HOW TO MEET JESUS

 How does a person meet Jesus?  As a Christian, I tend to think that I own the market on selling Jesus.  Indeed, different Christian denominations tend to have proprietary ways to ensure that the outsider is included in salvation: a person must affirm a traditional creed, or come to the altar and recite the Sinner’s Prayer,” or be baptized, or speak in tongues, or pass a catechism, etc.  It is easy to fall into thinking that outsiders cannot come to know Jesus and the grace of God apart from a particular method.  We tend to pass over texts in which, after stating that God does not show partiality (Rom 2:11), Paul argues that even Gentiles who do not have the Law sometimes do that which shows the Law is written in their hearts, the means by which they will be assessed by God (2:13-16).  They may regarded as circumcised (sign of God’s covenant people) of heart, a characteristic for which they receive praise from God (2:26-29).

More directly, Jesus tells us how people encounter him.  When people have practiced righteousness toward their neighbors, it is Jesus they have fed, clothed, and visited (Matt 25:31-40).  Jesus tells us how all of the law and commandments (by which the community of faith obediently responds to relationship with God) are fulfilled by loving God and loving one’s neighbor (Matt 22:37-39).

So, by loving one’s neighbor, one encounters Jesus?  Yes, Jesus says that.  Remarkedly, I have never heard that proclaimed at an evangelistic meeting.  However, loving one’s neighbor is one way of seeking God, even if the person does not know she/he is seeking God.  Of course, I agree that Christians should encourage other ways of seeking and knowing Jesus: worship, prayer, meditating on Scripture, etc.  However, I should never disparage the person who is meeting Jesus by loving their neighbor.

Lord, bless those who are coming to know you by loving their neighbors.  Help me not to hinder them but rather to help enrich their knowledge of you.  Amen.

GOD IS NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE “WHY?” BUT IN THE “WHERE?”

In the midst of desolation and destruction, personal or widespread – I am in western NC where Hurricane Helene caused much devastation – God is not to be found in responses to our questions of “Why?”  It is poor theology to seek to provide the answer.  God is found when we ask God, "Where are you?"

Doctrines of the sovereignty of God frequently miss the biblical teaching behind the human images of God as King and Sovereign.  In the culture of the ancient Near East, a king was never responsible FOR everything that happened in his domain.  Rather, a king was responsible to respond TO what happened in his domain.  The ideal king would work for righteousness and justness within his domain.  That is what biblical authors would have had in mind when using kingship images for God.

Theological traditions that define “sovereignty” abstractly have missed the intention in the biblical texts.  They end up with a God who is responsible FOR everything that happens.  They fail to recognize the interplay between order and chaos that exists within all humans and within our natural world.*  Given that false assumption of abstract “sovereignty” wrongly puts Christians in the position of trying to answer “Why?”  The answers are always shallow and facile, even when they merely say, “It is for the greater good” or “It is part of God’s plan.”

Perhaps it would help to address a much-misunderstood text that people attempt to use to answer the why question, Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28 NET).  There, Paul is speaking of the call of all Israel – and for him, including all Gentiles in fulfillment of the promises to Abraham – who have actually responded by “loving God,” a statement of true seeking and relational dependence on God.  Such people now belong to the new era of life in the Spirit.  Paul can look teleologically on the scope of creation in bondage toward the eschatological (end-time) hope in the newness of all things, including the people of faith who are being conformed to the image of the Son (v. 29).  As such, Rom 8:28 never answers the “why?” of the moment.  It expresses confidence in God who is transforming lives and who will ultimately redeem all of creation.

            Moreover, when we ask the where question, we are not to ask our neighbors, “Where was God in this?”  That is really another form of the why question.  Rather, we are to ask God directly, “Where are you?”  That is when we begin to seek God.  Even when we are angry.  That is when we existentially, experientially begin to open ourselves to God.  That is when God begins to conform us to the image of the Son.  I firmly believe Jesus’ words:

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matt. 7:7-8, NET)

Even in the midst of panic attacks, when I felt abandoned by God, God’s Presence was there.  I testify to that.  As part of this testimony, I share the following song as a prayer.

"In the Night Your Song is with Me"#
(Based on Psalm 42)

In the night your song is with me.
When the darkness engulfs my soul.
As the waves crash down upon me.
I will believe that I am not alone.

These are the things I will remember.
When it seems me you have forgotten.
When my soul knows not where you are.
I will believe that I am not alone.

When my heart is downcast in me.
And I want to meet with my God.
As my soul pants for the Water.
I will believe that I am not alone.

In the night your song is with me.
Faintly through roar of the waves.
I hear it dimly through the terror.
And I know that I am not alone.
-------
*Answers to theodicy (why there is human and physical “evil”) are complex.  Let it suffice to say that Genesis presents from the beginning a state of humanity and nature that exists within an interplay of order and chaos.  In this state, we are to learn to depend on our Creator.
#A friend recorded for this for me.  (My friend, Mike Rayson, a gifted musician, died recently.)  If interested, here is a link to the music on SoundCloud:  https://on.soundcloud.com/mpcRn1BNyePggiJz6

A DEVOTIONAL TESTIMONY

[A daughter subscribed me to a story site that sends a prompt to write about each week.  This week’s prompt was, “Have you ever had a "supernatural" experience, or an experience you can't explain?”  Here is my reply.  I hope it serves my few readers.]

Yes.  My “conversion” experience happened when, out of a general religious interest, I attended a Christian tent-revival meeting as an observer.  (I was in California at the time, hitch-hiking around the country.  I had dropped out of college in Michigan and dropped in on my grandparents.)  At the end of the service, there was an “altar call” to which I wanted to respond but was too proud.  Still, I stayed for what they called an “afterglow” time of worship.  I did not want to leave the place; something was too attractive.  During that “afterglow,” someone spoke what I would later learn was called a word of prophecy in the name of God.  However, although it was a real person speaking, I felt/heard what was like being enveloped in 3D sound and I was being told very personally that I was loved.  I responded, “Jesus, I am giving my life to you for you to put it back together.  I cannot.”  I felt – true to the expression – like I was walking on air.  When I got back to my grandmother’s place, she looked at me, smiled, and said that now I knew Jesus.

Reflections:
If a skeptic would challenge my experience and say that a person spoke, but my auditory experience was merely neurologically aberrant, a momentary psychotic experience, I would agree that was possible.  I could have been fooled by a physiological anomaly.  However, this event was just the beginning of my faith story.  That experience prompted me to seek God in a new way.  I began praying, worshipping, reading the Bible, meeting with Christians for fellowship and accountability to be obedient to God – even went on to be a Bible scholar.  My sense of relationship with God in Jesus grew and has only kept deepening for decades now.  Of course, I would be lying to say that being in right relationship with God resulted in a utopian life.  All the chaos of normal life is still present.  What is different is that Jesus has walked with me through that chaos.  The qualification I would add is that obedience to God dramatically reduces self-afflicted chaos!

In retrospect, I believe that my “supernatural” encounter happened the way it did because of my stubbornness.  Although I was seeking God in my own way, I believed that I needed rationally to understand everything first.  Jesus encountering me penetrated that barrier of the limits of human reason.#  At the same time, as I think about my Christian worldview, I find that while it transcends the rational, it is still rational and not at all irrational.*  As I now rationally assess my spiritual worldview, I see it not only as reasonable, but aesthetically beautiful, emotionally joyful, psychologically fulfilling, and above all pragmatically successful – walking with Jesus has made my life go better.

Application:
A repeated theme in my devotional reflections has been both the OT and NT commands and invitations to seek God – that God is there to know.  When I have had the opportunity to address sixth-grade students in church confirmation classes, some of whom do not want to be there and pay little attention, I tell them this:  There is only one thing to remember from all of the sessions, something they should keep tucked in their hearts.  Whenever they come to realize that they cannot run their own lives successfully, they can seek God.  Jesus is knocking and waiting for them to answer.

Thank you, Lord, that you are always there, always knocking, always ready to respond.  Amen.

# Going back to the admission that my experience may have been a momentary psychotic event, there is another way to look at it reasonably: How could God penetrate a person’s experiential perceptions without the event being a neurological anomaly?
*I have written previously about how this limitation of human reason to “prove” the divine realm that, therefore, necessitates seeking God relationally, is what “Pascal’s Wager” is about.

PSALM 24, PT 2: PERFECTION AND SEEKING GOD

Psalm 24 reminds me that seeking God is the beginning of the perfection that God wants.

Overview: Ps 24 consists of three movements: 1) An opening reflection on the sovereignty of God (1-2), 2) A “catechism” about who is qualified to draw near to such a God (3-6), and 3) a processional litany, probably of the Ark of the Covenant being brought into Jerusalem (7-10).  (See my devotional, Psalm 24, Pt 1, 8/19/23, for some background.  Translation below.)

The second section, the heart of the psalm, has a clear thought structure:
Vs 3) Question: Who is worthy to draw near to the sovereign God, to enter such sacred space?”
Vs. 4) Answer: The one who is completely perfect.
Vs. 5)  The benefit: such one receives blessing and vindication.
Vs. 6) The identity: The seeker is (the true) Jacob/Israel.

The answer, vs. 4, is the focal point of this section, and the whole psalm, because it has the most complex thought structure, using parallelism, opposites, merisms (a merism uses opposites to express a whole, such as “he cried day and night” or “praise God from now until the end of the age”) and chiasm (inverted repetition, such as A B C C B A).  This beautiful and meaningful poetic structure is represented below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes on the brackets:
#1) The psalmists list the positive qualities one must have and the negative qualities one must not have, creating a portrait of perfection.
#2) Merism: One “clean” of hands is pure in one’s outward actions, and one pure in heart is righteous in one’s inward disposition = completely pure.
#3) Merism: One whose inner being is not set upon something false and ephemeral (an image used of false gods), and one whose transactions with others (oaths, bond) is without deceit = completely pure.
#4) Chiasm (inverted repetition): the outer actions enclose the inner dispositions, again give the sense of completeness = completely pure.

Reflection:   Verse 4 sets up an impossible qualification for drawing near to God, absolute perfection!  No one qualifies!  Verse 6 is the key.  It is not simplistically identifying Israelites (Jacob = Israel) as meeting such perfection.  Rabbis understood that “Jacob” here stands for the “true Israel.”  The true Israel are the ones who seek God.  “Seeking God” is a key expression throughout the OT literature.  Seekers are people who have learned that they cannot depend on themselves.  They are humbled people who turn to their Creator for help, the Creator who is there to be “found.”  Like Abraham (Gen 15:6), seekers are people who entrust themselves to God.  These are the people of faith.  For them, the impossible (approaching a holy God) become possible by the grace of God.
Jesus, too, teaches the need to seek: ask, seek, knock (Matt 7:7-8); seek first the kingdom of God (Matt 6:33).  Paul presents seeking as God’s design for people of all nations (Acts 17:26-28).
Main point: Spiritual “perfection” in God’s eyes is the disposition of the heart: turning to, seeking, depending on, entrusting oneself to God.  Those are the ones graciously received into God’s presence.  They will also continue to grow in the holiness that God desires.

Lord, thank you for your unfathomable grace that allows even me to draw near.  May I always seek you and invite others to join with me.  Amen.

Side notes:
1) The evangelistic call of the Church is to present an invitation for those outside the community of faith to join with us as seekers, with we who have found God him in the person of Jesus and who continue to live as seekers.  “Evangelistic” crusades often miss this opportunity by presenting two alternatives: either “accept everything about Jesus that we just told you” or “continue your path to hell.”
2) A good friend of mine has written a sweeping scholarly but understandable study of perfection in the Bible and how it often has been misunderstood: Kent L. Yinger, God and Human Wholeness: Perfection in Biblical and Theological Tradition.
3) Part of my work with psalms has been to point out that the sections/verses that have the greatest poetic complexity should be considered the focal points of a psalm.

Translation:

Psalm 24  Of David, A psalm.

Proclamation of Yahweh’s Ownership of the World (Sovereignty)
1)  To Yahweh belongs the earth and its fullness,

the world and all who dwell in it;

 2)  for He founded it upon the seas

and established it upon the rivers.

“Catechism” for Approaching Yahweh
3)  Who may ascend the mountain of Yahweh

and who may stand in His holy place?

 4)  One innocent of hands

and one pure of heart;

one who does not lift up his soul to falseness

and one who does not swear deceitfully.

 5)  He receives blessing from Yahweh

and vindication from the God of his salvation.

 6)  Such is the generation of those seeking Him;

those seeking Your face are Jacob.

Entrance Liturgy
7)  Lift up your heads, O gates,

and lift yourselves up, O ancient doors,

so that the glorious King may enter!

 8)  Who is the glorious King?

Yahweh, powerful and mighty;

Yahweh, mighty in battle!

 9)  Lift up your heads, O gates,

and lift up, O ancient doors,

so that the glorious King may enter!

10)  Who is this glorious King?     

Yahweh of hosts;

He is the glorious King!