A Curious Girl: He walked my road

Finished Disappointment with God at 2:20 this morning.

Favourite bits -

As I read through the Bible, I marveled at how much God lets human beings affect him. I was unprepared for the joy and anguish - in short, the passion - of the God of the Universe.

After two weeks of studying the Bible, I had a strong sense that God doesn't care so much about being analyzed. Mainly, he wants to be love. Nearly every page of his Word rustles with this message. And I returned home knowing I must somehow explore the relationship between a passionate God - hungry for the love of his people - and the people themselves.

...at the heart of the universe is a smile, a pulse of joy passed down from the moment of creation. A new parent who holds a baby, my baby, close against the flesh for the first time knows it. And that is the feeling God had when he looked over what he had made and pronounced it good. In the beginning, the very beginning, there was no disappointment. Only joy.

Ezekiel 16:4-14 - Ezekiel 16:4-14

"On the day that you were born, your cord was not cut nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you were not rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.
"Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, 'Live!' I made you grow like a plant in the field. You grew up and developed and became like the most beautfiul of jewels. Your breasts were formed, and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare.
Later when I passed by you, and when I looked at you, I saw that you were old enough for love. So I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you," declares the Sovereign Lord, "and you became mine.
"Then I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. I clothed you with embroidered dress and put leather sandals on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. I adorned you with jewellery: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head."

Oscar Wilde - "In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

Solomon got whatever he wanted, especially when it came to power and status. Gradually, he depended less on God and more on the props around him: the world's largest harem, a house twice the sixe of the temple, an army well-stocked with chariots, a strong economy. Success may have eliminated any crises of disappointment with God, but it also seemed to eliminate Solomon's desire for God at all. The more he enjoyed the world's good gifts, the less he thought about the Giver.

"What else can I do?" God's poignant question to Jeremiah points up to the dilemma of an omnipotent God who has made room for freedom. The stork in the sky knows her seasons, the ocean tides rolls in on schedule, snow always covers the hugh mountains, but human beings are like nothing else in nature. God cannot control them. Yet he cannot simply thrust them aside either. He cannot get humanity out of his mind."

Kierkegaard (Yancey's paraphrase)- "Suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden. The king was like no other king. Every statesman trembled before his power. No one dared breathe a word against him, for he had enough strength to crush all opponents. And yet this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden.
How could he declare his love for her? In an odd sort of way, his very kingliness tied his hands. If he brought her into the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body with royal robes, she would surely not resist - no one dared resist him. But would she love him?
She would say she loved him, of course, but would she truly? Or would she live with him in fear, nursing a private grief for the life she had left behind. Would she be happy by his side? How could he know?
If he rode to her forest cottage in his royal carriage, with an armed escort waving bright banners, that too would overwhelm her. He did not want a cringing subject. He wanted a lover, an equal. He wanted her to forget that he was aking and she a humble maiden and to let shared love cross over the gulf between them.
For it is only in love that the unequal can be made equal. The king, convinced he could not elevate the maiden without crushing her freedom, resolved to descend. He clothed himself as a beggar and approached her cottage ingocnito, with a worn cloak fluttering loosely about him. It was no mere disguise, but a new identity he took on. He renounced the throne to win her hand.

What could be less scary than a newborn baby with jerky limbs and eyes that do not quite focus? In Jesus, born in a barn or a cave and laid in a feeding trough, God at last found a mode of approach that humanity need not fear. The king had cast off his robes... Imagine for a moment becoming a baby again: giving up language and muscle coordination, and the ability to eat solid food and control your bladder. God as a fetus! Or imagine yourself becoming a sea slug - that analogy is probably closer. On that day in Bethleham, the Maker of All That Is took form as a helpless, dependent newborn. Reading this opened my eyes wide with amazement! God would go to that extent for humanity to understand and be close to him...

'My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,' Jesus said to his three disciples. Although he claimed the authority to dispatch an army of angels in his own defense, Jesus did not. he had come to live in a world of skin and blood and tissue, and he would die by its rules as well. At one point he fell facedown on the ground and prayed for some way, any way out. His sweat fell to the ground in large drops, like blood.
And God stayed silent.

A perfect God now lives inside very imperfect human beings. And because he respects our freedom, the Spirit in effect "subjects himself" to our behaviour. The New Testament tells of a Spirit we can lie to, or grieve or quench. And when we choose wrongly, we quite literally subject God to that wrong choice.

Dorothy Sayers has said that God underwent three great humiliations in his efforts to rescue the human race. The first was the Incarnation, when he took on the confines of a physical body. The second was the Cross, when he suffered the ignominy of public execution. The third humiliation, Sayers suggested, is the church. In an awesome act of self denial, God entrusted his reputation to ordinary people.

Suffice it to say, I thought it was an awesome book. Although I did not get my explanation, there was a chapter entitled 'Why God doesn't explain' *grin*... I'm sure there is an explanation but it's probably not ripe yet :) Instead I got comfort. Having a less than ideal Christmas, and a rather frustrating Christian Union are not much compared with crucifixion. Possibly my most astonishing discovery was this - Mark 3:20-21 'Then Jesus went home, but again a crowd gathered. There were so many people that Jesus and his followers could not eat. When his family heard this, they went to get him because they thought he was out of his mind.' Out of his mind?! Um, hey Mary, remember this guy is the Son of God? So I know Jesus has been through worse than me - he understands.

And that is a tremendous relief.

Yes, he walked my road and he felt my pain,
Joys and sorrows that I know so well;
Yet his righteous steps give me hope again
I will follow my Immanuel!

(Stuart Townend, From the Squalor of a Borrowed Stable)

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