Divine Graffiti

Thoughts on spirituality, motherhood and just about anything else that floats my boat.

The Holy Mysterious April 30, 2007

Filed under: Christianity, mysterious, religion, supernatural — divinescribble @ 8:24 pm

Rich Sauder made a comment during our congregational meeting yesterday that I have sort of clung onto in my thoughts since then. He reminded us that we have gotten so used to doing worship in a certain way over the years that we may have forgotten that there is mystery in our relationship with Christ as we worship. That is part of the idea I have been trying to get across in some of my more recent blog posts regarding supernatural events in our lives and the life of Christ.

When we enter into worship on Sunday morning, are we truly and fully prepared for the Holy Spirit to show up? We often say that we invite the spirit to our midst, but are we seriously hoping that happens?

I would argue that our worship…no matter what shape it is…is intensely mysterious. We are speaking directly to God and are drawing nearer into his presence. But, do we fully understand that? I like to imagine myself surrounded by an unseen force that connects me to the mysteries of Heaven in a way. We glibly throw around phrases like “hedge of protection” and “spiritual warfare” but I think we often don’t realize how real that stuff is! As I enter worship, do I fully understand how physically close I am to God?

The idea that baptism is not just an outward symbol of something we want the world to know…but a mark of distinction that sets us apart in the spiritual world to show that we are under a banner of power…that one I really liked too, DAD! How the enemy cringes as I walk around showing that off. The sign of the cross has amazing power! It is not just coincidence that horror movies use it to scare off the demons…they know all about it. Are the elements of the eucharist just symbolic or…hmm…am I really partaking?

Let’s get into the mysterious. Put aside the legalities and the laws for a moment and imagine yourself drowning in the sweet comfort of communion with the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Sit still and just listen. In my somewhat abstract thought process, it reminds me of one of those 3D photograph images. You know, the ones that you stare at until your eyes focus on the center and the 3D image suddenly jumps at you. (Not everyone can get those to work, I know that.) Find a quiet moment, go outside and sit down. Look out at the world in front of you. Don’t look at it as much as look through it.

Right there, beyond the tip of your eyelashes, it’s right there.

The mysterious.

All around you an entire scene is playing out and if you just reach through it at the right time, sometimes you get to touch it. It’s amazing and frightening and comforting and quite real. We are not alone in the dark.

 

The Rest of the Passion? April 26, 2007

Filed under: Atonement, Christianity, apocrypha, death, passion, religion, scripture, supernatural — divinescribble @ 1:04 pm

There are so many discussions in the blogosphere right now surrounding the authenticity of the church, scriptures and the relevance of the cross to Christianity. I’m participating in a couple of them on an elementary level and I am again back to a gospel no one really reads. The Gospel of Nicodemus. It is also my understanding that in some anabaptist/Mennonite/Amish circles, this gospel is highly regarded as historically accurate or at least worth the time it takes to read. Perhaps I dreamt that and some sage Menno (Leon/Dad) will likely be along to confirm or deny that.

Anyway, the account of Christ’s trial and cricifixion in the Gospel of Nicodemus or Acts of Pilate is more in depth than the Bible’s accounts go. Christ has little or nothing to say that is different from what our Gospels record, but everyone else does. Particularly the Sanhedrin, Pilate and Jesus’ followers.

The Jewish leaders were angry that Jesus was performing miracles on the Sabbath (not really caring that he was doing miraculous, wonderful things only God could do, but that his timing was lousy) and loudly denouncing him as an evil person.  According to this writing, people whom Jesus had healed came to his defense. The man who took up his bed and walked, the woman with the issue of blood (apparently her name was Bernice), blind, lepers and others told their stories. How cool! They couldn’t deny the deity of Jesus Christ, yet the leaders swept that part away.

A verbal stone thrown at Jesus was the accusation of the leaders that because of him, many children had been killed by Herod at his birth. I never thought about this much. Imagine all the heartbroken parents walking around watching Jesus live his life and wondering how Mary got so lucky as to have her child spared! Only 33 years later, Jesus had to have felt their burden. I wonder if he ever talked about it. The leaders at his trial acknowledged that he was the one Herod was looking for, so I imagine it came up somewhere.

I particularly like the depth to which Pilate’s agony is portrayed in this writing. He was tortured over the decision to prosecute Jesus. He tried and tried to let him go, but couldn’t. His politics got in the way and he ultimately washed his hands, but you can almost feel his sorrow at doing so.

Then, the crucifixion as portrayed here and the reaction of the guards to the resurrection is so great! They couldn’t believe their eyes and acknowledged in no uncertain terms that they had crucifed a righteous man. At the appearance of angels at the tomb, they played dead out of fear, but they knew by then who they were dealing with. They tried to convince others of his deity, but even in all of that, the leaders couldn’t accept. Couldn’t surrender.

We do that every day, don’t we? Reduce his miracles, deity and holiness to what is convenient for us. As long as he is working in our lives on our time line, we’re happy to let him carry on. As soon as he works a miracle, nudges our conscience or otherwise breaks through our thick skulls at a time we don’t want him to, we try to deny his power in our lives. We take back control. We can’t surrender.

 

Apocryphal Thoughts from Smallville April 5, 2007

Filed under: Bible, Christianity, Faith, Thomas, apocrypha, gnostic gospel, religion, scripture, supernatural — divinescribble @ 7:18 pm

I am about to embark on a journey into touchy territory. Those of you who know me personally will not be surprised at all by this. It is common knowledge among my friends that I tend to speak before I think and talk straight from the tip of my brain most of the time. I also am willing to acknowledge error in my ways. The fact that I have a keyboard in front of me makes it worse because I type faster than I think! However, so many thoughts lately spring to the surface and this is my forum for writing them down! I plan to have multiple postings concerning the personality of Christ, the Apocrypha and so on…it might take days, weeks or months. So, I add the following disclaimers and apologies up front:

1. I am a Christian who believes in the Holy Triune God. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and his sacrifice, made for me, defeated death itself to reconcile me to God. I believe the Bible is truth.

2. The subject matter discussed in this and subsequent similar posts are merely thoughts and questions, peppered with opinion and designed to stimulate thought.

3. I welcome feedback and comments, but abhor snarkiness, so don’t bother if you’re just around to pick on people. I want intelligent thought.

4. I apologize to anyone who may read anything I write and doubt for a minute where my faith lies…um…dad.

5. It’s kinda long.

Most Christians will loudly tell you that they believe in the following supernatural events recorded in scripture (just naming a few):

 Moses parting the sea and all those plagues! Job being tortured by Satan himself. Sodom and Gomorrah and a woman turns to a pillar of salt. Angels appearing all over the place. The VIRGIN birth, water into wine, raising the dead, healing the sick. Last, but definitely not least, the resurrection of Christ himself, who is the Son of God. Let’s face it…belief in God himself requires a little thinking beyond the earthly realm.  If we, as Christians, believe these things to be true and factual without question or denial then why do we have such a hard time with some other events recorded but not included in the Bible as it now stands?

Let’s be honest about interpretation and translation, admitting that some human agenda did, in fact, go into comprising the Bible in the form it is in today. That is not to say God has not inspired His Word or had influence on the decisions of the Council of Nicea or whoever else was involved. But, each translation is a tad different. And PEOPLE decided which books to include and in that simple fact lies the potential for humanity to creep into the mix. (I am sure that right here some of you are wondering where my belief lies…I told you so, I told you so.)

So, I’ve been reading the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. It is a gnostic gospel. Some argue that it is a forgery and some argue it is authentic and came before other gospels in chronolgy. I don’t want to concentrate on the validity of the writings, but on some of the content as it raises interesting questions. The stories told are of miracles and supernatural acts that Jesus performed as a very young child. Stories about healing people who were injured, creating life from clay and instructing his teachers rather than learning from them. My favorite is the one describing him helping his father, Joseph, build a bed. The wood beams were uneven, so young Jesus stretched one to the right size so it would fit. I can picture it: “Here, Dad, let me help with that….” Yikes!

Sometimes young Jesus seems to be using his “powers” to exact revenge on someone who has wronged him in some way. That would be contrary to our image of the loving, gentle Jesus. He actually had the townspeople scared of him and wanting him gone since he wasn’t playing nicely with other children; he was striking them down dead! But, he always undid the “bad” things he caused to happen and healed people when someone acknowledged his holiness. We accept, that as a man, he got really riled up and fashioned whips to empty the temple, His Father’s house…why not as a child? It seems to me that is in the very nature of God to do things that way. He is a vengeful God, yet one full of grace and mercy. If Jesus was God, then how could this nature not be in him? If we admit that he, at the age of 12, was preaching and teaching in the temple…somewhere before that he had to have exercised some supernatural powers…right?  I mean, did he just suddenly develop this habit of performing miracles when he hit the age of 33? I doubt it. He knew who he was and he reacted with the heart of his Father. If the stories in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas are true at all…people living around Jesus must have felt like they were living in Smallville with Clark Kent down the street!

Why are those events so implausible when the rest of it is accepted as fact? One day God the Father spoke out loud and said “Here is my son…” and a dove descended and landed on Jesus’ head and everyone saw it…yet we can’t believe that as a child he would have had SOME kind of divineness? The scriptures leave a whole lot of the life of Christ out. Those parts, I hope, don’t impact our salvation, our faith or our eternity. They aren’t “necessary” for teaching, preaching and rebuking. But they are mighty interesting, I am sure, and I wonder how much of what is recorded in writings like Thomas and others is based in truth.

To be continued….