By the grace of God I have been given the chance to study in Jerusalem for three weeks. These are my daily impressions. Enjoy.
This is yesterday's impression and I will post the next one in a bit.
It is still very unreal to me that I am sitting in Jerusalem as I am typing this. From the first gate we sat on dating back to the time of Herod to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher I was completely amazed. I’m sure everyone talks about how awesome it is to be where Jesus was and to actually go to the places we mispronounce when we do our devotional and all of that is well and good, but what I kept seeing throughout the walking tour was the Gospel, in everything. It began in the classroom when we read Genesis 12:1-3. I was reminded of the dependence that we must have on God. Jesus explains that He does what His Father wants Him to do. The Israelites were placed in a land that forced them to depend on God. God sends the rains and provides for them. There is no river that they can depend on. And so with that idea in mind I began to look for connections between everything we were visiting and learning to the implications of the Gospel in our lives.
When we went into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher I was very cynical. I know, I know, I said I was looking for the connections between the Gospel and what we were visiting, but as I heard that people kiss the artifacts and pray in front of them I felt very awkward. I am very wary of idolatry, attributing power to things rather than God, and trying to reach for God through things. But as Aubrey explained that the expressions of devotion were not idolatrous but acts of love, much like we would use a picture to remind us of a loved one, my heart softened. The first site I encountered was The Chapel of Adam. Above it is where they believe Golgotha was and I was taken aback. I wanted to kiss the rock. I wanted to stand at the railing and cry. I wanted to shout. I wanted to jump. I wanted to show God that I loved Him. I wanted to look at the “picture” and remember that I was missing Him now and soon we would be together. In the rock I saw a huge crack, allegedly from the earthquake the shook the ground when Jesus died, and regardless of “allegedly” or not it was still a symbol that finally I could run into the throne room and He would lower His scepter to me and allow me to speak. What an experience to be under the hill where Jesus died.
I saw so many different cultures interacting throughout the old city. Apparently there are some Jewish men that are so religious that they won't even make eye contact with Gentiles because it might make them unclean. That was definitely a weird thing for me to hear. From Jewish men to Palestinian men to children everywhere, it was a beautiful thing to witness a culture with values so different from my own. We visited a lot of places from the Wailing Wall to the view from Zion’s gate of the Mount of Olives but what I saw the most beauty in was the way the people interacted in the city and the various reminders in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I saw the Gospel, obviously at the site of Golgotha and the empty tomb of Jesus and in the history of Israel. God has been at work redeeming all things from the very beginning of time after sin enslaved all of creation (though God of course knew everything that was going to happen and God is most glorified through everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen). Israel was a nation dependent on God that did not want to be governed by God and many problems resulted because of that. Sin again came to ruin the relationship between man and God and man and man. I want to continue to explore the Old City on my own and I hope to gather a group of people from my group to go exploring, even though everyone seems to be extremely tired from walking for so long. Like I said, it is still very unreal that I am in Jerusalem, but after walking through the Old City and waking up this morning to roosters crowing at dawn, I think I’m finally realizing where I am. And I cannot wait to continue to see Christ and the Gospel in everything we are learning. I want to see His “picture” in everything and remember why I miss Him so much.
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May God bless you in this time of growth, my brother. The architecture and geography of ancient Jerusalem is theological. I am praying for you.
ReplyDeleteTwo things I want to challenge you with:
1. “Though God of course knew everything that was going... to happen…”
What do you think about this? It deals with providence and free will.
http://biblealive001.blogspot.com/2009/03/challenge-unanswered.html
2. “I want to see His ‘picture’ in everything and remember why I miss Him so much,” and “I am very wary of idolatry, attributing power to things rather than God, and trying to reach for God through things.”
When you say your heart softened, you mean that you dropped false ideas, yes? This is ongoing metanoia—renewing the mind and conversion. Why did you want to kiss the rock? Why is Jerusalem any more special to you than to any other place? Keep thinking about these things.
There are two ways humans go about comparing anything with God. We need both ways. With the analogical way one seeks always to find “similarity-in-difference.” With the dialectical way we focus on what is unique in God and, thus, the RADICAL dissimilarities that exist between the divine and the human. Concerning the divine-human encounter (of which you and I are experiencing in manners unique to each of us), the question is which of these two ways should one emphasize FIRST?
ReplyDeleteAllow me to invite you brother, while you walk through and experience Jerusalem, to emphasize first the analogical imagination. You are encountering visible signs all around you and God is PRESENT IN these signs—this is true whether or not you are in the Holy Land. All realities you and I experience are imbued with the hidden presence of God. The invisible God is present in the ordinary and the seen "eartly" things. I invite you to begin not with the dialectic, but with the analogous imagination, so that you may “see” the divine in the human, the infinite in the finite, the spiritual in the material, the transcendent in the immanent, and the eternal in the historical. All reality is sacred. Can you see that? Can you see God in ALL THINGS? Can you see God in other people, communities, movements, events, places, objects, the environment, the world at large, and the whole universe?
But as you see and touch and taste a voice may pop up—“What are you doing?? God is so TOTALLY OTHER that the divine can NEVER be identified with the human, the transcendent with the immanent, eternity with history, and on! You are being IDOLOTROUS!”
Let me encourage you that when you think this way to return to the analogous imagination. The Divine Presence CAN and IS either potentially or actually carried by the visible, the tangible, the finite, and the historical. Now I admit that the danger of idolatry is always a possibility were one to engage in the analogous imagination and have a sacramental vision of the world. But tell me—if God indeed is divine and I am human, if God be infinite and I limited, if God be Spirit and I matter if God be transcendent and I here, and if God be eternal and I am historical, how am I to go God and how is God to come to me? Amen, how does a created thing touch God? Taste God? See God? Think and pray about these things, my brother.
Allow me also to invite you brother, while you walk through and experience Jerusalem—and hopefully are emphasizing the analogical imagination and seeing visible realities imbued with the hidden presence of God—that you recognize these objects NOT ONLY SIGNIFY God’s presence, but actually CAUSE what they signify. That is to say, I invite you to consider that these created realities not only contain, reflect, or embody the presence of God, that they make the divine presence spiritually effective for those who avail themselves of these sacred realities. In memory of your beautiful heartfelt words about shouting and crying at the railing, I invite you to consider that encounter with God does not solely happen in inwardness of conscience or in the deep recesses of consciousness, but is a MEDIATED experience with roots in history, and is affirmed as real by the critical judgment that God IS truly present and active “here” or “there,” in “this event” or “that,” in “this person” or “that,” in “this object” or “that.” God is not only present to us in the seen ordinary things of life; God acts on our behalf in and through them.
ReplyDeleteIf you dare to do that, Erick, up may pop that voice again: “So now you are moving from idolatry into MAGIC!”
And it is true that along with the danger of falling into idolatry, here is a danger of falling into a magical view that your walk in “the steps where Jesus walked” will somehow make you holier or better ensure your salvation magically. But again—how do I come to ANY knowledge of God BESIDES through the created world, and especially the humanity of Jesus, who is the “primary analogue,” and through our own understanding of our own human experience? My only way to God is through the man Jesus. With the analogous imagination one may grow in faith a sacramental vision and understand how all things in the Son are mediating the love of God.
Just some thoughts. Enjoy Jerusalem.
Shalom.