesus did. He leaves it for the synoptic Gospels to describe those works in detail. The point is, in a very real sense, for John, the Kingdom is now.

We, the readers, are human. We cheer as Jesus enters Jerusalem, waving our palm fronds, anticipating the inauguration of the Kingdom. Our hopes are dashed on Good Friday, and renewed on Easter. We look forward to that day in the future when the Kingdom is fulfilled.

And yet, like Jesus himself, it is already here.

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April 2

Who Wrote the Laws of Physics?

This post is for a friend of mine who is an atheist, who believes in science, and who is currently suffering. He is resistant to the idea of God. My purpose in writing is to suggest some thoughts that may encourage speculation beyond science. Let me be clear: I believe in science. I accept that evolution is real, since the scientific evidence seems to suggest it. I find anti-evolutionist arguments occasionally thought provoking, but rarely convincing.

On the other hand, I don’t believe that science is the last word. It explains our physical world–for the most part. It surely has gaps in it that may or may not be filled some day. But it fails to explain why some of the amazing aspects of creation came into being. And it fails to explain anything beyond the physical world.

Let me start with an example: how is it that the material on which life depends is “coincidentally” the only material I am aware of that has the property of being lighter as a solid than as a liquid at temperatures that support life (as we know it). That material is, of course, water, and this property allows complex ecosystems to survive in temperatures at which water freezes. If it didn’t do this, lakes would freeze from the bottom up, killing much of what lived in their waters. A partial list of other materials with this property are silicon, gallium, germanium, bismuth, plutonium, and sand, which do not in any way lend this property to the support of life as we know it.

Is consciousness really just a series of chemical reactions in the brain? How, then, do we explain the experience many of have had of a dog or cat sensing our mood changes, even from another room? (We once had a goat that had this ability, too.)

How do we explain people who can read another person’s thoughts, and those who sometimes know the future?

Science itself admits that it can’t explain some of what it sees. A team once did a long-term study of nuns in an attempt to discover why they didn’t get Alzheimer’s Disease with the same frequency as the general population. Over the course of many years, they discovered (through autopsies) that the nuns did in fact get Alzheimer’s with the same frequency, or at least their brains showed the physical effects of deterioration. Yet they didn’t manifest symptoms. The only explanation they could find was the effect of constant prayer, which of course they could neither define nor measure in a scientific way.

Moreover, the majority of double-blind studies on intercessory prayer have shown that it improves healing. A fascinating article on the NIH website suggests:

Although the very consideration of such a possibility may appear scientifically bizarre, it cannot be denied that, across the planet, people pray for health and for relief of symptoms in times of sickness. Healing through prayer, healing through religious rituals, healing at places of pilgrimage and healing through related forms of intervention are well-established traditions in many religions.

It continues:

Cha et al.[32] found that the women who had been prayed for had nearly twice as high a pregnancy rate as those who had not been prayed for (50 vs. 26%; P <0.005). Furthermore, the women who had been prayed for showed a higher implantation rate than those who had not been prayed for (16.3 vs. 8%; P <0.001). Finally, the benefits of prayer were independent of clinical or laboratory providers and clinical variables. Thus, this study showed that distant prayer facilitates implantation and pregnancy…

Lesniak[33] found that the prayer group animals had a greater reduction in wound size and a greater improvement in hematological parameters than the control animals. This study is important because it was conducted in a nonhuman species; therefore, the likelihood of a placebo effect was removed.

The authors raise some important issues on the study of prayer within scientific context, some of which have a theological nature (i.e. does it matter which God is prayed to; does God have limitations?). They conclude that a satisfactory scientific study is virtually impossible because of the variety of religions, assumptions, and theological questions. Nevertheless, they do not discount the idea that prayer is beneficial.

And how do we explain noncorporeal entities? In my own life, I’ve encountered two ghosts, dozens of earth spirits (I call them fairies), and innumerable dark spirits that I refer to as demons. My wife tells of encountering a skinwalker. At present, there is no means in science to explain (or even study) these, because so far as I know there is no way to empirically measure them. And yet my experience, even as an infant when I didn’t yet know what such things were, is that they exist.

It seems to me that we exist in a physical world, and yet not only in a physical world. We potentially have access to a realm beyond the physical which is as yet immeasurable through physical science. Yet our post-enlightenment culture discourages us from taking seriously anything that can’t be explained through science and logic. Is that logical? There are enough experiences and enough questions to suggest that it isn’t. By no means do we need to discard science. We don’t discard accounting just because it fails to address the issues of humanity, and neither do most of us suggest that such issues don’t exist because accounting can’t address them. We don’t discard music or art just because they fail to explain science, nor do we deny science on that basis. And we shouldn’t discard our search for knowledge of the physical world. But neither should we presume that the physical world is all we have just because that’s all science can explain.

Category: Religion | LEAVE A COMMENT