Nature- Objectively Beautiful

So, a couple weeks ago, over Easter break, I realized something–it's spring. I realized this when I got home to find my yard absolutely filled with roses and irises and other various flowers (my dad loves gardening). And this sight reminded me that even though our world is fallen, there is still something in nature that remembers when God looked on what he had created and called it good.

In today's culture of relativity, the concepts of objective truth or objective beauty are often disregarded as outdated and naive. What is true to one person, the world says, may not be true for another person. What is beautiful to some can, just as correctly, be called ugly by others. As Christians, we have to recognize that this idea of relativism is false. I am not writing today to address the obvious existence of objective truth. But I am writing to say that nature, Creation, is objectively beautiful–it is not something that has anything to do with relativity or opinion.

If you look at a garden, or a hill-side covered with flowers, or snow-capped mountains off in the distance, or the night sky and the stars in the heavens, it is not up to you to determine whether these things are beautiful or not. The Grand Canyon does not rely on people to view it for it to be grand. The stars are beautiful even without people to declare them so. When God created the world, he declared that it was good before there were even any people on it. We are told that the stars sang with the angels while our world was made, before we ourselves existed.

The sheer arrogance of humanity, who assume that we are the ones who decide what is true and beautiful! Beauty has nothing to do with our personal preferences, with what is or is not pleasing to look at with our fallen eyes. The heavens declare the glory of God, the psalmist tells us, and they would go on declaring even if we were not here. If you look at the night sky and decide that you are unimpressed, that the stars in the heavens are only so-so, then you are wrong. If you claim that you have the right to deny nature's beauty, you are wrong. Straight up wrong.

The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything

"[The women] found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, 'Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.'"
Luke 24:2-6

I've always been interested in angels. However, most of what I'm thinking about saying is totally unrelated to what I really want to say in this post, so I'll just settle for... can you imagine what it would be like to be these two angels? To be the bearer of the greatest news since... ever? To tell these women, who have come to the tomb expecting to honor the body of their beloved lord and friend, that he is not here?

I love the question the angels open with. "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" Do the angels not know? Are they sincerely wondering why the women are looking for Jesus? Of course not. It's a rhetorical question. But such a question! The way I imagine them saying it... laughing, shouting, voices like a great, triumphant, joyful song, one of those questions ending with a "!?" "Why do you seek the living among the dead!? He is not here, but has risen!"

This last sentence is quite possibly the greatest sentence spoken since creation, and it will not be surpassed until the end of this world. He is not here, but has risen. Christ is not among the dead–he is not like the Egyptian god-kings who still lie and rot in their pyramids. He is not like Buddha or Mohamed . He is not like every false messiah that has ever walked the face of the earth. He is not in the grave, and even though he died he is not dead. He is not here, but has risen!

And this... this is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. God rules a suffering world, and at a real time in a real place God said to the world, "I suffer with you." However, that is not the end of the story. If it were, our faith would be meaningless. "If Christ has not been raised," Paul says, "then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain" (1 Cor. 15:14). Now, I take it one step farther, and say that if Christ has not been raised, our lives are in vain. Without the resurrection of Christ, we are left with the author of Ecclesiastes, saying "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity." Without the resurrection, the story of Christ is merely one of defeat, of suffering and pain and a last, hopeless cry in the dark which is not answered. But praise be to God that Christ has risen! This is the twist, the great reversal, that what seems to be the ultimate defeat becomes the ultimate victory. Life is not merely suffering, and the story does not end with death. Those who mock and jeer at the one on the cross are not the victors. The suffering will end, and there will be redemption and victory. And he who is seated on the throne will say, "Behold, I am making all things new."

Emmanuel, God With Us... forsaken

"Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Matthew 27:46. This is without a doubt one of the most important and most puzzling passages concerning our Christian faith. I've just finished writing 4,000+ word paper on this one phrase, these few words. In this post, I want to relate some of what I've learned and been thinking about.

The Hebrew word for God here is 'ēl, which by its very nature refers to the strong, acting God who is mighty to save. In this question, Christ is saying, "My God, you are strong, and you do not abandon your people... and yet you have abandoned me!" It is extremely important to note that Christ has not lost his faith. He cries out to his God, twice affirming his faith in this mighty God. But he is absolutely terrified. His God and Father, with whom he's had the closest communion possible through his entire life on earth, is gone.

Christ, the Son of God, most likely spent his entire life in close communion and fellowship with his Father. In fact, this passage in Matthew is the only time when Christ does not address God has "Father." Christ was accustomed to the Father's tangible, felt presence. When Christ was baptized, God the Father opened up the heavens and said "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." Later on in Matthew, when Christ was transfigured, God again speaks, this time from a bright cloud, and says, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him." And now, when Christ has been beaten, and whipped, and hung on a cross, he searches for his Father, and he finds nothing. Terrified, he cries out with a loud voice, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And there is no answer.

Can you imagine? All your life, you've been able to feel your Father's presence. Whenever you ask him something, he hears you and grants your request. Twice he has visibly affirmed your status as his beloved Son. And now, after three hours of total darkness, when you can hardly think for the pain from the whips, the staff, the crown of thorns, the nails through your wrists and feet, and you are slowly suffocating, finding it harder and harder to breathe as you hang on this cross... you search for your Father, who has always been there–and there is nothing there. You scream out to God, pleading with him to come back... and there is no answer. You cry out to your mighty Father, knowing that he could save you, he could come back to you and comfort you... but there is nothing. Where is the bright cloud? Where is the voice from heaven? All is darkness, and out of the darkness comes the mocking laughter of the very ones you came to save, are dying to save.

And yet this passage, so terrifying and horrifying for Christ, is one of the greatest passages of our faith. This passage is the great apologetic for Christianity. In this moment, in refusing to answer Christ, God answers the world. The world asks how a loving God can allow suffering in the world and is made silent by the cry of "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani" echoing through the ages. The world says, "God is far from me, I suffer, I am lost in the darkness, it isn't fair." All of their objections are met with this same cry from the cross. In this cry, God says, "I, too, have suffered."

The Death of the Living One

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, ¹³and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. ¹⁴ The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, ¹⁵ his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. ¹⁶ In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
¹⁷ When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, "Fear not, I am the first and the last, ¹⁸and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades."
Revelation 1:12-18

I love this passage. When I read it and take the time to really think on it, to meditate on it, it sends shivers down my spine. Easter is coming up, and churches are going to be focusing on the gospel narrative, and that's totally cool and awesome, but I think this verse, specifically the words of Christ in 17-18, really gets to the heart of one of the most amazing aspects of Easter, the greatest contradiction of all time, the "stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles"–the death of the Living One.

So, I'm trying to picture what's going through John's mind right now. He's just chilling on Patmos, probably meditating, "in the Spirit," and suddenly he starts having this vision, and a voice tells him to grab his notepad and write stuff down. He turns to see who is speaking to him and he sees something he has only seen once before, when Christ was transfigured in Matthew 17 (Note: I'm not totally sure about this, but there are some interesting correlations, so I don't think it's too much of a stretch). He sees this person who, from the description, was probably shining so brightly that it hurt to look at him and, as he did the last time he saw Christ like this, falls down on his face "as though dead." This is not a surprising reaction. It would, for example, be much more surprising if he stayed standing, said, "Hey, Jesus, long time no see," maybe stepped in for a man-hug. But I digress.

So, he falls down on his face as though dead, probably under the impression that he is, or soon will be, literally dead, because of the glory that he is beholding. Then something amazing happens–this shining, burning, gloriously holy "one like a son of man" places his hand on John and says "Do not be afraid." This is crazy. Here is John, prostrating himself before the Son of God, and Christ places his right hand on him, possibly drawing him back up, but at any case demonstrating an astonishing familiarity and intimacy never before seen between God, in His glory, and man. The first and the last, the living one (referencing the multiple times God is called "the Living God."), is intimate with his people.

I apologize. I meant for this post to be solely about this next section, but I got caught up. I hope you don't mind. Anyway, on to the next bit.

"I... am the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore." Amazing. Just... mind-blowing. Is he serious? This person, with a voice like the roar of many waters and a face like the sun shining in full strength, couldn't really have died, right? And that's the amazing bit. He did die. The living one, the Living God of Israel, died. That is half of what we remember when we celebrate Easter. We remember this great contradiction in terms, the high humility of the Son of God as he reconciles a sinful world to his holy self. But, as I said, this is only half of what we remember.

Yes, the living one died. But wait! Look! Behold! He is alive forevermore. The Living God of Israel died, and that is what the Jew stumbles over, what the Gentile sees as folly. But they forget the other part of it–that in dying, Christ defeated death, and is now alive forever. Not only is he alive, but he holds the keys to Death and Hades. He has been through death, and death has not overcome him. Hades cannot stand against him. He is first, before death, and he is last. He is the living one, who died but is alive forevermore.

Rain pt. 2

So, time for another post. Don't worry, Easter is coming up, and then I'll have enough thoughts for two or three notes. Anyway, I wanted to continue my thoughts on rain. I talked about C.S. Lewis in my last post, and now I want to talk about G.K Chesterton.

If you have not read G.K. Chesterton, you should. If you have read him, but have not read his Orthodoxy, you should. Period. No arguing. Unfortunately, I don't have Orthodoxy here in front of me, so I might get a few things wrong, but here it goes.

It's difficult for me to explain what I want to say about Chesterton and the rain, especially without the book here in front of me. Basically, I want to repeat my assertion from my last post, that rain is, at its core, water falling from the sky. In my last post I said that the physical causes of rain do not detract from the original, divine cause of the rain, which the Israelite people recognized instantly and we have lost sight of. What I want to say now is that rain is a miracle.

In Orthodoxy, Chesterton says that when we are small, we view everything with wonder. We are thrilled by the fact that an apple is red and we are amazed that grass is green. The reason for this wonder is that we have not grown bored with it, we do not see a necessary correlation between apples and red, or grass and green–and indeed, Chesterton says, there is no necessary correlation. As we grow older, we lose this sense of wonder, and in an attempt to regain it we tell stories of apples that are golden, and grass that is blue, or red, or all the colors of the rainbow. Chesterton says that he attempts to look at things not as if they are how they are because that is how they must be (I know it's confusing, stay with me), but as if they are how they are because of some crazy, miraculous occurrence. And indeed, that is how the world actually is.

I can't say this as well as Chesterton can. When I say it, it sounds dumb. So I apologize, and once again urge you to read Orthodoxy. And so, in an attempt to tie this back to my original topic, rain, I want to say... rain is water falling from the sky. We have grown so used to this that we don't care, we find it boring and unnexciting, but I think that the only thing that makes water falling from the sky less miraculous than candy or anything else falling from the sky is that the former happens more often. Water only falls from the sky because God has decided that it should. This whole world only operates the way it does because God has decreed "Let it be so." Given that, I think there is cause for excitement in the fact that apples are red. The green-ness of grass is something amazing. And water falling from the sky is crazy-awesome. I don't want to lose sight of that.

Rain

So, haven't done a post in more than a week, time to get back to it. I was driving home last Friday, thinking about the rain that Biola had recently experienced, and also about C.S. Lewis and G.K Chesterton, and this note is the result of that train of thought.

I love the rain. If I'm walking to class in the rain, I won't put my hood up just because it feels like I'm missing out on the experience of the rain. As I was walking in the rain (and thinking about it later), I realized something- rain is water falling from the sky. Separate this from all scientific explanations and physical causes we've discovered, and try and see rain in the way that we used to see it–water falling from the sky. It's no wonder that in O.T. times, rain was clearly seen as an act of God. We, however, know better; we (by which I mean, people other than myself who know sciency stuff) know that this rain is the natural result of naturally occurring phenomena, like cold fronts and high pressure systems and stuff like that. The question I was thinking about on my way home was this: do these physical causes of an event make it any less an act of God?

This is where C.S. Lewis comes in. In his Screwtape Letters, he says, via the demon Screwtape, that if a prayer (for instance, a prayer about the weather) is answered, the human who prayed will undoubtedly be able to see some of the physical causes which led to this answered prayer, and therefore arrives at the conclusion that "it would have happened anyway." I think that this bears consideration. Do we do this? Do we ever make the mistake of thinking that, merely because we can see what physically caused an event to happen, that the event occurred independently of God? We shouldn't. Lewis says of this particular instance (the weather) that men's prayers today are one of innumerable coordinates by which God harmonizes the weather of tomorrow. Included in his explanation is a bunch of crazy-awesome stuff about eternity and time and the relationship between the two, which isn't really necessary to dwell on for this note.

Back to the point. Isn't that crazy? The point of this, and how it relates back to my original thoughts of rain, is that rain is water falling from the sky, an instance that was easily recognized by O.T. people as a miracle, an act of God. They were right in this recognition. It is we, with all of our knowledge, who are ignorant, and confuse the physical cause with the ultimate cause. Matthew 5:45 tells us that God sends the rain on the righteous and the wicked; the physical causes we have discovered and learned to recognize do not change this. And I thank God for sending the rain to all, because I am most definitely not righteous. And rain is something to be thankful for.

Love pt. 2

So, my last note seemed (to me, at least) very disjointed and incomplete. Thinking about it, I realized that this was because I had tried to focus on the human aspect of love without addressing the divine aspect, which was, in hindsight, a ridiculous thing to attempt.

We were created in the image of a loving God, a God who is, in fact, love, according to 1 John. When we fell, we retained this image, albeit a now-broken, imperfect image. When we love, we are conforming more fully to God, becoming more like that image we were created in. However, even unfallen we were but images of God, not gods ourselves, and our fallen status further compounds this. All this to say that every single instance of human love is but a shadow, a distorted reflection in a broken mirror of the great love God has for his prodigal children.

I think this is why God gave us love, and people to be the objects of this love. Paul tells husbands to love their wives "as Christ loved the church." This goes both ways. If husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church, that means that when a husband really loves his wife as he should, he experiences firsthand a shadow of the love Christ has for us, his church and his bride. Isn't that crazy? And it doesn't stop there. God is our Father; numerous passages attest to this. When a father (or mother) loves a child, he or she is experiencing a small portion of this divine love God the Father bears for us, his children. When we love, not only do we become more like God, but we experience in a small way the love God the Father has for us as His children, and the love Christ, God the Son, has for us as his bride, his beloved. This, to me, is mind-blowing.

Now I move to the other side of the coin. If, when we love rightly, we love as God loves, what happens when we experience pain arising from this love? What does that say about the pain a parent feels when a child runs away from home, scorning the parent? I am not a parent. Most of you reading this probably aren't either (most, not all. I'm pretty sure my mom reads this: hi, mom!). Picture this: your own child, that you have loved and raised and taken care of, as soon as he has the chance, betrays you, spits in your face and turns away from you. Imagine the pain you would feel. Then magnify this to infinity, and you have an idea of the sadness that God felt when He " was grieved in His heart" and said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth... for I am sorry that I have made them" (Genesis6:5-7). If you are married (or hope to be some day) imagine the pain of having the love of your life turn from your open arms and run, claiming never to return. Magnify this pain until you can think of nothing else, and you may come close to the pain that caused Christ to weep when he caught sight of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41).

Think about that. If you're anything like me, you don't think about it enough. Every time we sin, we are children rebelling against their Father, an unworthy bride running away from her infinitely worthy Lord. I leave you (and myself) with this thought: what we do, every tiny action we make, has consequences greater than we can imagine. Either we act in accordance with God's will, and please him, or we don't, and we grieve and disappoint our Creator, who knew and loved each one of us before we were made.