Ivory and Ebony

Stuffy and stodgy theology. Ivory towers filled with books, that when opened scatters dust to every nook and cranny of the mind. Not only does it cloud the mind but it also suffocates the heart. Write papers as if the heart isn't attached-be completely intellectual but don't engage any sort of practicality. Through my collegiate education I have attempted to balance the two. Here is an attempt to balance. 

Job’s view on the afterlife is filled with language that is morose and has thick undertones of dread.  The stark language of Job uses such words as deep shadows, the pit, no return, and death with a gloomy outlook. This leads the reader to believe that the afterlife is an unfortunate thing, but  God rebuts in His own fashion with one powerful statement to be found within the book of Job. Job and his three friends make a lot of claims about death and its finality but their knowledge is limited and they can only see one side of the coin.  

The evidence that has led to this conclusion can be found in a word study through the book of Job that includes these words: Sheol, Abaddon, death, grave, pit, no return, and deep shadow. Often man longs to fill in the gaps of knowledge with an understanding based upon our earthly wisdom. More often than not this wisdom is lacking and needs to be refined by the one who gives wisdom. The book of Job is the story of a man who walks through suffering that most are lucky enough to avoid. This suffering is to the very core of his being. The book walks through his journey as he speaks his theology and thoughts. His three friends step beside him and offer their biased theology to Job. This was a theology based upon a firm foundation that had been laid before them. A foundation that said wicked people received what they deserved and the righteous were made holy. If Job was encountering suffering he must have been wicked. A+B=C, that was the theology of the time, yet in Job’s mind this did not make sense. Here you see a man wrestling with God. One of the toughest thoughts to grapple with in the midst of suffering is death and what is to come after. After looking at all the words that are accompanied by death I have come to the conclusion that Job was trying to find a black cat in a dark room with tinder and flint though by no fault of his own.  “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…”

I truly applaud Job and his fight, but the most endearing section is Job 38.17 when God steps in and says, “Have death’s gates been revealed to you; can you see the gates of deep darkness?”

There are many points to which one could argue about what Job thought about the afterlife but when it is all said and done God’s word is final and concrete. God is also not asking us to give up the search, but rather to have a humble curiosity. Ask the questions, but never expect the answers to be a firm foundation with which to set a house upon.  

Some do not appreciate balance and in trying to jump over that hurdle I have found myself tripping over and over. Tripping is a good word because it insinuates stumbling but it also conveys the aspect of falling flat upon ones face.

Today I finish one of the classes in which I feel like I flounder over and over again in. I sight in on the hurdle, I run with all my might, I jump-and I feel my toe catching the top. I am mid-air, I cannot save myself, down I go. I have gotten back up after each hurdle, but it's the end of the semester-I have lost most motivation to fall on my face, again. Yet, here I am, one last time. One last test. 

Here we go.

+Ecclesiastes 12

Infused

When one thinks of Christmas what comes to mind? Cheerful music, trees, a jolly man who sits on a red velvety chair? 

What about suffering? What about pain? What about brokenness? What about the air of death that seems infused into every breath?

Ancient History seems to be just that. Ancient, old, and dead. As stories are revealed to us, they are just words-never a person, never a story, never alive.  I challenge you to change your point of view. This morning at DCC there was a challenge. 

Pastor Mike opened up with Matthew 1.1-21. Go on, open up your bible, see where he took us today. 

If you are wondering, yes-he did read every name you see there.  Names mean nothing to us these days. Genealogies have lost their power, blood lines are something of the past, but not to the Israelites. Each of those names has a narrative that is woven through out the Bible, and those reading the book of Matthew around the time it was written would have a beautiful understanding of Jesus' lineage. They would understand that the ancestors of Jesus had lives that were continually botched. Lives full of suffering. Lives full of being oppressed and of oppressing. They would have been living in the fruits of the sins of a nation and the darkness that ensues from it. Through out their narrative the Israelis cried out to God, asking for deliverance, for protection, for safety from the events transpiring around them though they were often down the path of destruction because of their own volition.  They shouted out their resignation, their contrition, their brokenness.  Sin and darkness has an overpowering aroma that seems to taint the living, to overpower the living.  

They lived amidst death, yet the prophets spoke of a coming King who would deliver the people from death. Imagine being in a desert without water, but being promised that a well is around the next sand dune. There would be a flame of longing ignited within the chest of those who are thirsty. They would pant and groan for the water to come with every fiber of their being.

The suffering that the world endures is one that pushes people to extremes. They long for that well of fresh water around the corner. Those who Matthew was writing to saw the words behind the words. They knew suffering and they saw the words that pointed to the truth that the King had come. That is what Christmas means to this world. It means that a new creation has been brought forth and given life in the form of an infant who would one day bring death into the grave with resounding finality. With His first cry, darkness shuddered because it felt the air in this world change. The fight had begun. We live in an already but not yet place in time-one where we are already brought out of the grave, but not yet in its completeness. We still see death. We still breath in death, but we also can breath in life and speak life and move in life. 

This Christmas, recognize that the wheel goes round and we will be back at this place a year from now, but also recognize God's sovereignty in placing a time for the world to come back to Him. This is a time of year to dig and to breath life and to recognize the breath of life God Himself has given.   

When we celebrate Christmas can we remember the oppression that we are free from?

+Daniel 9.20-24