Witnesses, Part Three

I imagine some will think I over simplified in the last post that three types of people and their reactions to Jesus are the whole of what's wrong with the world. 
    
     "What about murder and sexual immorality?" asks the mom without taking her eyes off twin daughters catching and eating or chasing the missed flying candy from a Christmas parade float.

     "What about the loss of our national heritage as a Christian nation?!" the Tea Partier demands.

     "What about greed and injustice?" queries the lawyer from the local Legal Aid Society.

If the John 12 refection is viewed in comparison with the following verse:

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.  1 John 2:16 NAS
      
...and the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness is factored into this study, a masterful unity of thought is clear. (See Matthew, chapter 4)


The Lust of the Flesh
At the height of a forty-days-fasting hunger, Satan tempts Jesus to turn stones into bread. Jesus refuses to do so stating life is not in bread alone but in the words, the meaning, found in God. In so doing He ruled over the desires of the body in favor of obedience demonstrating authority over the lust of the flesh. Thus Jesus both models and explains the ability to make meaningful decisions in line with life in God in contrast with succumbing to innate physiological drives of the human body we fallen humans like to justify as our basic needs. Seeking gratification of the body as the point of life through the varied sensual measures of the palate, a sated stomach or fulfilled loins are the "lusts of the flesh".

The crowds or masses in John 12 represent the wild swings of opinion that ride on this lust. When one lives for body gratification as the meaning of life, highs bounce up with expectation, lows deepen with deprivation and manipulative behaviors of appearing interested in what is expected while secret motivations protect one's love of the dark abound.

The Lust of the Eyes (do not confuse as what lust of the flesh wants to view)
Next Satan invites Jesus to prove His value in the eyes of God. Satan tells Jesus to throw Himself from the top of the temple that God would then send angels to protect Him. Jesus refuses and states that would be a test of God. Religious Christian behavior  attempts to raise the value of the adherent through self-righteous works. If the adherent has achieved the level of holiness demanded by men, it is falsely believed the individual can expect God to save or protect. People surrendering to this sin also expect to be honored for their piety. This is a "lust" of the eyes, since it means that the person so inclined "sees" him or herself as valuable for their religious practice. The heart of such a person is idolizing the self.


Clearly the Pharisees of John 12 are afflicted by this area of sin.

The Pride of Life
 Last, Satan asks Jesus to receive payment of the wealth, beauty, and power of the "kingdoms" on earth by holding out to Him the "glory" of these. Kingdom is a political term that refers to the way in which organization of political power can maximize the productive power of the people within the kingdom. The modern state or nation is a "kingdom" whether it is an absolutist-leaning government such as Saudi Arabia, a constitutional monarchy such as the United Kingdom, or a democratic republic such as our own US. 

The Greeks in John 12, who are today regarded as the primary root of Western Civilization,  represent the Pride of Life sin. From the Greeks, Western Civilization derives its respect and love of analytical thought, the arts, and the power of organization of an involved constituency. The Greeks produced direct democracy as the means of political power and organization of society; they gave voice to ideas of scientific observation and philosophic expression of wisdom, and crowned it with a symmetrical and expressive art in architecture, sculpture and theater. In our modern corporate world, this power of organization is tied to profit. Greed and glory of achievement are the fruit of this sin.


All that is wrong with world, indeed, is in the story where Jesus starts His walk of passion to the Cross.

He did it for all of humanity.

Think about this: In the story He made no attempt to "minister to" or evangelize any of the groups represented.

Part Two of Witnesses

In the previous blog, I looked at various responses of types of people to Jesus found in John 12.  As just some guy thinking about what it says, I find this moment in the life of Jesus hugely significant, a bit like finding $1,000.00 missing from the checking account. This has to be figured out!

This is the prelude to John's view and insights into the Crucifixion, after all. It's not a stretch of basic logic to infer the following: if my faith is ultimately an acknowledgement that the One who dashed off a few billion galaxies across a mind-bendingly expansive universe authored this through John; and if He thought so much of this moment in the life of Jesus as to invade the temporal and voice Himself aloud to these folks—and to you and me by extension—then there must be profound revelation laid bare within these verses.  Not that any other scripture is less profound given Who is the writer, mind you, but if we open our heart's eyes just a bit more than usual…

Jesus is about to proceed through the great Passion of God, the redemption of His fallen creation through an act of supreme love and grace. The Father will have to heap all the sin of the world upon the shoulders of His Son, then turn and punish this holy and wholly awesome man for everyone else's multiple and often vile wrong-doing.

All the sinners of the world are watching in the story and all turn away from Him rather than accept Him. I don't mean "all" by inferring all who are watching by reading the scriptures across time. Right there in the story, every sinner and every root of sin are displayed in the characters who are present.

The events begin as Jesus enters Jerusalem and the "crowds" rush to watch. They get a little emotional and heap upon Him praise hosanna's and palm fronds. Next, the Pharisees grumble their complaints having rejected Jesus from the first; the Greeks come poking in to ask Jesus a couple of things, as they ponder if He, in fact, holds any truth needing consideration; and the crowds come round again in the end with the truth revealed--they are not nearly so full of praise once it's realized Jesus is not giving out what they want.

There you have it: What's wrong with the world described in a handful of short verses.

Think about it.

Witnesses of the Beginning of Christ's Passion

John 12:12 – 50 is a very public moment in the life of Jesus as He enters Jerusalem at the beginning of Passover week. In this event, the Father audibly speaks over him (vs 28). This revelation by the Father speaking over Jesus swings the story of Jesus as told by John fully toward the passion of Christ and His crucifixion and resurrection.

However, before the voice of God is heard, we see three distinct groups interact with Jesus. These who enter the scene are in order: Pharisees, Greeks, and the crowd. 

The Pharisees speak first to one another with,

       "You see that you are not doing any good; look, the world is going after Him (vs. 19)." This is spoken in reaction to Jesus' triumphal entry into the city with many crying out, "Hosanna!" The reader confronts a face worn by the hardened heart. These who trust in their religious traditions reject Christ as the all in all. Such folk are around today from many religious traditions including ones labeled Christian.

Next enter the Greeks. This group seeks to meet with Jesus. Their request is relayed from Philip to Andrew to Jesus who answers them by speaking of a grain of wheat which falls to the ground and dies. He speaks the principle that all who seek life in Christ must be willing to die to the life of this world. For those who would meet Christ out of an honest desire to know--these Greeks in the story represent a valid intellectual inquiry into who Jesus is--there is but this response: Understand the life one knows must end for the true spiritual life in Him to come forth (vs. 20-26).

Jesus then speaks from a place of trouble in His heart regarding the events soon to come and places Himself in the trust of the Father, 

      "Father, glorify Your name." Then a voice came out of heaven:

      "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again (vs. 28)."

The crowd reacts with unsure and doubting words. Jesus next speaks to these who have heard the voice from Heaven with, 

       "This voice has not come for My sake, but for your sakes (vs 30)." Jesus verifies the Father's voice as for the sake of these witnesses, and logically then for all readers across time, as well (assuming a regard for all biblical accounts as one great spiritual message from the Creator God to the shared humanity on Earth).

Next, "Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out." (vs. 31)  

Isn't there some significant understanding about where the spiritual line is drawn here? The ruler of this world is cast out is stated as a present tense marker. Something of the domination of Satan over humanity is forever altered. The Kingdom has come for those who will see it.  (see 2 Cor. 4:1-5 - those who do not see it are blinded to it.)

The focus shifts to "the crowd."  The crowd then answered Him,

       "We have heard out of the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how can You say, 'The Son of Man must be lifted up'? Who is this Son of Man?"  

       So Jesus said to them, "For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.  "While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light (vs 30-36)."

The inquiry of the crowd is in sharp contrast to both the Pharisees and the Greeks.While the crowd is not in open rejection like the Pharisees, neither is the crowd honestly seeking any answers to questions like the Greeks. The crowd's questioning is a challenge intended to shield those asking from Truth. Much like the challenge of adolescents to parents, this technique uses a question in anger or distrust or from a selfish desire of freedom from authority to blunt whatever answer may come.

Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter; the masses love darkness, resist vulnerability to truth, and consequently, the change of finding the Light of God.

Boxed God

From the article I mentioned in the last post, I copied the following excerpts:

"Froese and Bader's research wound up defining four ways in which Americans see God:

•The Authoritative God. When conservatives Sarah Palin orGlenn Beck proclaim that America will lose God's favor unless we get right with him, they're rallying believers in what Froese and Bader call an Authoritative God, one engaged in history and meting out harsh punishment to those who do not follow him. About 28% of the nation shares this view, according to Baylor's 2008 findings.

"They divide the world by good and evil and appeal to people who are worried, concerned and scared," Froese says. "They respond to a powerful God guiding this country, and if we don't explicitly talk about (that) God, then we have the wrong God or no God at all."

•The Benevolent God. When President Obama says he is driven to live out his Christian faith in public service, or political satirist Stephen Colbert mentions God while testifying to Congress in favor of changing immigration laws, they're speaking of what the Baylor researchers call a Benevolent God. This God is engaged in our world and loves and supports us in caring for others, a vision shared by 22% of Americans, according to Baylor's findings.

"Rhetoric that talks about the righteous vs. the heathen doesn't appeal to them," Froese says. "Their God is a force for good who cares for all people, weeps at all conflicts and will comfort all.

•The Critical God. The poor, the suffering and the exploited in this world often believe in a Critical God who keeps an eye on this world but delivers justice in the next, Bader says.

Bader says this view of God — held by 21% of Americans — was reflected in a sermon at a working-class neighborhood church the researchers visited in Rifle, Colo., in 2008. Pastor Del Whittington's theme at Open Door Church was " 'Wait until heaven, and accounts will be settled.' "

•The Distant God. Though about 5% of Americans are atheists or agnostics, Baylor found that nearly one in four (24%) see a Distant God that booted up the universe, then left humanity alone.

Others who cite a Distant God identify more with the spiritual and speak of the unknowable God behind the creation of rainbows, mountains or elegant mathematical theorems, the Baylor writers found.

This distant view is nothing new. Benjamin Franklin once wrote that he could not imagine that a "Supremely Perfect" God cares a whit for "such an inconsiderable Nothing as Man." *

Is not the God revealed by Jesus Christ all of these, and thus a Being of inscrutable wonder Who deserves to be regarded above the boxes labels create?

Next up in the Wild Wood, how the Lord is in each of these views.

*God Views. Pompa and Merrill. usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-10-07-1Agod07_CV_N.htm

An Assertion on the Christian Life

The point of all the posts on Knowledge is the basis for a simple assertion. If we desire as the body of Christ to effect the most growth in spiritual maturity of the most believers; then reduce Christianity to its simple core, the gospel message of redemption from sin through the cross and living in the fullness of the in-dwelling Christ made possible through the resurrection. All other discussions, though interesting perhaps, quickly erode into winds of doctrine and a fractured family of God. Christ in us is the hope of glory, but our understanding of glory should not be a compartmentalized belief that makes the glory of God a platitude existing in the next life. Christ living in us and our recognizance of plus obedience to that reality is the glorious answer of God to the mayhem around us.

Intellectual knowledge of the natural world, though useful for participating in the culture through gainful employment or otherwise, is not the end of human experience. In the eternal perspective of things, the brain is but a tool to be developed and utilized, nothing more. We Christians run a muck as a consequence of equating an intellectual understanding of the Word with spiritual knowledge; or worse, equating subjective, personal understanding of the Word with all its inherent problems of a wavy lens--individual perspective--as spiritual knowledge. While intelligent exegesis is rightly accepted as superior to common conclusion in understanding the meanings of texts, spiritual knowledge is not an automatic result of intelligent thinking over subjective personal perspective for the simple reason that none of us escapes our own subjectivity. Human knowledge and wisdom, even that which builds its rationalizations on the Bible is of no value in the larger framework of eternity. The mind and heart of Christ known through the in-dwelling Christ, the Holy Spirit, is the only source of truth and wisdom available to us within the paradigm of the current natural existence.

It probably goes without saying but as a balanced writer I cannot shirk the responsibility of stating that no carnal knowledge, that which is known through muscle and bone or the related drives of hunger, thirst and libido, is the source of spiritual knowledge. It's a given these are all part of the natural life, but you will hear no call to asceticism nor epicureanism from me. Living to please the body or subdue it reduces the quality of life rapidly in the best case scenario and is a path to madness in the worst. We were never intended to live as animals do through competitive instinct fulfilling a need to survive. When the source of our soul's satisfaction is based on our carnal natures, the reason why we live results in philosophies which rationalize barbarism and/or paganism as logical and fulfilling.

Spiritual knowledge isn't learned by listening to sermons, though certainly teaching has its place and I do not suggest discarding any gift God intended for us. Spiritual knowledge is that which we learn through Christ as our active teacher, a function of us walking in the faith that the Holy Spirit is within us as He said He would be. (You gotta love the way the three persons of God wreak havoc on personal pronoun usage.)

Knowledge Discussion Moves Forward

So the regular reader may be wondering why I spent three posts to state the obvious about knowledge. Besides being a cumbersome thinker who is talkative, I have an overall goal. That goal, though in line with the sub-title of this blog, is stated so often here in the past two years (nearly that long anyway) my readers may feel cheated--or at least like yawning for the umpteenth time. Well, I hope I am being an effective witness for the narrow way of Jesus in the long run but even I think I am starting to sound like a broken record. (Guess that's a dated simile, but malfunctioning CD's don't repeat the same line over and over just a syllable or note in rapid staccato.)

The reason I posted on knowledge is to develop a background of delineated meanings from which an assertion may be made regarding Christian decision-making on a day to day basis, which then leads to some degree of wisdom-gain over a life time. The next stop is to identify how the common man or woman deals with scripture. There might be generated a complex list if I attempted a no-stone-unturned approach, but for the sake of this blog is not a tome, I will work with a few main possibilities. I came up with three:

• Reaction--meaning the words flip some switch in the heart on and the person goes off. Most of what is thought then is really skewed by this deeply ingrained, emotionally-controlled state which is our baggage in common terms and in secular terms is closely akin to psychosis. (That's a joke, but it may not be far from the truth.)
• Interpretation--sounds formal but for many of us, it is not. Once the switch is flipped back off (this is not completely possible except under one condition but a person must believe it is at least attempted--that's a later post), the person begins to work on understanding what the scripture actually means. I do not mean formal interpretation as if one is a Bible scholar, just the sense that, "Hey, I better figure out what this means. I'll go ask Joe. He knows stuff like this."
• Application--"OK, I got it now and I'm gonna do the right thing by this."
  

For any reason, if one of the readers think another bullet or two must be considered, please help me here.

Is Ice Cream Consumption a Carnal Act?

As human beings, we find ourselves within the boundaries of a time and space dimension. Our physical bodies have a finite amount of time to exist measured against the movement of the earth around the sun. While knowledge is, on the one hand, understood to be a function of intellectual capacity, each individual gains a body-based composite of knowing by being alive in our physical bodies we may label in two categories:

kinesthetic knowledge --physical understandings like knowing how to ride a bicycle, wherein a person need not be able to carefully articulate the physical laws involved, nor the math of speed computation, but nonetheless "knows" the way to balance and move the vehicle forward successfully.

carnal knowledge--within Christian circles, carnal knowledge is synonymous with sin but in the fullness of definition is a bit broader.

1. pertaining to or characterized by the flesh or the body, its passions and appetites; sensual: carnal pleasures.

2. not spiritual; merely human; temporal; worldly: man of secular, rather carnal leanings. (Dictionary.com)

Is riding a bicycle carnal? It pertains to the body and is a mere human activity. (Though I have had many a bike ride wherein my sense of God's presence and my communion with Him during the physical activity was sublime.) So...biking is carnal. Biking is carnal?! Consider the carnal pleasure of eating ice cream. (We visited a local ice cream shop here in Seattle. All organic ingredients and the spoon/bowl was compostable. I selected coffee and the product included ground coffee beans--yum!) Most of us do not place this human act--based on no nutritional need but pursued by the majority of us who enjoy ice cream simply because the taste and texture of the dessert is enjoyable--in the sin category. Carnal acts which are sinful have a quality that goes beyond simply enjoying a pleasurable, physical act. When do we cross that line? What do you think? (I'm using my daughter's Mac and frustrated by it!!! I have no clue why the second half of this post is showing up in a white box, nor can I figure out how to get it to stop. I think I need to rename the blog to reflect my continuing fight with technology.)

Degrees and a Cabbie's Knowledge

The brain grows a dendrite, and literally an individual gains a mental connection. The person has new knowledge. A fact is known.

The word science is rooted in a Latin word, scire, meaning to know. Knowledge is simply what we know. Knowledge builds on itself, hence a formal education requires years; and individuals categorize their learning into specialties of focus, which drive a lifetime of learning in that field. We award such knowledge a credential verifying the education met standards.

Gaining knowledge includes non-formal education. One's brain may contain a pile of facts about a particular city's streets which has developed as a function of driving a cab for a living. The brain in this case rarely requires a map for reference. Experience is a great teacher.

In the cab example, the individual learns more than just where the streets lay. The cab driver will be aware of related but necessary facts that are a function of the city planner's action, which streets run two-ways versus one-way for instance; and of particular importance, which way that one way is! (I've been visiting Portland, Oregon since yesterday, and this city employs the one-way more than most cities I have visited! Well done, I might add. It hasn't been difficult to navigate.)

Further, the cab driver will be well versed on facts that impact the orientation and the planning of the streets: hours when the given streets experience heavy traffic, locations of popular attractions that will impact traffic flow, ethnicity concentrations, crime areas, etc. Knowledge is layered and nuanced.

We gain and accept our level of knowledge capacity and the layering of our given circumstances as a function of life. Taken as a whole, the amount of knowledge and its expanding diversity leaves the common person within an unfathomable labyrinth. All of us live with his of her pile of facts while leaving much information to reside out of our brains but within the reach of research. Factoring in the multiples of other people's nuance, add in the forces of nature and the laws of physics wherein a volcano may erupt or trained bicyclists misjudge by millimeters into a shattering fall and to knowledge is added the complication of "randomness" which at times scrambles life beyond planning, protocols and policies that all stand upon knowledge.

Knowledge, Part II

Moving from the last post, today is a simple framework of definitions and premises.

Knowledge: the body of truths or facts accumulated in the course of time. Dictionary.com

However, the Christian experience opens us to the Mind of Christ. Considering the beginning definition from the Christian perspective, knowledge is limited and finite. It is expanding rapidly in this age, but will never approach what is held in the mind of the Lord. Additionally, as Christians, we may divide knowledge into two components:

• Knowledge as the composite of data with which humans function in the natural world and upon which is constructed in ever-increasing complexity that stuff labeled scholarship or erudition.

• Carnal knowledge or the realm of understanding which springs from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

My next post or two--I'm not exactly sure where this is headed--will be essays in which three areas of "knowledge" are the key components. These are knowledge, carnal knowledge and the Mind of Christ.

Knowledge from God

As a jumping off point for commenting about knowledge, the following quote is shared from a sermon of George MacDonald's sometime in the late 1800's:

"...so that the selves God made shall appear, coming out with ten-fold consciousness of being, and bringing with them all that made the blessedness of the life the men tried to lead without God. They will know that now first are they fully themselves. The avaricious, weary, selfish, suspicious old man shall have passed away. The young, ever young self, will remain. That which they thought themselves shall have vanished: that which they felt themselves, though they misjudged their own feelings, shall remain--remain glorified in repentant hope. For that which cannot be shaken shall remain. That which is immortal in God shall remain in man. The death that is in them shall be consumed." (the emphasis in the selection is from MacDonald)