Love (Isaiah's Doxology, Part IV)

"He has clothed me...He has covered me...like a bridegroom...like a bride...." Is. 61:10-11

Love is the key. (Get it?)

Isaiah's metaphor for our new identity and function point us to something in addition to that purpose and function: our purpose and function are not simply a matter of duty. Remember, he could have used any metaphor he wanted. His word choices prove that: "decks" means "to meditate" and carries the image of church service as well as a wedding, and "jewels" means any prearranged thing, even the garb and tools of a worker going to work. Yet he did not use those images, images of duty and work. He chose instead the images of a bride and groom, images of love.

You missed a spot.

Now, it is true that a bride and groom have a duty to give, both in the wedding and in the marriage. But that exception only proves the rule: we expect them to fulfill their duty because we assume that they love each other and will gladly give their best to each other. If they failed or deliberately faltered in their duty towards each other, we would feel a sense of disappointment. However, if they did their duty only out of duty and nothing more, then we would feel the same thing. We would feel as if something had been missed, left out. The situation suggested and called for more than mere dutifulness or efficiency. It called for love, a much deeper and solid thing. Love is the only sure foundation for dutiful action, because it alone can keep the fires burning for years to come.

As we adore...

Just as a bride and groom have an identity and function out of love, so too do those whom God has redeemed. Their purpose and function is done out of love, because it came from love. It was Love that redeemed totally and absolutely (John 3:16; Rom. 5:6-11; I John 4:7-10). He wrapped His people in salvation and righteousness just like a groom is decked out for his bride (and vice versa). The groom decks himself (or is decked) out of love for the bride, and because of that love he is decked in his finest, in all that makes the bride happy. Likewise the bride adorns (or is adorned) out of love for the groom, and because of that love she adorns herself with beauty, with all that makes the groom happy. Every action belongs to love. It is a mutual reception of joy, each giving to and receiving from each other out of love for each other. That is the image Isaiah is going for, that God is going for through him. God has decked His people out in the best that He has: a salvation and righteousness all-encompassing and overwhelming. And as He has given His best out of love, so too His people give back their best out of love. To do it for any lesser or other reason would be a corruption of the whole relationship.

...so too we adore.

This is where all the "relational" language comes from in Christianity. Having a "relationship" with God may be an overused and abused idea, but it is still the closest to the truth. We were made to love God, saved to love God, and we can only love Him the same way we come to love anyone else: we must begin to know Him. Such knowledge is only possible through His self-disclosed revelations: Nature (Ps. 19:1-4; Rom. 1:19-20) and Natural Law (Rom. 2:12-15), as well as His word (II Tim. 3:16; Heb. 4:12) and Word (Heb. 1:1-4). We must learn who He is and what He loves. We must learn to listen to Him, talk to Him, and spend time with Him. If we are to love God, then we must know God, and if we are to know God, then we must immerse ourselves in His revelations. Spend your time amongst Nature and its beauty. Spend your time studying virtue and truth. Above all, spend your time in His word, learning from His Spirit (I Cor. 2:6-12) and His Son. From that soil your knowledge will grow, and from that your love will grow, and from that and that alone will your activity grow, for truth is the foundation of love, and love is the foundation of life.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Hidden (Isaiah's Doxology, Part II)

"He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; He has covered me with the robe of righteousness." Is. 61:10-11

Isaiah, continuing his jubilant doxology, now expresses the specifics of his joy in God. He first states that God has "clothed me with the garments of salvation" as well as "covered me with the robe of righteousness." There is some interesting word usage going on here in the Hebrew. The easy ones to get are "salvation" (which carries the idea of "deliverance") and "righteousness" (which carries the idea of "justification"). Isaiah is delivered and justified, i.e., he has been brought out of something and in to something, out of a state of bondage and into a state of innocence before one whom had been offended. This is all courtroom language: you were bound to some great punishment or fate but now have been released, because you were declared just before your accuser as well as the judge.

Gotcha covered.

Here's where it gets interesting. This state of deliverance and justification is described as being "clothed" in "garments" and "covered" with a "robe". In Hebrew, "clothed" literally meant "to wrap up" in, like a cocoon. "Garments" literally meant a "cloak," which carried the idea of "hiding" or "to hide". It sometimes was used to suggest treachery or deceit, an act of hiding your true intentions like a man hides under a blanket.  "Covered" and "robe" also carry these additional meanings. The idea is that this deliverance and justification was a complete covering, so complete that you disappear into it, and only the deliverance and justification are seen. Your life is hidden in it, wrapped up like a mummy, buried like in a grave.

The is the first source of Isaiah's joy: God has given to him a salvation and righteousness that is absolute and total, one which you disappear into and are completely covered, like a raindrop in the sea, like a single star in a supercluster. Your life is hid in God's salvation, wrapped up in His garments and hidden in His robe, and none can pluck you from His hand.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Sex and Justification (the outrageous analogies of an orthodox rebel)

Just sayin'...

In ye olden times of the English-speaking world, "rape" was often spoken of as "dishonoring" a woman.

Now, describing "rape" as such doesn't have quite the punch most of us are looking for; calling it an "act of evil" sounds more appropriate (if a bit campy). Still, I think our ancestors were on to something, something very special and specific.

FOR HONOR!!!!!!!!

"Honor" is a word we are familiar with, though less familiar than we think. Klingons have honor, as do all their endless sci-fi imitators. (Warrior culture, yes? Expect "honor" to get a word-workout.) In some rare cases, we may hear someone be called a "man of honor". There we are referring to their character, viz., what kind of person they are, what kind of ethics they have subsumed, "who they are when no one's around," etc. That's about the extent of our understanding of "honor": having a specific character to which you should take pride in, pride enough to act according to that character.

Such an idea isn't far off the mark, but the real meaning of "honor" is much simpler. "Honor" simply referred to one's value, i.e., what you as an individual were worth. To gain honor, one had to do something(s) of note or merit (slay dragons, win wars, don't cheat on your taxes, etc.). To lose honor, one of two things had to happen: either you did something that was unbecoming of your value (in other words, it is antithetical to who you are) or you didn't do something that was in line with or would have increased your value, increased your worth. In short, you either did something you shouldn't have done, or you didn't do something you should have done. In either case, you "dishonor" yourself (and the family and/or community to which you belong). You have not treated yourself with the value that you have (or need), and thus acted (or did not act) accordingly.

Clear enough? Of course not. But let's move on.

You are without honor, sirrah.

Now, to be "dishonored" is different from dishonoring yourself. In the latter, you did not live up to the value that you have (or are called to). In the former, however, you have not been treated in accordance with the value that you have. To put it another way, anyone can dishonor themselves, but only valuable people can be dishonored. Both the man of honor and the rogue can dishonor themselves: the former by not living up to their value and the latter by not seeking to gain value; but only the already-valuable can be dishonored. Your honor, your value, is the gauge by which you measure dishonor. The less value you have, the less you can be considered dishonored. If you have no value, then you cannot be dishonored at all. A sacred place can be dishonored; a secular one, less so. You can dishonor a man more than a horse, and both more than a rock.

This is where I think them olden-folks were on to something: "rape" is to "dishonor" a woman because you are not treating her with the value that she already has. She does not lose value, mind you; she has been disvalued, not devalued. The assumption is that women have a set, intrinsic value simply by being a woman. That intrinsic value ought to guide how we act around and towards them, and rape is to act untowards a woman. It is to disvalue her, to treat her as less than she's worth, as a thing or an object rather than a unique individual with intrinsic value. It "dishonors" her, for she has honor. She is already-honorable, already-valuable, and should be treated as such. Thus, as Cameron Poe would say, "Don't! Treat! Women! Like! That!"

That. Is. The question.

A logical question to ask at this point would be exactly what is the "value" of a woman. What does it look like, or how "big" is it (so to speak)? I think the Christian answer would be this: every person, man or woman, has limitless value because (1) they are all made in the image of the God whose "value" is limitless (Ps. 8:1) and (2) they are each a unique manifestation of God's image, a one-time-only, non-repeatable subject.
 
 The first point speaks to God's objective value: whatever value He has as a being is our value as well. That is the special quality and privilege of a human being. The second point speaks to our subjective value: we are not cardboard cut-outs of the same theme, but rather each of us is a unique note in the symphony that is "the image of God". Each of us sees the world from a unique perspective; each of us sees God from a unique perspective, and thus worships and loves God from a unique perspective. There is unity of belief and creed, of course, but not necessarily unity of expression and person. We are each and all a specific "I", and our "I"-ness is a part of our value. That is the special state of a human being. Therefore, the combination of God's objective value and our subjective value means our value is limitless. We have been "crowned with glory and honor" simply be being human (Ps. 8:3-5).

Clear again? No again? Right. Moving on.

Uh...no.

If human "value" is limitless (as I think it is), then a woman's "value" is limitless (as I also think it is). Thus, any act of "disvalue" towards a human person (both male and female) is wrong. Rape, murder, theft, kidnapping, lying to or against: every sin against another (including God) is in some way related to our disvaluing that other as a being. We deem them unworthy of respect or life or property or peace or obedience. I think that makes sense (a lot of sense), but it also creates at least one interesting...let's say, "issue".

Rape, in purely biological terms, is about sex. Sex in all the wrong ways, but sex nonetheless. Now, not to sound platitudinous, but sex in all the right ways is consensual, a natural outflow of love, and within the safeguards and security of a marriage covenant (at the very least). The "issue" is this: if a woman's value is indeed limitless, then there is no way you can be worthy of her. Your value may be limitless, too, but to demand any woman (or any one) on those grounds (i.e., your own worth or awesomeness or studliness or whatever) is to treat her as an object, a mere means to your own self-aggrandizing ends. It is dishonoring to her and to you. But then, how is this supposed to work? How can you ever be worthy of her?

The answer is: only if she declares you to be worthy.

"Love bade me welcome..."

Sex, in that it is a physical representation of love, is to be an invitation, i.e., an other invites and welcomes you to come closer than any one else. They must do the inviting; anything else would make us gatecrashers. Thus, we wait on their declaration, wait in hope that they will declare us worthy. Whether we actually are worthy is not the point; the point is that the other has declared us so out of love, and on the basis of that loving declaration we approach with boldness and yet humility. Boldness, because nothing now bars our way; humility, because it is all an act of grace. Like all acts of true love, sex is to be about grace.

The image of justification is hard to avoid at this point. Union with God is possible because He declares us worthy in Christ. We are not worthy; we could never be worthy of God. But I have good news: Christ died for our unworthiness, proving God's love, and providing us a worthiness not our own (Rom. 5; Phil. 3:8-9). God gives us worth because we have none to merit His favor, and He gives out of love and now invites out of love, invites all to come to the table and feast, to the waters and drink, to taste and see the goodness of God. Christ is the gracious invitation and welcome of God, and to try and enter by any other door is to be a rogue and cheat, a robber and thief, an attempted-rapist of the divine. We will fail, of course, but we will be rightfully punished for our insolence, for our pride, for our disobedience, for our deeming God and His ways unworthy of our respect or adherence, for daring to disvalue the purest and greatest and most extravagant Lover and Love of all:

In short as well as conclusion, the sacred symbols and realities surrounding romantic (and even sexual) love continue to surprise.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

We Can Be Heroes (for more than one day)

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound...and they shall build the wastes of old, and they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations." Is. 61:1-4

"Oh? Were you looking for me?"

The best kind of hero is the one you don't expect. From the mysterious stranger coming out of nowhere to the unassuming bumpkin rising to the occasion (kicking and screaming all the way), the best heroes are always a surprise. They come into the midst of the darkness and turn the whole thing on its head, like some kind of anarchist of virtue or orthodox rebel. They do not fit into any of the categories laid out for them, neither from the people they came to save (whose presuppositions about heroism had long since stagnated and atrophied) nor the evil they came to overthrow (for darkness cannot comprehend the light).

That heroism is to be an exciting, topsy-turvey affair can be clearly seen in the life of Jesus. He walked right into the life of Israel and threw the whole place into an uproar. He confused and upset everyone, from skeptical Sadducees and dogmatic Pharisees to even His own disciples. He told devout Jews that their father was Satan rather than Abraham (John 8:31-47), that He came to save others besides them (Luke 4:16-30; John 10:11-16), and explained that salvation in such a surreal fashion that most of His followers abandoned Him (John 6:53-66). He was unexpected and unnerving, breaking the hearts of enthusiastic young fans (Luke 18:18-23), the backs of entrepreneurial shopkeepers (Mark 11:15-19), and the minds of His disciples (Mark 4:36-41). As Sayers put it, He passed through this world like a flame, and all who met Him were flummoxed to exasperation: "We have seen strange things today!" (Luke 5:26).

Jesus' ability to turn everyone's world upside-down can only mean two things: either He is a villain stepping into a good world, decimating its peace; or He is a hero stepping into an evil world, agitating its corruption. There are some who hold to the former, but Christians hold to the latter. In either case, however, it cannot be said that He was boring or predictable or "run-of-the-mill". His good works suggest His heroism, but His unexpectedness confirms it completely, for true heroism is full of surprises, being a surprise itself.

There is, however, one last surprise that Jesus' heroism delivers, and that is in regard to those He came to save. We who have been saved and are being saved were the helpless ones, the captives and prisoners, slaves to Sin and despair and destruction. Jesus released us from those chains but not into the empty air. He did not pluck us from dungeons deep, dust us off, set us on the road, and bid us farewell as we wander wherever we please. Rather, He brought us out so that He might bring us in. He delivered us from darkness so that we might be translated into light (Col. 1:13-14). He "reconciled" us so that we may be given His "ministry of reconciliation" (II Cor. 5:18-19; Col. 1:19-20). The hero did not save us to live unto ourselves but to live like and for Him (II Cor. 5:14-15). In short, the hero saved us and has called us to be heroes as well.

It is a surprise worthy of any adventure story. The hero, being the person you least expected, comes and calls to heroism others whom you expected even less. Jesus' disciples were like this. He called fishermen, tax collectors, and other dregs and nobodies, pulling together and to His side a bunch of hot-headed, fearful, overly-ambitious, greedy pack of clods. They were the epitome of a rag-tag band, yet they turned the world upside-down (Acts 17:6). And it is to this same band we have been called.

"Samwise the brave...."

It is alright to call it strange. God's logic is strange to us, but it is only the same strange logic of every great adventure: use the weak and foolish and despised to upset and overthrow the great and mighty (I Cor. 1:26-31). Every great hero is a bumpkin, like a nobody carpenter from Nazareth whom everyone thought was crazy. And God calls all bumpkins to His side, the broken and abused and forgotten and weak, so that we can be heroes, so that He can continue to do great and surprising works through us.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

"...death is swallowed up...." (Eschatological Vision, Part III)

Beyond the doors of night...

"Instead of bronze I will bring gold, and instead of iron I will bring silver. Instead of wood, bronze; instead of stones, iron. I will make your overseers peace and your taskmasters righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in your land, [nor] devastation or destruction in your borders. You shall call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise. The sun shall no more be your light by day, nor for brightness will the moon give you light, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. The sun shall no more go down, nor the moon withdraw itself, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended." Is. 60:17-20

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.... Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and He will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." Rev. 21:1-4

"Oh, death is swallowed up. / It owns nothing in me." -My Epic

Oh, the agony and the ecstasy...

The third and final element in the Christian eschatological vision is the unstoppable redemption. This final piece gives to the vision the balance of truth. Here the optimism is fully balanced with the pessimism, which is the way it ought to be, for there is incomplete truth in both positions: things are as dark as you think they are, but there is still hope. And not just any hope, but an unstoppable hope, an inevitable, irrevocable hope. The culmination of the Christian eschatological vision is a glorious future where God and all good things ultimately triumph over all things dark and evil and sad. If it sounds like a Disney movie, then you're not far from the mark; all good (and even campy) stories have an inkling of this truth in them. Good will triumph over evil. It will be a long dark road, a long dark night of every soul, before it happens, but it will happen. There is no stopping it.

Like a light bomb, sucka.

Evil-doers and seducers will wax worse and worse, and worse still, and darkness will spill out and over all without measure, filling the heights and depths with its horror and ennui, until the very sun burns out and the moon burns red. Then the winepress of wrath will bleed much blood. Then the final invasion will commence, the final strike of the rebellion, the final movement of the symphony. The Word who spoke all things will return to un-speak them so that He may re-speak them, the sword of His mouth dividing asunder the very joints and marrow of existence so that they may be reset and refitted. The Light of lights will come crashing through, shattering the very dome of the universe like the shell of a rotten egg. Then all beauty will be awakened and the death curse revoked; then all street-rats and paupers will be made princes, and every mad and greedy oppressor hurled into howling isolation; then all things will become as a star, burning with the brightness of His glory, with those who are one with His glory enduring to the end. And they all will live happily ever-after, to the end of days and beyond.

All our colorful metaphors, from Scripture to Saturday morning cartoons, are trying to point us to one truth: victory is coming. It is inevitable; all things are moving towards this purpose because all things were built for this purpose: redemption, renewal, glory. This is not mere optimism, where everybody will wax better and better (with slight hiccups here and there) until we all flourish in the final enlightenment and eternal hug-fest of tolerance. Nor is it mere pessimism, where evil will wax worse to no end, until every star burns out and all energy is expressed and entropy works out its final corrosion, and the only "peace on earth" will be in the deathly static and silence. This, my friends, is the Christian story, the story of the Great God who made all things, of finite man ruining all things, and of that same God redeeming all things. It is the best of all stories put together into a perfect picture, which is how you know it is true; and not just true but beautiful also. For there is nothing more beautiful then the vision's ultimate refrain: "Death is swallowed up in victory, and shall be no more." Amen.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

P.S. For thoughts on how to practically live within this eschatological vision, start here, here, here, and here.

"...where can you run to escape from yourself?" (Eschatological Vision, Part II)

"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee. And the nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising." Is. 60:1-3

"...the Day-Spring from on High has 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." Luke 1:68-79

"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 Word became flesh and dwelt among us...." John 1:1-18

"Maybe redemption has stories to tell. / Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell." -John Foreman

The second element you find in the Christian eschatological vision is the divine intervention. Now, Christianity is not escapism. Many may claim it as such, preaching so-called "evacuation theology," but they are wrong. Escapism is about us going somewhere else; Christianity has always been about something coming to us (or someone, to be more precise). In the Christian equation, God is always the primary active principle. Any "action" that we take is necessarily secondary, a derivative of His. This is not to minimize our activity, but rather to put it in its proper context, viz., the context called God. He is the source and origin of all movement. He is Life-Giver and All-Sustainer, Creator and Ruler. To put it perhaps controversially, He is masculine while we are feminine: He is the actor, we are the receiver (and re-actor). What we do at the moment of reception (either to welcome or reject) is on us; but we did not make the action itself, neither did we make ourselves as receivers or anything else, and every strength we have or good and evil we do in reaction to His action comes from the life given from Him to us. If this minimizes us in any way, then let us be minimized; for God is, and without Him we are not. That is the singular theme pulsating throughout all of Scripture like the tides beneath the ocean.

It's all linked....

In the beginning before beginning, God acted upon the Nothingness and spoke words of Creation, His Word spoken and yet continually speaking and sustaining all things. Later on He spoke into the lives of many people. He spoke into the life of a pagan idol-maker, calling him the "father of many nations," and led him out into the wilderness to a place he'd never seen to found a people holy to God. He blazed into the life of an exiled shepherd, calling him to liberate His people from bondage and lead them to a "land of milk and honey." He summoned a shy tall man to be king, and then cast Him down and put a shepherd-boy in his place. He continually led His wayward people into captivity, and continually redeemed His repentant people out of it. He spoke through every prophet, from the exiled shepherd to a goat-skin-wearing wild-man living in the outskirts of Roman-occupied Israel. He announced His ultimate intentions to a virgin girl and then gave unto her and us all His Son, the Word Himself, speaking and bleeding and breathing new life into all who would receive. And His Spirit lives on in a Church, diffused and multifaceted yet united by that Spirit, speaking still until the ages end and the Word returns speaking judgment like a sword flowing from His mouth. And when all of the old has passed and the new has come and we enter into God's rest, there is no sign that His activity will ever cease, but rather it shall inaugurate a new thing again and again. So from the beginning of beginning to the very end and eternity beyond, God has the first and final word.

That is not escapism but intervention. Better yet, it is invasion. Other religions may have intervention (or interference), but it is at best mere instruction on how we can save ourselves, or at worst it is simply the randomness of capricious deities. Christianity alone has a different view. Our lives are not at the mercy of randomness, nor is our salvation bound up in moral instruction (as if we haven't had plenty of that already). Instruction would never save us, for our corruption is deep and inevitable. We do not need another code of conduct, nor a babysitter to constantly change our diapers. We need a surgeon to cut out and purge the corruption that has a deathly hold on us. We need a Spirit to speak new life into us, a Word to speak us anew, a Maker to remake us. Such a transformation, such renewal and upheaval, such divine invasion and revolution is the Christian story, from before the beginning until beyond the end.

It is not the optimist's story, who sees humanity saving itself with plenty of pluck and can-do spirit. It is not the pessimist's story, who sees humanity on its endless downward spiral, its mind unloosed from all tethers and its world unchained from all suns. It is not the stories told by the religions of the world, with their myriad retellings of self-enlightenment and self-salvation. It is the Christian vision alone who is the voice crying in the wilderness, crying out that God has acted, is acting, and will act again on behalf of our salvation and His glory, all without our help and all outside of our control and command.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

"...bruised, broken masterpieces...." (Eschatological Vision, Part I)

"Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us. We hope for light, but behold darkness; for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope for the wall like the blind; we grope like those who have no eyes. We stumble at noon as in the twilight. Among those in full vigor, we are like dead men. We all growl like bears, and moan and moan like doves. We hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities...." Is. 59:9-12

"We are bruised, / broken masterpieces. / We did not make ourselves." -John Foreman

The first element you find in the Christian eschatological vision is the inevitable corruption, which means it assumes the Fall, and thus assumes that every human effort, no matter how noble or well-planned, will fail. We cannot bring about the ideals that we all have or hope in. Our utopias are just that: utopia, i.e., no place, nowhere, non-existent. Now, this does not mean that humanity is worthless. On the contrary, we are made in the image of God, and on that ground we are full of worth, and in that image we create in the likeness of our Creator. Thus, all the works of our hands (whether great or small, noble or vile) point to our Creator. Even the basest act of rebellion is an act of unintended worship to the God who gave you power to rebel and a God to rebel against. In the end, everything that has breath praises the Lord. Therefore, the Fall does not mean that humanity is worthless, only that it cannot be trusted. Our efforts and works can be incredible in their terror and beauty, but in regard to our salvation they are all futile failures.

Make no mistake: all of our actions are about our salvation, whether or not we think in those exact terms. Every man who has ever drowned himself in his career, every woman who has used and abused herself to a thousand men, every murderer seeking revenge, every rapist seeking satisfaction, every philanthropist exhausting themselves and their resources in good works, every tyrant seeking conquest and control, every artist seeking beauty, every child seeking acceptance, everyone seeking peace and relaxation on any given Saturday, every action of every person is about salvation. We are seeking the place of peace, of rest, of meaning and identity, of happiness and wholeness forevermore. We seek it in every place that we can: in places and people and things, in this man or that woman, in this project or that plan, in causes and crusades, in plots and schemes, in movements and agendas, in journeys and destinations. Everything we do revolves around this one goal of salvation, and thus everything we do is simultaneously significant and futile: our actions speak to our true identity, but nothing we do can ever bring us home. That is the truth and tragedy of the Fall.

That is the balanced view, a view that neither the pure optimist nor pure pessimist can stand or understand. For the optimist, everyone is full of potential, capable of achieving their own private paradise if they would just believe in that potential. People are fundamentally good; it is outer oppression and/or stimuli that make them go bad, and if we could only construct an environment conducive to goodness, then everyone would find happiness. It is a beautifully naive position, thwarted almost daily by every newspaper on the planet. We are not fundamentally good; we are fundamentally fallen, sinners, inclined towards sin. Whatever good we have is corrupted every time, and all of our "private paradises" (which is a contradiction in terms) either fail to materialize or fail to satisfy. In the end, we are incapable of producing our own happiness. We cannot save ourselves.

For the pessimist, the Fall is (ironically) their only reality. Everyone is either basically selfish or weak or (what is most likely) both. All of our acts, even the most altruistic, are self-centered, meant to pad our egos or line our pocketbooks or else quench some psychological wound or sense of guilt. Whatever the case, we are all narcissists out for our own, and if the chips were down we would eat each other alive. Now, there is something bracing about such cynicism, but also something adolescent. It has a healthy dose of realism about our tragic condition, but it does so without any sense of mourning or (what's better) repentance. Rather, its realism is smeared with a sneer of superiority. As there is something childishly naive about the optimist's outlook, so there is something childishly arrogant about the pessimist's outlook: it holds everyone in contempt as inevitable failures and blind idiots. It is a "boys' philosophy," as Lewis would say; it is simplistic and immature. It rightly assumes man's fallen state but goes no further. At best, it sits down in its arrogant angst; at worst, it falls deeper and deeper into a darkening despair that can only give way to stoicism or suicide. They are arrested at the tragic, because they have nowhere else to go.

The Christian, however, has somewhere else to go, because it has the balanced view. It maintains the depravity of man without dismissing all humanity as a lost cause. It believes in the tragic nature of existence without despairing. It allows for the harsh realism of the pessimist, as bracing and awakening as a cold wind; but it also allows for the hopefulness and joy of the optimist. How it does is a subject for the next few posts, but for now understand this: Christianity is true because the truth is always a shock and Christianity is a shock. Anyone can be an idealist; anyone can be dreamy-eyed over what ought to be. Anyone can be a nihilist; anyone can dismiss all significance in a horror and great darkness. But to somehow find a place for both, to take all the glories of idealistic optimism and all the daggers of nihilistic pessimism and say, "Here you may dance and there you may mourn," asserting a beautifully broken, preciously corrupt world, that was to discover a strange need in human nature. It touches the very fabric of our reality, for we need hope because we know our world is mad.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

High and Low (Homily 53)

"For thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place with him who is of a humble and contrite spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. [...] But the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace...for the wicked." Is. 57:15-21

God is the High and Holy One: His very nature is "other than" ours. He is categorically distinct and separate, sui generis. He dwells in a high and holy place, i.e., a mountain, the traditional symbol for the dwelling of divinity (from Olympus to Zion). God is above; He reached to the tops of the clouds. God is great; His size is sublime, stretching beyond the limits of our comprehension. "Beyond" is the only word for Him, for He surpasses us in ways we have neither scale nor system to measure.

Yet who dwells with Him? Who also stands on His mountaintop? Who also abides in His holy hill? The humble, the contrite, the lowest of the low. Brought lower by their own abasement, yet brought higher by the surprising love of God, for His love too is beyond us, sublime and measureless and strong. This High and Holy Beyonder loves the broken (Ps. 51:17; Is. 66:2) and takes pity on we fragile children of dust (Ps. 103:13-14), raising us up to heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 2:4-7), setting our feet on the rock, the immovable mountain, that is our God (Ps. 18:31). This too is "beyond" us, exceedingly overflowing what the cup of our mind can hold.

Can you see why there is no peace for the wicked? No peace for those outside of God and His Christ? For what can be more opposite to a mountain than the sea? The one is high, glorious, unmovable, and stable; the other low, treacherous, mutable, and fluid. To the one, storms can only hang about it like a cape or a crown, only adding to its majesty. To the other, storms are their master. Impotent before them, they have no choice but to be whipped and whorled and blown about, unstable in all their ways, broiling and spewing and foaming all of their hidden substance to the surface, bringing to light their true character and quality. The sea has not the strength to be at peace, but the mountain has strength and that to spare. It is the inheritance of the saints of God: you who are established upon the mountain shall never be moved  (Ps. 15:1-5), for the mountain shall never be moved (Rev. 1:8). But for all those who stay outside, I can only give you this: you will lie down in the midst of the sea and have no peace while you drown.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

The Gospel of Water (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"Harken unto Me, ye stouthearted that are far from righteousness: I bring near My righteousness; it shall not be far off, and My salvation shall not tarry...." Is. 46:12-13

This chapter of Isaiah devotes itself to two common themes of the whole book. The first is God's absolute uncategoricalness (vs, 5, 9) and the second is the idiocy and irony of idol worship (vs. 6-7). The former necessarily leads to the latter. God alone is the holy one, the one who is fundamentally other than and different from us. That is significant because of the contrast with our inherent weakness: we are naturally transgressors (vs. 8) and children of iniquity (Is. 53:6). That contrast leads straight to an unavoidable truth: we are incapable of saving ourselves, either individually or as a race.

That we cannot save ourselves is what creates the farce of idol worship. We worship things that we bought with our own money (from the vendor who made it), and we have to take care of it (moving it, cleaning it, maintaining it). The whole imbecilic display is still true today: we still worship at the altar of our own weakness, our own creations of money and sex and power and our best-life-now. Yet we are not our own salvation; even worse, we are our own damnation. If we are to be saved, then it must come from outside of ourselves, from One who is not like us, not weak like us. One who is strong and mighty to save.

God's omnipotence and our impotence are what make damnation so sad. We think we have found our salvation, our liberation from drudgery, despair, and guilt. We think we found it in that man, this woman, that cause, this movement, that career, this calling, that vice, this virtue. It is all folly, horribly sad folly. We think that we are drawing near to salvation, but we are far from it. We think we have found what will fix our souls, make us right, and give us peace. But behind all our idols and substitutions for God, there is only the same old gnawing self, never filled, always hungry, drinking up worlds of water and never quenching its thirst. How can it? In God alone is living water, the well that never runs dry. Our impotence means that we could never acquire so great a salvation on our own, but by His omnipotence He has come near, bringing His salvation with Him, and any one who listens can hear His call coming over the hills and cutting deep into your heart:

Ho! Everyone who thirsts,

come to the waters;

and he who has no money,

come, buy, and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,

and delight yourself in rich food.

Incline your ear, and come to me;

hear, that your soul may live....

(Isaiah 55:1-3a)

 

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

 

The Gospel to the Postmoderns (A Philosophy of Potatoes, Part V)

"I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create [national] calamity. I, the Lord, do all these things. Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open, and let it bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together. I, the Lord, have created it." Is. 45:6-8

There are always gaps in our lives: gaps of knowledge, of understanding, of ability, of identity and purpose. The truth of things always seems just beyond our reach, lost in a cloud of contradictory witnesses, all shouting their personal preferences in a private language of their own making. The white noise created by their effusions and emanations drowns out the clear cadences of reality, and we despair of ever getting to the truth of things, of ourselves. Our only hope (and what a paltry hope!) is to make our best guess, our best approximation to a target we cannot even see clearly. It is no surprise, then, that we all fall short.

It is no surprise to God either. It is the biggest joke of our contemporary, postmodern world that it thinks itself the new thing when it is really the old thing. The same old thing. The same old unbelief, now writ large. The same old failures: failure to see, to hear, to understand, to believe. All of our newest thoughts are merely a shiny new wrapper on the same old junk. We say that the authorial origin is displaced from us by our excess of discursive derivatives. God put it much simpler: we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are separated from the Divine Origin of Being and Goodness by our primal deviation from His course. Consequently, we have all of us gone astray, even turning others to their own way, every man doing what is right in his own eyes because there is no king in the land. No authorial center to know and reference and be. We lost Him long ago. In our ignorance and arrogance we are lost, spiraling further down into the ever-widening yet ever-increasingly empty abyss of our lostness.

What can bridge this infinite gap? What can slice through all of the derivatives and find the Origin? What can retrace all the traces back to the Source? What can refill every absence with the presence of Meaning? What can reset all displacement and dispersion until the Whole is realized again? What can wash away our Sin? Nothing but the blood, the blood of God in Christ. Nothing but grace, the grace of God in Christ, for in Christ God became flesh and dwelt among us. The Origin became a derivative, the Source a trace, the Whole a discursive displacement, becoming one with the text, the conversation, the discursive field of play, the flesh and blood of men and the whoop and wharf of time. This was not an act of detached Reason, or cold Machine or mere Mind, nor another absurdism of fundamental Chaos. This was an act of grace, grace on the part of One greater than us, greater than all our noise, all our displacements, our mythologies and differances, greater than all our Sin.

Hear the Word speak into our present day delusion and crisis: grace alone is the bridge that spans the gulf of our mighty separation, the sword that slices through the jungle of our seemingly endless texts and myths and positions and postures and preferences and opinions and interpretations, cutting right through all of our jargon and gibberish, navigating the vacuity of our hyperspaces, deconstructing all of our simulations and simulacra, powering through every wall and obstacle that we have erected, crashing through with infinite, furious love and passion and purpose. His head is bleeding. His hands and feet and side are bleeding. His body has been demarcated by those in power. He was wounded for our dispersions, and by His stripes we are healed. By His resurrection, He defeated death and displacement and truth-to-power, so that at His name every knee shall bow and every discourse confess in one voice that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God most gracious. See what His grace has done. What only His grace could have done. It has brought us back to God. Amen.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Homily 42: The Boast of God (as preached by an orthodox rebel)

"He will swallow up death in victory...." Is. 25:8

Death has dominated the thoughts of Western man. From the ancient Greeks to post-modern existentialists, it is considered the final fate of all (including the gods). It is the one constant, the one absolute, the one hard, stubborn thing that no sophistry or private language can break or dispel. Consequently, the quest to escape death has also dominated the thoughts of Western man: from Gilgamesh searching for the immortal flower to modern science fiction theorizing over various modes of technological and evolutionary transcendence. The desire is insatiable: death must be outrun.

Such kind illusions never stick, though. The flower is lost by accident, and the technology or evolution only produces horrors rather than salvation. But the desire to escape this dread foe, our last enemy, remains burned into our souls and skulls. So we continue to lull ourselves to sleep with daydreams, only to waken once again with nightmares. If we stay awake long enough, then the best we can hope to do is face death with dignity, which is a hard ideal to reach. Death is the great darkness, and before it we are all children, all afraid of the dark.

The Bible says two radical things about death: it is the primary means that the Devil uses to torment humanity (Heb. 2:14-15), and it has been defeated by God in Christ (I Cor. 15:53-57; Heb. 2:8-15). The latter notion is of particular note for two reasons. The first is that it echoes all the desires and hopes encapsulated in the mythology of humanity; yet just like other things in Christianity (viz., the Incarnation), this myth is true. It is not just another echo; it is the voice of origin, the archetype to all the ectypes.

The second reason has to do with the scale of the defeat. In Isaiah, it is said that God will swallow up death in "victory" (some modern translations say "forever"). The Hebrew word for "victory" literally means "the goal," i.e., the furthermost point that you can reach. Inherent in this word is the idea of "going all the way" or "reaching completion". In other words, for God to swallow up death in "victory" means that God has swallowed up death completely, absolutely, and to the uttermost extent. The same sentiment (and language) is expressed in Heb. 7:25, where God is able to save "to the uttermost". It is total victory. There will not be one inch remaining that the dark can reclaim.

In short, the thing that we have desired to be done has been done and will be done, and that beyond our wildest dreams. The last enemy has not been defeated momentarily but utterly. Its impotence is paramount, for it could not hold Christ, and it will not hold those who are one with Christ. In Heaven's war room there are many trophies, chief amongst them being the very hide of death, which hangs nailed to the cross. That is the boast of God forever. Amen.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2012