"In the night season..." (In His Hands, Part I)

"Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have tried and chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." Is. 48:10

In the Divine Comedy, Dante discovers an odd rule of Mount Purgatory. Every soul there may ascend the mountain as they will except at night, where a great and horrible darkness falls over everything. At times like that, the only thing to do is to sit and wait in the dark. Throughout the poem (and in typical Medieval symbolism), light is representative of God. Those in Hell, being separated from God, have no light. Those in Paradise, being in God's presence, have all-light (or all the light that they desire). Purgatory, however, goes through times of light and dark, of ascension and stillness. It alone bears that dichotomy.

In the Comedy, Purgatory is not just a Roman Catholic image of the afterlife. It is also an image of the human soul as it lives in the here and now, going through the birth-pangs of sanctification. What Dante (good Christian that he was) was trying to point out is that sanctification is necessarily a halting affair. You cannot move onward without the gracious light of God's truth, and the times that light is hidden are part of the proceedings. If you are to love God, then you must not only know God but also have the humility to trust His goodness, especially in the dark.

The idea of being purged through dark times is biblical to the core. Sometimes it is a direct result of living in sin, such as Israel in both their wilderness wanderings and (in the case of Isaiah) their Babylonian exile. Other times, it is a means to prove your reliance on God alone, such as Jesus' temptation in the wilderness or Paul's "thorn in the flesh." In either case, the end result is to be the same: God is your all in all, and His grace is sufficient for you. This principle is vividly apparent in Isaiah, where God wages a ceaseless war against hubris, the hubris that sees itself as God and its own salvation (Is. 47:8-14). God will smash all of our false hopes and counsels, smash them with a furious, unrelenting love that will not leave you in the rot of your idolatry and ignorance.

We must understand: too often we view "the furnace of affliction," those dark nights of the soul, as a bad thing, as a hindrance and a failure. It is true (as said before) that those times can be a result of sin in your life, but we will know those times because we will know our sin, even though we have refused to deal with it. But there are other times where there is no conscious sin that has beset us, and you do yourself no favors by racking your brain to think of one. This is because in either case (whether by sin or not), the purging is not a failure. On the contrary: it is all a part of the plan.

Look at the Babylonian exile. Though it was a result of Israel's longstanding and sinful obstinacy, it was still under God's purview. He knew from the beginning that Israel would be obstinate, and thus He planned accordingly (Is. 48:3-11). The "thus" is always present, always paramount. What happened did not surprise God at all, and the subsequent purging was not 'Plan B". It was always Plan A, for everything is all plan. God knew, and thus He planned. Whom He foreknew, He predestined to justification and glory. The days of purging are not about God's displeasure (as we so often think). Rather, it is about the sovereign grace of God. Remember Mount Purgatory: the Sun's shinings were not arbitrary, nor was the darkness an accident. It is all plan, all within the scope and scheme of redemption. If God has called you and set you on the path, then you will make it home.

To be sure, your journey will not be a straight line. God does not work in a straight line, because He is not a straight line. He is not the prime principle of some system working out its logical conclusion, nor is He a cosmological administrator working out kinks, cleaning up messes, and keeping everything within protocol. He is not mindless or helpless. He is the loving Creator, and all His movements are artful, purposeful, and loving. Always loving, for the Great and Glad Creator is your Great and Glad Father, and He will lead you home on a path wrought for you, wrought by His own hands, intentionally infused with sunlight and tears. Amen.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

The Life of Faith (Central Things, Part 4)

"The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them the light has shined. [...] For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given...." Is. 9:2, 6

To the law and to the testimony, said the Lord, and those who do not walk by them are one with the dark. But there was a new light coming, a living light. Not just illumination, but He who illumines (John 1:4, 9; 12:46). Not just truth, but He who is true (John 14:6). Not just a word, but the Word made flesh (John 1:1, 14). The Eternal-Speak of God made His dwelling among us, and what can we say to this? What words can we find to comprehend this Word? None, except that nothing like this has ever happened before. God has not simply spoken: His very Speech has spoken.

Our faith is not built upon pleasant phrases or static objects but this living Light, a Light ravenous against the impotent dark (John 1:5), a Light come to free captives (Luke 4:18-21), heal the sick (Matt. 8:14-17), and call sinners to repentance (Matt. 9:12-13). This Light has really done these things, with real hands and real mouth from a real body, and it is to this Light, to this raised brazen serpent fresh from the furnace, that we must cast our weary eyes. God has called us to believe, to believe in Him, to believe in what He has said, and here is what He has said: "This is my beloved Son; listen to Him" (Mark 9:7).

So here is the center of faith: not dead words but the living Word; not dead light but the living Light; not dead principles but a living Person. This is salvation: our faith has found a resting place in the Light. And this is damnation: the Light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the Light (John 3:19). We must keep the eyes of our heart always steady on that center: believe God, believe what He has said, and believe what His Son has said. It is that simple. It is that hard. But it is the way of abundant life.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

Homily 36: The Other Coming (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"...[we] wait for His Son from Heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come." I Thess. 1:10

The Coming Christ

Christ will come again, and this is no mere delusion or escapism. Beyond the folds of time and the edges of creation, there is a glory prepared and preparing for us, a glory that will outstrip all of our imaginations and shatter all of our vanities.

We each are splintered shards of color, looking and longing for the prism from which we have been refracted and to which we can find the wholeness of light. It is light that is coming, light inaccessible made manifest in the man called called Christ that He might finish what He started millennia ago: to destroy the works of the devil, the outer darkness and its gnashing teeth, banished to the fringes beyond thought by the onset of living light, which it still cannot overcome or comprehend. In this hope, we find patience and endurance everlasting (vs. 3).

The Coming Wrath

There is, however, another coming than that of glory. Beyond the light glorious, there is the fire dreadful. Out past the limits of space and time burns the furnace of the white hot fury of God's wrath. Wrath against darkness. Wrath against sin. Wrath against death. Wrath against all that is fallen, whether worlds or stars or souls. It is no sudden or random wrath; it is deep-seated and long-brewing, for the earth is old with sin and death, and its stench is that of an open sore soured with much filth. There is a holy cauterization looming in the distance, gathering force and speed, until that day when the skies will crack with anger and burn as with the fires of dawn but now with a fire everspreading and unquenchable, whose satisfaction is not met until it receives the furthest farthing.

 

You who long for the glory of living light: do you give no thought to the wrath of ravenous light? A light that hates? Hates because it loves? Hates all dark because it loves all that is light? We who rejoice at the distant music of the spheres: do we not also hear the distant thunder of the hammers of God, forging the sword of His mouth, whereby the Maker will unmake all things? Do we not hear, and do we dare not have pity on those still undelivered, still lost in and doomed to die with the hated dark?

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012

Take Courage, Child of Light (thus saith the Eternal Orthodox Rebel)

This then is the message which we have heard from Him and declare unto you: God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. And in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men; and the light shines in darkness, and the darkness is powerless before it. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; the Dayspring on High hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace, giving thanks unto the Father, who hath made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints of light. He hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins.

Brethren, the darkness is past, and the true light now shines. I say unto you, Arise! Shine! For thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Thus saith the Lord, "Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage! Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned." Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy Word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.

(adapted from I John, John, Luke, Colossians, Isaiah, Joshua, and the Psalms)

The Necessity of Darkness for the Brilliance of Light (as explained by an Original Orthodox Rebel)

The following excerpts are from Chesterton's book Heretics (pp. 69 & 128). They tie into the thoughts found in this other post. There is a tendency in conventional Christianity to dismiss visions of darkness and evil as antithetical to true Christian thought and character. What Chesterton here points out is that remembering the vision of the dark (1) is a matter of humility in that it (2) makes us fall on our knees before all that is good (esp. the God who is Good). This has rich implications philosophically, theologically, and (even more so) artistically. If evil isn't truly evil, then what's the point of heroes? If sin isn't exceedingly sinful, then what's the point of the Cross? It becomes much ado about nothing.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2011

The truth is, that all genuine appreciation rests on a certain mystery of humility and almost of darkness. The man who said, "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed," put the eulogy quite inadequately and even falsely. The truth is, "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised." The man who expects nothing sees redder roses than common men can see, and greener grass, and a more startling sun. Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall possess the cities and the mountains; blessed is the meek, for he shall inherit the earth.

Until we realize that things might not be, we cannot realize that things are. Until we see the background of darkness we cannot admire the light as a single and created thing. As soon as we have seen that darkness, all light is lightening, sudden, blinding, and divine. Until we can picture nonentity, we underrate the victory of God and can realize none of the trophies of His ancient war. It is one of the million wild jests of truth that we know nothing until we know nothing.

[...]

The curse that came before all history [, i.e., the Fall] has laid on us all a tendency to be weary of wonders. If we saw the sun for the first time it would be the most fearful and beautiful of meteors. Now that we see it for the hundredth time we call it, in the hideous and blasphemous phrase of Wordsworth, "the light of common day." We are inclined to increase our claims. We are inclined to demand six suns, to demand a blue sun, to demand a green sun. Humility is perpetually putting us back in the primal darkness. There all light is lightening, startling and instantaneous. Until we understand that original dark, in which we have neither sight nor expectation, we can give no hearty and childlike praise to the splendid sensationalism of things.

War Cry (a talk on light by an orthodox rebel)

"Ye are the light of the world...." Matthew 5:14

Nowhere does it say that we light the whole world; it simply says that we are lights. Our presence serves as a counter to the darkness, but it does not entirely negate it. Only one Light will cause complete negation, and He will come again someday. For now, until the blazing dawn of the Sun of Righteousness, we who are mere candlesticks offer a foretaste of glory divine.

It is important to understand that the darkness is just as much a reality as the light; if it wasn't, then our light wouldn't mean anything. To be "the light of the world" does not mean shining in a world of sunny days and rainbows. Rather, it means shining in the midst of the hostile dark, a dark that crawls and writhes and wails in cruel hate and spite against the light. It sees us as unacceptable, a foreign body fit for dispatch. It is a lonely business being the light of this world. We become pilgrims in an unholy land, with our one consolation being that our God is with us. Sunshine Christianity doesn't need Immanuel.

We must not despair at the darkness nor deny its reality and potency. That life as light is a battle should not be our sorrow but our song. "Ye are the light of the world" is not a fair-weather anthem for naive optimists. It is the war cry of the armies of the Lord. The dark walks in fear of it, and it always has (John 1:5).

-Jon Vowell (c) 2010