I NEVER THOUGHT I COULD NOT HEAR (CONSCIENCE)

Today I read a devotional that suggested that our natural conscience faces the highest goal that a person knows.  Only when it is focused on God, though, is one on the best track.*  I was reminded of Proverbs 20:12, “Ears that hear and eyes that see – the LORD makes both of the them.”
Comments:
This proverb first teases people to think by creating a pause that makes the audience want more.  If I were to say in a conversation, “Ears that hear and eyes that see,” and stop, the listener would think or say, “OK, so what about ears and eyes?  What are you saying?  Finish your thought.”  Now that I have their attention, I finish, “They are made by God.”
Secondly, this conclusion challenges the audience to ponder what the point is.  The teaching here operates on two levels.  On the first level, it may cause one to pause and marvel at the wonder of our sensory perceptions.  How is it that we do hear and see?  Only God could do this!  The second level is deeper.  As a proverb, this saying is meant to impart wisdom.  Hearing and seeing are also spiritual faculties.  To really “hear” means to obey.  To really “see” means to have an enlightened path.  These, then, are faculties opened to their fullest by a person in relationship with God.  Therefore, this proverb prompts us to ask, “Do I really hear?  Do I really see?  Am I in close communion with God?”
Application:
I will leave the development of application to the reader.  Here, though, is a poem/song that I wrote in application to myself.

I NEVER THOUGHT I COULD NOT HEAR#

Verse 1
I never thought I could not hear, until I heard my Lord.
I never knew where I belonged, until he said, “With me.”

Chorus
The Lord who makes the ears that hear and forms the eyes that see.
He gently whispered in my ear and showed his love for me.

Verse 2
I thought I was a righteous man, until he came near me.
I never clearly knew my shame, until I knelt to him.

Verse 3
I never thought I could not see, until I saw my Lord.
And now my world has opened wide, with life and joy and peace.

Lord Jesus, I want ears that hear with obedience and eyes that see and follow your way.  Bless me with such ears and eyes.  Amen.
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*The devotional reading was from Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, May 13.
#If requested, I will send a simple musical score of the song with the melody line and the chords.

LOSS AND GRIEF: IN CHRIST

I have been thinking about the loss and grief one experiences over a loved one.  I do not claim that the following thoughts are explicit teaching in Scripture, but I think they cohere with it.

In regard to Adam and Eve, Genesis 2:24 states, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife, and they become a new family [literally “one flesh”] (NET).  This translation has captured the sense of “one flesh” that is often misunderstood on a popular level.  It is not about sexual union.  It is about the beginning of a new kinship unit (“one flesh”).

I think there is a psychological truth about this relationship and its loss.  There are many examples in our natural world of discrete elements uniting to form a system in which new properties emerge.  The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.*  I suggest that in personal relationships something new emerges in the nature of our existence.  When I married, I did not merely have an identity label change to “husband.”  In a real sense, in my relationship with my wife, a new aspect of my existence emerged that would not be there were we apart.  Our relationship has formed part of who I am.  Therefore, when someone in a close relationship dies, we experience not just a loss of their presence, but also a loss to an aspect of our existence, to who we were.  The loss and grief are deep.

A theological truth about Christ helps with this sense of loss.  Faith in God creates a participatory relationship.  One entrusts one’s life in God.  The Greek NT expression of faith in Christ, pisteo eis. means “entrusting into” Christ.  It creates a new emergent reality.  Paul, particularly in Colossians and Romans 8, addresses believers’ struggles by teaching them about the significance of being a new creation “in Christ.”  Moreover, we are “in Christ” in community jointly with others.  What struck me recently was the thought that for those “in Christ,” when a loved one dies, our relationship with that loved one has not really come to an end.  Being jointly together in Christ means that relationship still exists.  Even though we miss that person’s presence, who we were in that relationship is still there within the being of God.  I find that thought comforting.

Father, bless those who are grieving over loss of loved ones.  Comfort them with your Presence.  Comfort them not just with the thought that they will once again meet those loved ones, but with the awareness that those relationships still exist in Christ.  Amen.
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*Probably the most universally known example of emergent properties is how the elements of hydrogen and oxygen (gasses at normal temperatures) come together to form water molecules with properties completely unlike the individual elements.

AM I MY BROTHER’S KEEPER?

 Last Sunday, at a healing service, a woman who hears with the “ears” of God came to altar broken hearted over the current administration’s treatment of the foreigner, the poor, and the oppressed.  We prayed for healing.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen 4:9).  So spoke Cain to God after Cain had killed his brother, Abel, when God asked Cain where his brother was.  Feigned ignorance does not work with God.  God replied, “The sound of your brother’s blood is crying out (ṣāʿaq) to me from the ground” (4:10).

The Hebrew words for “to cry out” (ṣāʿaq [tsaach] and its synonym homophone zāʿaq [zaach] are key terms in the OT.  They are the cries of the oppressed for help, whose voices always reach to the heavens to the ears of God – in this case, even when dead.

These cries can be from the people of God.  In Judges, when the people have fallen away and under the hand of oppressors, God hears and sends deliverers (e.g. 3:9).  The psalmists tell of when they cried out and God heard (e.g. 107:13,19).  After Jehoshaphat had extended or restored an outer court of the temple, he prayed to God before the assembled people: “If disaster comes on us … we will stand in front of this temple before you, for you are present in this temple. We will cry out [‎zāʿaq] to you for help in our distress, and you will hear and deliver us.” (2 Chr. 20:9).  Isaiah even cried out to God on behalf fugitives of Moab (Isa 15:5).

However, these cries can also be from those oppressed by the people of God:

"You must not wrong a foreigner nor oppress him, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.  "You must not afflict any widow or orphan.  If you afflict them in any way and they cry to me, I will surely hear their cry [ṣāʿaq], ²⁴ and my anger will burn and I will kill you …. (Exod. 22:21-24a)

Our administration’s cuts of aid to people, following the “mandate” of many voters, have already resulted in deaths of people overseas who needed our supply of food and medicines.  In our country, the poor will increasingly feel this oppression.  As with the blood of Abel, the cries of the dead along with the cries of the dying and oppressed, will be heard. 

Feigned ignorance does not work with God.

Lord, with my broken-hearted sister, I also cry out to you on behalf of the oppressed.  May I and all those around me have ears that hear, hearts that are moved, and hands that act on their behalf.  Amen.

THE RESURRECTION: FOUNDATION FOR HOPE

Pope Francis’ Easter message* led me to think about the message of hope in Hebrews 11:1.  He said,

“The resurrection of Jesus is indeed the basis of our hope. For in the light of this event, hope is no longer an illusion. Thanks to Christ - crucified and risen from the dead - hope does not disappoint! … That hope is not an evasion, but a challenge; it does not delude but empowers us.”

“All those who put their hope in God place their feeble hands in his strong and mighty hand; they let themselves be raised up and set out on a journey. Together with the risen Jesus, they become pilgrims of hope, witnesses of the victory of love and of the disarmed power of life.”

Hebrews 11:1, comments and translation:
As I have mentioned before, the message about faith and hope in Hebrews 11:1 is often misunderstood.#  Christian hope is not about “blind faith,” some sort of leap in the dark.  A modern translation of Hebrews 11:1 is:

“Now faith (πίστις, pistis) is confidence (ὑπόστασις, hypostasis) in what we hope for and assurance (ἔλεγχος. elengchos) about what we do not see.” (NIV).

The word hypostasis expresses “essence,” which philosophically meant “real being,” and elengchos expresses “evidence of truth,” “the proving,” “verification.”  Also, the syntax in the Greek is rather choppy, but that form makes a point rhetorically.  (I can feel the author saying, "So there!")  A more literal translation would be:

“Now this is faith: of things hoped for – essence (what is real), of things not seen – verification!”

Paraphrased for smoother English, and picking up the author’s thought in context:

“Now this is faith: the reality of the things we hope for [the promises of God] and the proof of things not yet seen [of the promises of God].”

When we understand that “faith” (pistis) is the commitment of entrusting oneself in relationship with God, we realize we have entangled ourselves with the Most Real, who has demonstrated his Presence and faithfulness in the Resurrection.

Easter Application:
Pope Francis, in his Easter message, grounds Christian hope in the Resurrection.  Based on that reality, he goes on to proclaim:

“Love has triumphed over hatred, light over darkness and truth over falsehood. Forgiveness has triumphed over revenge. Evil has not disappeared from history; it will remain until the end, but it no longer has the upper hand; it no longer has power over those who accept the grace of this day.”

“Sisters and brothers, especially those of you experiencing pain and sorrow, your silent cry has been heard and your tears have been counted; not one of them has been lost! In the passion and death of Jesus, God has taken upon himself all the evil in this world and in his infinite mercy has defeated it. He has uprooted the diabolical pride that poisons the human heart and wreaks violence and corruption on every side. The Lamb of God is victorious! That is why, today, we can joyfully cry out: ‘Christ, my hope, has risen!’”

Amen and amen!"
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* For full text, see: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263499/full-text-of-pope-francis-urbi-et-orbi-blessing-for-easter-2025
# Sept 13, 2023, “Faith and the Most Real”

THE CROSS WAS NOT NECESSARY (Good Friday)

 At first glance, such a claim might seem shocking, but no, there is a significant point to be made.

The symbolic value of the Cross is taken from the Israelite/Old Testament images of God’s salvific and redemptive acts, with particular focus on the atonement system.  The whole Temple ritual system was symbolically heuristic.  Through memorable sights, sounds, and smells the atonement system taught people graphically about sin, mercy, and restorative forgiveness.

A brief overview:
The Temple symbolized God’s relational presence with God’s people.  Sin, transgression of the people’s relational covenant with God, was portrayed as a kind of miasmic “trash” that polluted God’s dwelling.  That invisible miasma symbolized the reverse of God’s will for the world, chaos and death.  Enough pollution and God’s Presence would depart; the relationship would be over.  However, if people in repentance confessed their sins, God would forgive them.  Restoration needed to be expressed.  Forgiveness and restoration were displayed symbolically as the people were walked through rituals in which the blood of a sacrifice was applied to the Temple paraphernalia and symbolically atoned (wiped over/away) the pollution, cleansing the Temple, and restoring right relationship with God.  The message: sin is deadly serious, but God is mercifully willing to forgive.
Why blood?  Blood was the counter symbol to chaos and death.  Blood symbolized life.  (Both breath and blood symbolized life in that culture.  Blood, though, could be manipulated for a visible symbol.)  In this God-given symbol system (Leviticus 17:11), application of that “lifeblood” prevailed over the effects of chaos and death.*  That is the nature of God-given life.  Therefore, this atonement system physically demonstrated how serious sin is and how important forgiveness and restoration are.

Application:
The Cross was not necessary.  None of the blood sacrifices in the Temple system coerced God to forgive.  God does not need killing to forgive.  People needed the atonement system to understand sin and forgiveness.  So, too they/we need the Cross.  The Cross demonstrates the seriousness of sin and that God is the initiator and provider of the grace of forgiveness.  The Cross communicated how incredible it is that our God does forgive, receive back, restore into a right relationship.  The God of life prevails over the chaos and death of our sin.  (Of course, as we move to Easter, the empty Cross shows us so much more: the victory of Life over death and the resurrected life to come.)

Jesus, I still cannot fathom the Incarnation, your life, the Cross, your Resurrection.  For me?  For us?  All I can do is worship you.  Amen.
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*Note: Someone might point out that Hebrews 9:22 says, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”  That text obviously is not communicating that there is some external, universal law binding on God.  The whole chapter is working with those who knew the Temple symbol system and is teaching them by portraying Jesus as the superlative high priest and sacrifice for purification.  As in Romans 8:3, a new age has been inaugurated by Jesus standing in as the sin/purification offering.