Tag: Belief

The Jewishness of John

In the beginning was the Word,
   and the Word was with God,
   and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
   and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
   and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
   and the darkness has not overcome it.
                        (John 1:1-5)

   In 2011, a first-of-its-kind book was published by Oxford University Press, The Jewish Annotated New Testament. It utilized the New Revised Standard Version Bible Translation, but all the footnote commentaries and additional essays were the work of Jewish scholars.
   For me, this brought a deeper and challenging understanding of the richness of so many familiar verses of the New Testament, especially the words of Jesus.
   Professor Daniel Boyarin’s essay, “Logos, a Jewish Word, John’s Prologue as Midrash,” really struck me.
   He explained that “Word” in John was not merely the obvious translation of the original Greek word, “Logos,” but also expressed a then very current concept in some Jewish philosophical circles.
   The Word was understood as a kind of link between heaven and earth, between the divine and the human. The Word was the instrument of the Creator.
   Remember the preamble of Genesis, the story of the creation of the world? Each action of the Creator is presented as “Then God said: Let there be…” and then it happened. The spoken Word was the agent of creation.
   The Jewish philosopher, Philo, explained that, although the word of mortals is heard, the Words of God are seen as light is seen.

   Some even identified the Word as a second, more visible manifestation of God, a sort of second person in the Godhead.
   Official rabbinic theology was not so accepting of all of this, and some considered it the heresy of Two Powers in Heaven.
   On the other hand several Old Testament texts supported this understanding of the “Word” as a divine entity functioning as a mediator—for example, Proverbs 8:22-31:

The Lord begot me, the beginning of his works,
   the forerunner of his deeds of long ago;
From of old I was formed,
   at the first, before the earth.
When there were no deeps I was brought forth,
   when there were no fountains or springs of water;
Before the mountains were settled into place,
   before the hills, I was brought forth;
When the earth and the fields were not yet made,
   nor the first clods of the world.
When he established the heavens, there was I,
   when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
When he made firm the skies above,
   when he fixed fast the springs of the deep;
When he set for the sea its limit,
   so that the waters should not transgress his command;
When he fixed the foundations of earth,
   then was I beside him as artisan;
I was his delight day by day,
   playing before him all the while,
Playing over the whole of his earth,
   having my delight with human beings.

   Thank God for the Jewish scholarship that helps Christians better understand their faith!


16 May 2021

When the Hurlyburly’s Done

Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth opens with a brief scene where three witches, the Norns of Scandinavian mythology, allude to Macbeth’s future:

When the hurlyburly’s done.
When the battle’s lost and won.

   We each spend the whole course of lives with the hurlyburly, with the battle, with the ever-present, daily struggle to live and to live well.
   It is our duty, our doom, our fate. The Genesis story describes it as a kind of punishment for the first man (3:17-19):

Cursed is the ground because of you!
In toil you shall eat its yield
   all the days of your life.
Thorns and thistles it shall bear for you,
   and you shall eat the grass of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
   you shall eat bread,
Until you return to the ground,
   from which you were taken;
For you are dust,
   and to dust you shall return.

   Our busy lives are driven not only by our desire to conform them to the will of God but also out of a sense of responsibility for ourselves and others and for the world in which we live.
   When in the course of our lives we have done all that is humanly possible, have achieved all that we possibly can, at the end we have to shift gears.
   At the end, all is out of our control. We’re in unfamiliar territory. The rules have changed.
   We face the unknown, the final stage of our lives with a mixture of helplessness and confidence, blindness and insight, fear and trust, weakness and strength, resistance and acceptance, turmoil and peace.

   When the hurlyburly of our life is done, when for better or for worse our life’s battle is over, when whatever victory we have achieved is past, we are called to a final, total surrender. This abandonment to the mercy and love of God is the final challenge of our earthly life.
   But, till that end comes, we still have to work, bear burdens, struggle to do what is right, and patiently endure.
   A farmer may trust that God will bring growth and fruitfulness to the seed, but the farmer needs to work—to plow, prepare, plant, cultivate, and be vigilant through spring and summer till harvest.
   Dying is hard and challenging, not because we lack faith, hope, love, or trust in the love and mercy of God, but because we’re used to living “by the sweat of your brow”; we’re used to defining our lives by our doing, working, accomplishing, achieving.
   In the sometimes exaggerated tales of saints, they sometimes sound ethereal, childlike, and floating in a sort of never-never land. But, that’s not real life.
   We live with total confidence in God—but to live means to work, strive, sacrifice, love, enjoy, give thanks, aid, assist, achieve, create, and many other things.
   As Ecclesiastes would say, there is a time for living, and a time for dying. We are very used to and have much experience of the time for living, but we have no personal experience of the time for dying before that unique time comes.
   When that day comes, the paradox is our life’s battle, too, will be both lost and won. We’re called to fight the good fight of life to the very end, and then we’re called to surrender ourselves to God.


28 March 2021

This World or That

Americans have a great respect for their Constitution. You can see it especially when there is a disagreement about the merit of an action or a law. The final appeal for justice seems to involve finding a basis in the Constitution.
But—as hearings for candidates for judgeships often show—with the passage of time there are different schools of thought among judicial scholars and lawyers about how to understand and interpret the words of the Constitution.
And, if and when the Constitution is amended—a complex legal matter involving the federal and state governments and ultimately the citizens themselves—then a brand-new fundamental concept or interpretation is placed on equal footing with the original document!
Americans also have a great respect for the Bible. You can see it especially when there is a disagreement about the rightness or wrongness of certain behaviors or actions or about the values and ideals that inspire them. Often the final appeal for morality involves finding a basis in the Bible.
But, with the passage of time, there are different schools of thought among biblical scholars and religious authorities about how to understand and interpret the words of the Bible.
And, most importantly, the Bible isn’t a book in the sense of one continuous narrative, one planned literary work. It’s a collection of significant religious writings assembled and redacted over a period of some thousands of years.
The Bible cannot be “amended” as the U.S. Constitution, but the understanding of God and his designs clearly evolves over the centuries—and the process still continues!
Later books of the Bible often go beyond and/or enrich the thoughts and teachings of earlier ones—as do the successive generations inspired by them.

Our understanding of human nature and destiny—God’s designs, will, and plans for us—is like that. How we see the stages of life and our expectations for the future gradually have changed and been modified as time passes—and continue to do so.
For example, early books of the Bible tended to identify worldly success and esteem with goodness and vice versa.
Yet the Book of Job overwhelmingly shattered that simplistic point of view, although it had no detailed alternate explanations beyond the mysterious and overwhelming will and power of the Creator.
Gradually the belief in an after-life, the next world, began to develop, rooted in trust in the justice and love of God and culminating in the life and teachings of Jesus and in his resurrection.
In centuries when life was hard, painful, and short with little or no prospect of improvement—and when people heard of a better place to live in this world or in a better world to come—they yearned and hoped for it and, as best they could, planned to get there some day.
However, in times when life is easier, more comfortable, with expectations for betterment, there is less interest in relocating or less thought, yearning, and planning for a world to come.
Of course, for each person a time comes when health declines, life wanes, and death needs to be faced—either as an end or as a gateway to a better place and stage of life.
Those who have hope for the next world—even though they have not yet experienced it and can only imagine it—are sustained and encouraged by their confidence and trust—their faith—in God’s mercy and love.


31 January 2021

Lord, Please Let Me See

Now as he [Jesus] approached Jericho a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging … He shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!”… Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He replied, “Lord, please let me see.” (Luke 18: 35-41)

Saint Irenaeus was born in Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey) in 130 and became the bishop of Lugdunum, the administrative center of Roman Gaul and Germany, (now Lyons, France), until his death in 202.
He was one of the first great scripture scholars; his work was important in establishing the canonical (official) books of the New Testament. His only surviving major work is his treatise Against Heresies.
An interesting section of the treatise—about seeing God—is included in the Office of Readings for Wednesday of the third week of Advent.
Irenaeus is clear that to speak of seeing God is paradoxical:
“The prophets, then, foretold that God would be seen by men. As the Lord himself says: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God. In his greatness and inexpressible glory no one can see God and live, for the Father is beyond our comprehension. But in his love and generosity and omnipotence he allows even this to those who love him, that is, even to see God, as the prophets foretold. For what is impossible to men is possible to God.
“By his own powers man cannot see God, yet God will be seen by men because he wills it. He will be seen by those he chooses, at the time he chooses, and in the way he chooses, for God can do all things. He was seen of old through the Spirit in prophecy; he is seen through the Son by our adoption as his children, and he will be seen in the kingdom of heaven in his own being as the Father.”

When Irenaeus speaks of “seeing” God, he means more than looking at or upon God. But he doesn’t mean that “seeing” God means fully understanding God either.
As Irenaeus explains it, “As those who see light are in the light sharing its brilliance, so those who see God are in God sharing his glory, and that glory gives them life. To see God is to share in his life.”
When Irenaeus used the word, “glory”, he must have been fully aware of its use in sacred scripture to describe the manifestation of God:
– In the days of the Exodus, the glory of the Lord appeared as a cloud leading the people and as a consuming fire on Sinai.
– It was the glory of God that so filled the temple built by Solomon upon its inauguration that no one could see. And it was that selfsame glory that Ezekiel saw, in vision, leaving the temple centuries later.
– Simeon saw the return of the glory as he held the infant Jesus in his arms in the temple and blessed God.
The words were different, but Irenaeus echoed Paul, who, at the Areopagus in Athens, quoted one of the famous Greek poets, saying, “In him [God] we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)
Irenaeus was echoing Saint John as well: “… love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God … God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins … God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. (1 John 4:7-16)
Lord, please let me see!


20 December 2020

The Devil Is in the Details

It’s a familiar expression—which curiously enough seems to have nothing at all to do with the idea of a powerful evil spirit lurking behind the scenes to exert some kind of malign influence.
In fact, is seems to be rooted in an old Germanic proverb which actually was “The good God is in the detail”!
In any case what it often means is “something might seem simple at a first look but will take more time and effort to complete than expected”.
What brought it to mind for me was thinking about what St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians about the Day of the Lord.
His first letter to the Thessalonians actually is the earliest written document we have in the Christian scriptures (the New Testament). It probably dates from about 20 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Thessalonica, the principal city of Macedonia, today is the second largest city of Greece. It was the first European city that St. Paul visited during his second missionary journey, after his experiences in Asia Minor (modern Turkey).
The simple folk there who had welcomed the good news of Jesus and who were looking forward to his imminent return in glory had a serious concern: what would happen to those who died before his return and would not be alive to welcome him?
Paul wrote to them (1 Thess 4:13-17):

   We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep. Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not

precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

“Fallen asleep”, of course means “died”; it was a common euphemism. Paul was reassuring them that those who died before the second coming of the Lord would not be disadvantaged when the Day of the Lord came.
But, with all due respect, although we share his conviction, the descriptive details he added were somewhat imaginative!
However, we still use his metaphor of sleep to describe death:
We display the body in the casket as though asleep. We place the casket in a cemetery (the word comes from the Greek for a sleeping place). We pray, “Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord.” We sometimes mark the tombstone with “R.I.P” (Rest In Peace).
A common usage in science-fiction uses the metaphor in slightly different way. The space voyager is placed in “suspended animation” for a journey often longer than a lifetime, to be awakened when the final destination is reached.
“Faith” is a curious thing. It is a certainty, but not of the same breed as “knowledge”.
With “knowledge” we usually go step-by-step with the details to get to the conclusion.
With “faith” we have certainty without the details. We have to leave them to the Devil—whoops, I mean, to God!

1 November 2020

(Available in
Spanish translation)

Seeing Is/Isn’t Believing . . . ?

The New Jersey apartment building I live in is on a high ridge and the view is spectacular. Some mornings I look eastward towards the distant towers of Manhattan on the skyline, looking over bright bands of fog filling some valleys and lowlands.
Sometimes I wake up to see nothing more than the dim glow of the fog that envelopes the area where I live, broken by the branches of very nearby trees. But often, to my surprise, I can walk or drive down the hill and see everything clearly, but not brightly, because the fog bank is above!
In John 20:19-31 we read about the resurrection appearance of Jesus to the apostles. Most were there and saw him; Thomas wasn’t and didn’t.
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail-marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe!”
The next week he saw, and he was ashamed. “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?” Jesus said to him, “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
In Luke 24:13-35 we read about another resurrection appearance of Jesus to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, They were discouraged and downcast.
They were skeptical about the resurrection appearance stories they had heard. You might say they were “enthralled” by their sorrow and disillusionment. (“Enthralled” in the sense of be held in slavery.)
“How foolish you are!” Jesus said to them, and he then begin to remind them of their religious history and faith.
With eyes wide shut, they were listening to Jesus, while wallowing in grief. (“Wallowing” in the sense of lying in and indulging it.)
   It was only at supper as he said the blessing, breaking the bread, that they recognized him.

We often say, “Seeing is believing,” but it “ain’t necessarily so.”
Thomas saw because he was confronted by the proof he vainly demanded—and, he didn’t deny what he saw and heard and touched.
The two disciples took a long time to really see and hear, because they were so in denial that they were blind and deaf to what was right in front of them.
Sometimes it’s belief that enables us to really see. On the other hand, “Believing is seeing,” also, “ain’t necessarily so.”
Life’s like that. Sometimes we see clearly, including the fog itself (because we’re not in it); other times we’re in the fog and see very little.
Believing is something like that, We believe what we believe, even without evidence or, sometimes, in denial of what we have seen, heard, touched, or experienced.
Right now, we’re living in very foggy days. We know that fog is part of life, and we know that sooner or later it lifts—but while we’re in the fog, we can easily become confused and lose our sense of direction.
We miss the joy of a bright, clear day, bathed in sunshine, eyes wide open. And, when the fog goes on and on, we yearn for the sunshine—but, no matter what, we know that the sun still is shining, even though we can’t see it.
Jesus didn’t bawl out Thomas or the two disciples. He knew they were only human, not faithless; weak, but not bad.
He knows that about me and you, too. When life seems to be too dark, don’t forget that he is “the light of the world.”


26 April 2020

Celebrating Victory

Brilliant! It all makes sense now. What at the time seemed tragic has turned out to be necessary steps to final victory. Who would have thought!
Look, it may have seemed to be an execution or a punishment, but it really was a sacrifice, a sacrificial offering to God:
– He was like the Passover lamb. Those who were marked by his blood are spared from death and ultimate destruction.
– This was a once and for all Yom Kippur. Like a high priest, he passed beyond the curtain of death that conceals the holy of holies, and he sprinkled atoning and cleansing blood before God.
– Now we understand what he meant at that final supper when he gave them the cup of wine to drink as the sign of the blood that sealed a new covenant.
– His death was also like a sin-offering. It was one great act of atonement for all the failings, obliviousness, selfishness, and weakness of us all.
– Talk about payback, this was an astounding redemption—a life, his life—for us all, for you, for me, for everybody.
In retrospect, another way of looking at it is the power of his fidelity and integrity. His teaching, his example, and his life speaks to us:
– Above all else, he sought the will of his Father and asked for the courage and strength to conform his life to it, no matter what. “Father not my will, but your will be done.”
– The only commandment he gave his followers was to love one another as he loved them—and he reminded them that “greater love than this no one has, then to give his life . . .”
– He refused to compromise these values, the foundation of his life, even if the price he had to pay was his very life itself!

Remember when his disciple asked him about the way to eternal life. He baffled them at first when he said he himself was the way
– The way isn’t a physical path or road. It’s a lifestyle—a way of living.
– The way may have its up and downs, its light and dark times, it apparent successes and failures, but it ultimately leads to the fulness of life.
– He really was a trailblazer. Most people thought that death was, as the expression says, a dead end—final, impenetrable, the last stop. But, he broke through it! He showed that there is life beyond it.
– He’s looking back and calling us to keep following his way. He’s warning us about compromising our convictions and falling for the illusion that there are short-cuts.
– He promises to give the courage, strength, and Spirit we need to persevere in following “the ‘impossible” dream.”
Talk about words, “resurrection” is one of the most baffling:
– It doesn’t refer to coming back, back to life; it’s about going on—beyond—to a yet unexperienced stage of life.
– It doesn’t answer any questions about what, when, where, or how. But, it does give a baffling but real assurance, not like “finding the gold at the end of rainbow.”
– There’s no one around who fully understands or who has all the answers—no scientist, philosopher, theologian—no leader, personality, ruler—no rabbi, priest, minister—no imam, sage, or guru.
But, don’t forget. We’re celebrating victory. Thanks be to God, Jesus won!


12 April 2020