What Was Prevented in Eden Took Place in Capernaum, Galilee, and on the Road to Emmaus

Below is an excerpt from Life Conquers Death: Meditations on the Garden, the Cross, and the Tree of Life by Rev. Dr. John Arnold. Full disclosure: it is one of the most beautifully written theological works I have read. Honestly.

I read this piece awhile ago, but it has stuck with me, popping into my memory on multiple occasions. This is most likely due to its narrative approach to Christian Scripture and through this method, he pulls out some points I had not thought of, especially in connection to consumer culture, immaturity, and patience. For that and more I am thankful.

Here are his words regarding Genesis 3:

For Adam and Eve did not fall through acquiring knowledge any more than we do. They fell through disobedience; and then they acquired knowledge before they were ready for it. The problem with Adam and Eve, as with us, is not that they were knowledgeable but that they were precocious. Their partial knowledge of haphazard and unrelated ‘facts’ outstripped their maturity; and they became clever before they became wise – as is shown by that picturesque little incident of the fig leaves (Genesis 3:7). They discovered their bodies, as every succeeding generation has done, with a mixture of delight and shame, before they had the personal maturity and the developed all-around relationship to enable them to cope with this astonishing revelation.

God had not placed the tree in the garden as a test or trick to keep knowledge from them forever. A God who would do that would be a tyrant and an irrational jealous ogre – not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God was going to add to all his mercies in creation, he was going to complete them, by giving Adam and Eve the fruit of knowledge himself, when it was ripe and they were mature, so they should not only enjoy everything in the garden and each other but also know what it was they were enjoying and who was the giver of it. The tragedy is they did not trust him enough to wait. In the morning they clutched and stuffed themselves on unripe fruit, while they were adolescent, before they had even explored the garden or come to appreciate what they had been given.

That is the first act in the tragicomedy of the so-called consumer society. They did not know that God was going to come to them in the cool of the evening, not to withhold anything from them but to give them the knowledge of good and evil himself and, much more than that, to give them ‘his presence and his very self.’ Why did he come in the cool of the evening if not to speak with them and tell them stories and parables of nature and open their eyes and share their lives so that they could share his? It was, after all, just what he was prevented from doing in Eden, which he came to do later in the synagogue at Capernaum, in all the towns and villages of Galilee and on the road to Emmaus.

- John Arnold, Life Conquers Death: Meditations on the Garden, the Cross, and the Tree of Life, p. 24-25.

Holy Saturday: A Reflection on the Darkness

And a man named Joseph, who was a member of the Council, a good and righteous man (he had not consented to their plan and action), a man from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who was waiting for the kingdom of God; this man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.And he took it down and wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid Him in a tomb cut into the rock, where no one had ever lain. It was the preparation day, and the Sabbath was about to begin. Now the women who had come with Him out of Galilee followed, and saw the tomb and how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and perfumes.

And on the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

Luke 23:50-56

Holy Saturday is a day most of us would rather forget. And most of us do. Or we at least relegate it to another mundane day as we await the grandeur of Easter. I have heard and seen many, many people quip, “It’s Friday, but Sunday is a comin’.”

Yet I have to ask: What about Saturday?

I spent most of my life within the Western conservative Evangelical culture. The workings of this culture have centered around many things, but few have had a stronger hold than the vehement division between Protestant and Catholic everything and the intermingling of the American Dream and the Kingdom of God.

The first (typically) played (and still does play) itself out in the eradication of anything that smacks of Catholicism. This usually manifests itself in a skepticism at best and belittling arrogance/violence at worst when anything Catholic – read “anything from church tradition or history” – is brought into the light. Be it a simple reading of the Creed – doesn’t matter which one, just use the word “Creed” – or an observance of Lent or, so I’ve heard from friends, praying in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; this culture tends to dismiss these practices and more as not being truly Christian, being too structured and therefore spiritually inhibiting, or as plain evil. Anemia has struck our Christian imaginations and, needless to say, observing the Christian Calendar doesn’t occur in many circles.

The latter (typically) manifested (and still does manifest) itself in a myriad of ways. In light (or I should say, “In darkness”) of Holy Saturday, I just want to point out a few. First, our preoccupation with wiping out death has skewed our imaginations. We have developed procedures and technologies that have all been aimed at ridding us of death. For a culture perpetuating youth, vitality, and beauty, death doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t fit into the mechanism of America and therefore is seen as weakness impeding my forward progress. To make oneself present to it is foolish. Second, suffering and death do not produce results, at least not ones we like. Immediate is what we like; add in a bunch of shine and polish and we’re all set. In a culture always longing after the new and after that which produces, death will always get dismissed because of its inherent nature of finality and stench. We have become a society falsely believing we can be a rootless one, bereft of the past in a pursuit of the future. Our anemic imaginations are second only to our hole-filled memories. So, in a world of pursuing the American Dream of autonomy, happiness, and self-fulfillment, things like interdependence, joy, and service – things requiring death and suffering – will always play second fiddle.

Perhaps the coalescence of these two factors have allowed us to forget Holy Saturday. Here we find that there is much more to life than the mono-seasoned ecclesial life of the modern church. Here we find that Jesus proclaimed, “Come and die” not just “Join with me in the kingdom and its rewards.” Here we find that light shines forth in the darkness, not that light shines forth in the light. Here we find the kingdom of God enters through Good Friday, Holy Saturday and then Easter. Our tendency to fast-forward from Friday to Sunday gets shut down as we are faced with being present to what actually took place: the death of Jesus.

And so, we find ourselves today at the standstill of the Christian calendar.

The birth of Jesus, with its lights and organs and choirs, with its Glorias and its assurances of liberation to come, seems far away now. The Magi, with their cosmic promise, are long gone. The baptism in the Jordan and the voice it brought down from heaven have faded now, dimmed and muted by time. The healings of the wounded and the wonders done for women, the care for foreigners and the embrace of outcasts, have as much a taste of fancy to them now as they once did of truth. The triumphal entry into Jerusalem is, at best, a mocking memory. Before the new day had barely dawned, it had been swallowed up in darkness.

The urge to move beyond this standstill is strong, especially in a time when we know what Sunday holds. Unlike his first disciples, we can easily stand on the promises of Easter. However, for those in Jesus’ circle, “Nobody, but nobody, was saying to themselves, ‘Well, it’s all right because in three days he’ll rise again as he said.’ They had been expecting him to bring in God’s kingdom, and never in their wildest dreams had they thought that would involve his being crucified by the pagan authorities.” It was a day of “absolute nothingness.”

We fear the darkness of Saturday because of what it holds: mystery, the unknown, and the uncertain.

Perhaps, like his disciples of old, it would do us well as his disciples of today to reflect upon what it would be like to see Jesus die. To let it sink in that Jesus, the King, the Messiah, the Appointed One, is now the Dead One, the Man of Sorrows, the Broken Bread and Poured Out Wine.

Allow yourself “to imagine what it must have meant to have to say, over and over again, ‘Jesus is dead.’”

Allow the darkness to do its work.

Today is Holy Saturday.

Jesus’ Wilderness Temptations and Place: Day 25 of Lent

With the onset of Lent, Jesus’ time in the wilderness (Luke 4) becomes the plumb-line for the rest of our Lenten journey. Not only does it begin Lent, but it sets the overall tone for its duration. Jesus’ fasting and subsequent temptations by the satan are paradigmatic in their example and nature. Much has been said concerning this time and Jesus’ responses to the satan. Much has been said regarding the recapitulation of Adam’s temptation and Israel’s wilderness stories.

However, there isn’t much said about how place comes into play.

So, today when I read this quote in Craig Bartholomew’s Where Mortals Dwell: A Christian View of Place for Today (one of the books I’m reading during Lent), it struck a chord. It is from Frederick Bruner’s The Christbook: Matthew 1-12:

Notice that the devil leads Jesus higher and higher: first from the wilderness and its rocks to the top of the temple and now, explicitly, to ‘a very high mountain.’ The Holy Spirit led Jesus down – into the easily misunderstood baptism of John, and then down still further into the wilderness of temptation. The Holy Spirit’s way is not so much up into the fascinatingly great as it is down into the ordinarily mundane and into the way of the cross and of suffering.

I find this eye-opening due its exposure of the constant downward mobility found within God’s story. From the opening statements of Genesis through to the Gospel accounts of Jesus and then culminating in Revelation 21-22, we find that the movement of God within the plot of Scripture is predominantly downward in direction. God descends into the garden and asks Adam and Eve, “Where are you?”. Jesus takes on flesh and blood and moves into the neighborhood. The city of God comes through the clouds and settles on the earth. All of these moves demonstrate the connection between God’s realm (heaven) and humanity’s (earth) and how the Divine stoops down to invade our time and place.

Again and again we find this downward movement in pivotal plot moments giving us an overarching picture of the manner in which God presents his love towards us.

We find this true here in Jesus’ temptation account as we see place pulling back the curtain a bit. As a result, both posture and practice are informed and molded in incarnational, self-emptying ways. The road to intertwining heaven and earth will not be through a spectacular power play from above. No, it will be long route of embodying love from the bottom upwards within the commonplace of the everyday.

What do you think?

Have you noticed the subtleties of place within the context of God’s story? If so, how?

 

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Other posts in this Lent series:

Moving Beyond Immediate (and) Affirmation or Why I Will Be Blogging Through Lent

“Divine Sorrow” and Remembering: Ash Wednesday

Longings, Presence, and Vulnerability: Day 2 of Lent

Being Led by the Gentle Voice of God: A Notebook and 3 Questions: Day 3 of Lent

Lent Around the Blogosphere: 10 Links: Day 4 of Lent

First Sunday of Lent: A Prayer

Psalm 91 and Cliche: Day 5 of Lent

Community and Prayer: Henri Nouwen on Pushing Through Individualism Via Communal Prayer: Day 6 of Lent

Humility, Place, and The Everyday: Lessons in Mission From John the Baptizer: Day 7 of Lent

Lenten Reflection and Fasting According to Joan Chittister: Day 8 of Lent

Jean Vanier’s “Seven Aspects of Love”: Day 11 of Lent

Second Sunday of Lent: A Prayer

Suffering and Lent: Words from Joan Chittister: Day 14 of Lent

Third Sunday of Lent: A Prayer

Loneliness: Day 20 of Lent

Osama bin Laden’s Death (Part 2): Jesus loved Osama bin Laden

Sunday night we heard the breaking news that Osama bin Laden had been killed. Not only had he been killed, but it was at the order of President Obama and carried out by an elite team of Navy SEALs. In response Americans began to celebrate at Ground Zero in NYC, in front of the White House, Shanksville, PA where Flight 93 crashed, and during the 9th inning of a Phillies-Mets game. American flags returned as the images and emotions of 9/11 flooded the communal memory of most Americans. In a wave of – depending on your view – relief or vengeful delight or fearful dismay or sorrow the events of the day had culminated with this news.

Now before I carry on I want to say that what follows doesn’t mean that I abhor America, our troops, the government or anything like that. I went to Ground Zero shortly after the attacks; I walked through the corridor in the Pentagon where the plane crashed soon after reconstruction began; I mourned at the grave site of Todd Beamer (one of the many who died in Flight 93) one year after 9/11. I have dear friends and family members who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What I offer below are mere thoughts and reflections on how I, as I attempt to follow Jesus, view the events surrounding Osama bin Laden’s death.

I was rather amazed at the reactions that sprang forth on the news. The celebratory delight that came as a result seemed to be founded upon the death of a man. I can understand this (as much as one can understand death and war) from the perspective of national or governmental relations. According to the narrative that the West lives out of, we were attacked and the natural outcome of this is to return violence with violence. The aim of our government is to obviously protect its citizens and its interests. Since we killed the enemy of the state before he was able to inflict more pain and death upon us we win. We win because he lost. He is dead and therefore we are alive. This is the Western narrative in which celebratory actions embody its ideals. So, as an American, I found some relief in his death. But is life really that easy? Is it really that violent? Is life actually that flat?

As a Christian, I cannot accept this because Jesus could not accept this. The narrative that Christians should be living out of has a Jesus at the center of it who tells us odd, countercultural, non-instinctual things. He tells us that when we are hit to turn the other cheek. He tells us that when someone takes away our shirt, we should offer them our jacket as well. Jesus takes things even further when he tells us that we are to love and pray for our enemies. Sure, says Jesus, most people will do this for their friends and family, but, if you are going to follow me, you will go the extra mile and will do this for your enemies.

And why should we do this? Because this is what Jesus did. He turned his other cheek when he was hit. He offered his jacket when his shirt was torn from him. He loved his enemies to the point of actually dying. And in the midst of taking upon himself the violence of the religious, political, social, and supernatural of the world, he humbly forgave the ones doing this to him.

Therefore, I can’t take pleasure in the death of an enemy. And, to be quite honest, as a Christian first and foremost, was he an enemy of Jesus and the Church? Or was he an enemy of the country I just happen to find myself in? A huge problem I see this event pointing out is the true allegiance of people. For quite some time I saw myself as an American Christian, emphasizing the nationality aspect of my identity. The truth is my allegiance is to Christ and the kingdom he brings, which includes loving my enemy. This is the challenge I try to make small steps towards every day.

As Stanley Hauerwas has said,

“I have argued that Christians’ first political responsibility is to be the church, and by being the church they should understand that their first political loyalty is to God, and the God we worship as Christians, in a manner that understands that we are not first and foremost about making democracy work, but about the truthful worship of the true God.This is a deep misunderstanding about how Christianity works. Of course we believe that God is God and we are not and that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit but that this is not a set of propositions — but is rather embedded in a community of practices that make those beliefs themselves work and give us a community by which we are shaped. Religious belief is not just some kind of primitive metaphysics, but in fact it is a performance just like you’d perform Lear. What people think Christianity is, is that it’s like the text of Lear, rather than the actual production of Lear. It has to be performed for you to understand what Lear is — a drama. You can read it, but unfortunately Christians so often want to make Christianity a text rather than a performance.”

Perhaps part of the problem in our world is that we have mistakenly separated out the beliefs of Christianity with the embodied life and practices of Christianity. We all seek peace, regardless of ethnicity, political affiliation, religion, but how can a world believe in a Jesus whose church doesn’t embody its ideals?

Perhaps speaking about loving an enemy, like an Osama bin Laden, seems rather outlandish. And perhaps it is since, in all likelihood, he wouldn’t have had a great influence on our day to day lives. So, for me, I have to wonder how this is actually lived out in my day to day life. It makes me wonder about the reality that there is a convicted felon in my neighborhood. He moved in, fixed up a house, and seems to be contributing to our small neighborhood. Then everyone found out that he is a convicted pedophile who committed an atrocious crime. In many ways, he could possibly be my enemy. Yet, when the rest of the neighborhood has been attempting to evict him from our community, how am I to apply Jesus’ command to love my enemy?

How am I to love a pedophile? Or what about the known drug house down the street? Or the kid who speeds past my house when my daughter and I are outside playing? These are questions I must wrestle with in light of Jesus’ high call to love them.

Can we imagine this? Can the church really be a people that loves that those who are different than us? Are we Americans first and then Christians or Christians first and then Americans? What would it look like if we had actually loved Osama bin Laden? When was the last time you prayed for Osama bin Laden?

How do we come to grips with the reality that Jesus loved Osama bin Laden?

Preachable Paintings

Here is a painted rendition of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet as found in John 13. It was done by Duccio di Buoninsegna circa 1308-1311. They just don’t paint things like they used to, huh?

Can you pick out any parts of the biblical story as interpreted in the painting?