Saturday, May 31, 2014

Suffering 1 - Writing and Witnessing about Suffering


A Blogging Series on Suffering

Blog I:  Writing and Witnessing about Suffering

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            The great issues of life are timeless.  Suffering is certainly one of the great issues of life.  Job 5:7 says “Man is born for trouble as the sparks fly upwards.”  Everyone faces adversity, sorrow, sickness, pain, grief, heartache, and finally death.  So in each generation and with every new adversity we ask questions, seek answers, and discuss our theories and perspectives regarding suffering.  There will be no final word spoken on suffering until that moment our Lord wipes away every tear from the eyes of His redeemed.  Until then we will try to comfort those suffering, and will seek comfort in our own sufferings.

My theory about writing is a simple one.  We write because writing is a method by which one participates in the overall human conversation.  Being men and women created in God’s image is more than being individuals created in God’s image, it is also humanity created for oneness as the Godhead is also God in unity as well as Trinity.  So there is a humanity that carries on conversation continually about the subject matters that are of interest to us.  We write to be a part of that conversation.  I express my thoughts and they become part of a human process by which humanity and us as individuals within humanity decipher the current of thoughts making the rounds, and through it all we seek to gain wisdom and understanding.  Some things like suffering are bound to perennially capture our attention; because either we will be suffering or someone near us will be.

I don’t consider myself to have suffered a great deal in life.  I have led a fairly quiet life with perhaps less suffering than most if I am being honest.  I will try not to hype my suffering into this thing that gives me a special right to be heard within the human conversation.  This year one of my favorite books I have read is The Invisible Girls by Sarah Thebarge.  Sarah’s story is one of those stories where God gave someone an experience which through their endurance of the suffering has made their story compelling.  It wasn’t just that she experienced a very life-threatening form of cancer, but it is how when her world had been turned upside down she began to heal by discovering there were other people suffering, and she began to be a help to a family in difficult straits.  I’m not sure I can speak with such reality about suffering as she does.  Because I have read her book I am forced to think as I think about writing about suffering if I can write about suffering with any sort of reality like Sarah Thebarge wrote about it, or am I just offering words and clichés of an intellectual appreciation of a natural phenomenon from the safe vantage point of a cozy study?

My idea to giving witness regarding the things of Christ and of faith and of understanding has become heightened by reading Acts 1:1-11 in the Ascension Day liturgical readings.  In verse eight Jesus tells the apostles that they will be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the world.  There was a phrase which caught me by surprise as I read the verse.  To whom were the Apostles to witness?  Jesus promised them that the Holy Spirit would come upon them and empower them, quoting Jesus to “witness to me.”  Our witness is not towards men but towards God.  One cannot separate the duties of love of neighbor from love of God.  Each careless word we speak to men is a careless word spoken towards God.  One cannot love God whom he cannot see; apart from loving men created in God’s image that we do see.  Ultimately therefore what I say to others about suffering is what I present to God as prayer in regards to suffering.  I think the Fathers understood this better than most modern Christians.  St. Augustine’s Confessions are a sort of an autobiography of the great theologian’s life, especially his life of thought.  But St. Augustine’s Confessions are first and foremost a book of prayers addressed to God that the Bishop of Hippo made available for others to read because what is the best thing we can offer to one another but what we offer to God, and what shows more our understanding of the nature of God than to give him that which is also a gift to the people he loves.

If this blog has been meandering it has been meandering to this point.  When the Christian gives testimony to Christ about suffering the first truth about suffering we will speak of to him is our praise and thanksgiving that our Lord has personally come into a realm where suffering surrounds us and he has suffered with us and for us.  We are fascinated most of all that a God who could be above all the sufferings of a fallen world chose instead to become man, to suffer for our sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that he might bring us to God.  This is our first confession when we think of suffering and bear witness to him.  Secondly, like unto this first truth is that when our Lord rose from the dead and ascended on high he did not leave suffering behind.  Instead he gathers the suffering of his people into his prayers and presents them to the Father.  He also promises by and through the Holy Spirit that wherever we are so He is also there.  He says to us in our grief and sorrow; “I am with you to the end of the age.”  Do not imagine he has left sorrow behind when he ascended on high.  He suffers with us and moreover provides comfort and in time will wipe away every tear from our eye.  So we may set our focus on the way ahead, knowing he is with us to the end of the age.

Sunday, May 25, 2014

The final Word about Us


The Final Word about us

Written by Dan McDonald

With recognition of my indebtedness to words written by Marlena Graves

 

            A few days ago Marlena Graves posted these words on Twitter:  “We start to believe rejection, discouragement and failure are the final word about us.  But gazing into Jesus’ face – delight.  The final word.”

            Those brief words ignited encouragement and optimism in my soul.  I began to realize that God’s final word to us, his revelation to us in these final days (Hebrews 1:1-3) is also the final word meant to express who and what we are as the people of God.  For what is our destiny in Christ except that one day we shall see him as he is and we shall be like him.  (I John 3:1-2)

 


Pancrator from Monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai
Jesus holding the Scriptures

 

Since I have basically built a blog on words by Marlena Graves, let me inform or remind anyone reading this blog that Marlena Graves has written a book that will be released this coming month of June.  It is entitled A Beautiful Disaster.    I can’t tell you a lot about it, except that it reportedly blends her own personal story, with theological insights from the Scriptures and also she sheds light on these experiences of our humanity from voices of the ancient church.  I’ve read enough of what she has to say concerning the life of faith that I will say I look forward to reading her book.  That is my way of partially paying my debt to her, for this blog would be impossible without me reading her posted tweet a few days ago.  Her words ignited joy and fresh thoughts within me, so I must express my indebtedness to her.

It is common for Christians to be discouraged by their sense of weakness in regards to the spiritual life.  In some instances we can become distraught and hopeless for long seasons.  We can see our seeming inability to put away our sins completely.  We find as St. Paul put it that we who wish to do good, do evil.  At such a point it is easy to start believing that discouragement and failure are the final words describing our existence.  But in Christ, the true final word is not our present experiences but the eternal realities for which our Lord has redeemed us and has invited us to discover in and through his life of grace through faith.  The final word is spoken in Jesus’ face – it is a word of delight.  St. John writes of our hope; that we shall one day see him as he is and we shall be like him. (I John 3:2)

The Apostle John goes on to describe how everyone who has this hope fixed on Christ, purifies himself just as Christ is pure. (I John 3:1-3)  It is as though the Christian lives by light borrowed from the future that he may see the truth of the reality of life through the present darkness.  We see by God’s grace of his revelation through Christ that in the day of Christ we shall see him and be like him.  So borrowing the light that shines in the sureness of the future in Christ we see the truth as it is in the darkness of our present circumstances.  The Alpha and Omega shines light from the future day into the present darkness.  Now there is sin and temptation, weakness and struggle; but that is not the final word, for Christ is our final word.  He is the eternal reality for all of us who have heard his voice and followed his call to come, take up our crosses, and follow him.


We see in this reality what it means for us that Christ took upon himself humanity even as he was the exact representation of God’s divinity in human form.  For our Lord Jesus Christ was the final word in these last days concerning who God is.  In former times God revealed his ways and his will at various times and in various means through his prophets.  But in Christ God has revealed himself, his exact representation and the express image of his divinity in the fullness of human flesh.  (Hebrews 1:1-3)  Christ is the final word about who God is.  He who has seen the Son has seen the Father in and through the Son.  The Spirit has been granted that what is true of Christ might be taught to us as we come to believe upon him in the Gospel.  Christ is God’s final word of showing man who God really is.

But Christ is also the final word for every redeemed man and woman and child.  For Christ is the second Adam whose righteousness was complete and is being taught to his disciples who believe and follow him and whose righteousness will be perfected when we see him and shall be like him.  Christ is the final word for our humanity even as he is the final word of God’s revelation of himself to mankind.  For a little while we know suffering, discouragement, temptation, and even weakness and failure; but in yet a little while we shall see Christ and shall be like him and that is the eternal last word regarding our humanity.  Yes we shall see his face and it will be delight that we see on Jesus' face; even as the bridegroom rejoices in his bride’s face.  That we shall see him and be like him will be the final word regarding ourselves.  So let us rejoice and press onwards for we have a wonderful future indeed.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Life Lessons from a Joan Osborne Concert


Life Lessons from the Joan Osborne Concert:

An Open Letter to Two Young People

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            Last week I flew to Dallas to see a Joan Osborne concert.  I was met at the airport by a good friend who is the rector of an Anglican church.  The rector, his wife, their oldest son and their oldest daughter all joined me in going to the concert.  The fourteen year old son and his eleven year old sister were the only two children that I saw in the Kessler Theater that evening.  I asked them after the concert if they would like to write about their concert experiences on my blog site.  They kind of looked at me as if I were crazy; and that was just maybe an appropriate and analytically correct response.  If they had taken me up on the offer it might well have been interesting to read about the experiences and feelings of two young people talking about their going to a Joan Osborne concert.  Instead I am going to write an open letter to this young brother and sister about what I think are some life lessons they could learn as they remember their experiences of going to the concert.  These are the kind of lessons that can be important to realize for an eleven year old or for a fifty something year-old.  I will only mention two things that if you appreciate from this concert will help you to make a success out of whatever you do in life.

            1.  Cooperation

            I wonder what sort of picture each of you had in your mind when your parents told you that we were going to go to a “Joan Osborne concert.”  You might think that there would only be one person on the stage.  But there was a musician playing the keyboard, and another one playing the guitar, as well as Joan Osborne singing.  It was Joan’s voice that we heard but the concert involved the talents of three people cooperating to produce the sound of the music we heard.  There were also stage hands that helped get everything set up, and there were people who had gotten the Kessler Theater ready for people to come and hear the concert.  A lot of people were involved in making the concert possible and in enabling it to be the experience it was.  So if you think about the concert, it required a lot of people working together in cooperation to make the evening special for all the people that came to enjoy the concert.

Can you imagine if one person had tried to put on the entire concert?  What if Joan Osborne had tried to do everything?  She did play an instrument at one point, but mostly she relied on the two other performers to play their instruments, which they played very well.  Imagine if she had to fix the refreshments that we in the audience ate and drank.  Imagine if she had to set up all the tables and folding chairs in the theater, before the concert began and then check off the names of the people coming in that had purchased seats and were listed on a sheet of paper.  If you remember there was a man at the door who marked off my name and five spots on the sheet when we came in to the theater.  The concert involved lots of people cooperating to make the evening into the concert it was.  One of the things I have always liked about Joan Osborne is how she shows her appreciation to other members in the band, and everybody who worked hard to make the show a success.  She knows that even if the concert is described by her name that a lot of people worked together to make the evening a success.  So that is the first lesson about life, and maybe the most important one that I hope you think about.  Whatever sort of job you have in life there will only be so much you can do without others.  You will be able to accomplish so much more in life if you learn how to cooperate with others to be able to do something fun and worthwhile in life.  So whether you are playing with others or doing a job with others, learning how to cooperate with others will be an important skill to be used at work or play, on the job and in the family forever.

2.  Practice

Both of you take music lessons, and you probably have already figured out that you play your instruments better if you spend time practicing than if you don’t.  Every person that sang or played an instrument at the concert spent lots of time practicing.  Your Dad spends time preparing for a homily, your art teacher at school has spent lots of time in the shop, painting, sculpting, and carving.  There is an old saying that says “If something is important enough to be done, it is important enough to be done well.”  But in most things in life we have to do things not so well until we can do them well.  Joan Osborne and the other musical performers you saw were once little children who had to learn the “Do-Re-Mi” scale of music.  Each of them had the first time of trying to play a musical instrument.  They had to learn how to make notes, chords, and keep time; and they had to practice if they wanted to get to a point where they played the instruments really well.  Whatever gift and talent you have been given, and whatever thing you love to do, to turn that talent and joy into something really special will take practice, study, and doing over and over again until you have mastered what you are doing.

I hope in a few years, each of you will find something you want to do with your life, and when you do if you remember that in everything cooperation with others and practicing until you can do something really well will help you give a gift to others, just as I felt like I had received a gift from Joan Osborne and all the people who made the concert special for me last week.  Someday whether as a musician or in a career or whatever you do in life, learning to cooperate with others and spending time practicing will enable you to give a blessing and a gift to others.  If some of the things I have written don’t make sense, I am sure your parents will be better at explaining these things.

Monday, May 19, 2014

Experiencing a Joan Osborne concert


Experiencing the Joan Osborne Concert

May 16, 2014 at the Kessler Theater in Dallas

Written by Dan McDonald

 

                Sometimes my brain malfunctions.  Friday May 16, 2014 was one of those days.  Friday was going to be a busy day.  I had been in St. Louis attending a training seminar that was related to my work.  I was scheduled to fly back to my home town that morning and then I had plans to go to the Joan Osborne concert that evening in Dallas, for which I caught a flight from my home city to Dallas in the afternoon.  I had a bag in St. Louis with a few things including a camera.  I was waiting for a Metro train to take me to the airport, so I pulled my airplane ticket for my flight home, and then the train pulled into the stop and lo, I had my ticket with me and left my bag at the Metro Stop.  (No worry!  I checked with Metro and they have it in their lost and found!)  Then I got to Dallas and decided I didn’t need a cell phone at the concert.  So instead of having nice photographs to show on my blog for attending the Joan Osborne concert I have memories to describe and an image pulled down from the internet.

 


Joan Osborne, a reasonably recent photograph

            I want to say this about Joan Osborne; she is too good of a performer to be as forgotten by most people as she has become.  When I told people I was going to a “Joan Osborne” concert they usually asked “Who is that?”  I will tell you what I love about Joan Osborne as a performer.  She is a performer who loves and respects music in all its genres and can sing virtually anything.  How many people have shared the stage with Emmylou Harris, Roseanne Cash, Bob Dylan, Luciano Pavoratti, Sandy Patty, and toured as the lead chick singer with the Grateful Dead?  She has seven nominations for Grammies.  But hardly anyone knows her, and if they know her she is known for one song from the nineties.  She looked younger back then, but I think most of us looked younger twenty years ago, but this was her hit back then which people hear and say, “O that is who Joan Osborne is”?  It’s the hit that made her famous for a while, but even if not so many people know who she is now, she has remained a wonderful performer whose music is a study of life that reveals not only a singer with a good voice, but a performer with respect and love for the message and emotion of a song.

            Those of us who grew up in the sixties may have loved Motown.  Anyone growing up and hearing an original can seldom appreciate someone else's covering of an original piece that has memories and life contexts that no later singer can provide when covering the song we loved in its original form.  Joan Osborne has the ability to look over a song; and then interpret its message and emotion, so as to breathe fresh life into the performance.  She honors the original not by imitating how the original sang the song, but by contemplating the song and its message and performing it in such a way as to project how the song moved her as she contemplated it.  This performance of the 60’s hit “What becomes of the Brokenhearted” led me to decide that the next opportunity I had to see Joan Osborne in concert I would do so.  Whether she is singing one of her own pieces or covering a piece done by a performer earlier she will perform the song with a beautiful and powerful sense of message, music, energy and emotion.

            She has released a few CD’s some of which have received acclaim from the music industry, but which did not sell nearly as well as her “Relish” CD which was the CD where “One of Us” made its debut.  CD’s like “Little Wild Ones” and her latest “Love and Hate” are built around themes.  “Little Wild Ones” in many ways was a tribute to New York City where she has lived for many years.  It spans life in New York City from remembering a time past where a child grew up riding the rides on Coney Island to a song asking “Bury me on the Battery”.

            I have to admit that she didn’t do some of these favorites of mine at her concert, but every song she did was wonderful.  Her latest CD brings together songs covering the range of songs regarding romance from attraction to mature love to breakup and hate.  This again is something I love that she does.  She presents in a concert the story of life in its multi-faceted faces and experiences.  She sang one song explaining how it echoes a Gershwin classic.  To be honest, it is my favorite sounding song on the CD, but I expect the more I listen to this latest CD she has done, the more I will fall in love with the richness of the other songs.  I imagine there will be times that I decide one song is the best and other times when I think another song is the best.  But for now I am sort of partial to “Work on me”.

            It was a wonderful experience to see Joan perform at the Kessler Theater in Dallas.  I had never been to the Kessler and imagined a fairly large venue, but it was sold out with maybe 200 and surely less than 300 persons in attendance.  It was a cozy setting where you felt part of something spanning the experience of casual to wonderfully special.  I would suspect that for those who have followed her and have come to love her work as a singer, performer, songwriter, music interpreter, and bard singing the songs of life, we felt as if given a wonderful precious gift.  We were entertained by someone who has absorbed music into her soul as one who loves the music.  She has added to that love of music a respect for the music, her fellow performers, and her audience.  It is this sort of attitude that permeates her music and translates into a beautiful and masterful performance.

            Let me conclude by saying something about myself.  I tend to allow myself to become isolated in life.  Sometime last year I decided that this year I would force myself to get out more; to do and see things.  It has been a long time since I had gone to a concert.  I went to Joan Osborne’s concert because I was convinced that she loved music and that her love and respect for the music was what made her a special performer.  She sings songs as if to pay them honor with her performance.  I didn’t get any pictures of the concert, but I do have memories that I will seek to hang on to for probably as long as I live.  As one lady on Twitter reminded me, memories of our experiences are actually worth more than photographs.  Joan Osborne and all those who performed along with her have given me memories I will forever count as precious.  I could not be happier that the first concert I went to in many years was a concert by Joan Osborne at the Kessler Theater in Dallas, Texas.  It was one of my privileges in life.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

The Church that held everything in common (1)


The Church that held everything in Common

Part One: A realistic look at the Church in Jerusalem

Written by Dan McDonald

 

The following words from the Revised English Version translation describe a different church experience than many of us have experienced:

            A sense of awe was felt by everyone, and many portents and signs were brought about through the apostles.  All the believers agreed to hold everything in common: they began to sell their property and possessions and distribute to everyone according to his need.  One and all they kept up their daily attendance at the temple, and, breaking bread in their homes, they shared their meals with unaffected joy, as they praised God and enjoyed the favor of the whole people.  And day by day the Lord added new converts to their number.” (Acts 2:43-47)

            This description seems idyllic.  But I suspect St. Luke in presenting these words wanted to give us this description of the growth in grace taking place in a church that also had its share of problems.  The church in Jerusalem, described by these words, was a church where people with a legalistic approach to the Christian life were influential, and was also a church where Greek believers had to lodge a complaint about being treated like second-class people.  We might easily surmise that these differing kinds of descriptions of the life of this church don’t calculate.  But in all reality this is most often the reality we discover in Christian churches.  The reality is that we are people who bring a lot of remaining sin baggage when we come into the church, and we are people who face real temptations and flounder at times.  But there is also among the people of God with such sin problems real hunger and desire for growth in grace.  So we do see problem churches where the people can be described behaving in an Acts 2:43-47 way of living.

            Maybe a poem could be written about the paradox we discover in our Christian churches that would sound a lot like one of George Herbert’s poems about the Christian life.  Maybe Christian churches and Christian lives are meant to look like the best and the worst of human experiences.  Maybe sometimes our poems and prayers read like this:

 

Bitter-Sweet
By George Herbert (1593–1633)

 

 
AH, my dear angry Lord,

  Since Thou dost love, yet strike;

Cast down, yet help afford;

  Sure I will do the like.

 
I will complain, yet praise;
  I will bewail, approve:

And all my sour-sweet days

  I will lament, and love.[i]



 

I will be away from writing for several days, but I am leaving this post behind and hope to follow up on it in a couple of weeks.  In the meantime, perhaps you would like to comment on this post.  I would like to hear about the sort of things that you do to bring to life the principles you see described in Acts 2:43-47.  I personally don’t think we are called to try to create an identical reproduction of what these Jerusalem Christians did in the first century.  But I do think we are meant to contemplate and consider how we might bring the enduring principles of this passage to life in our lives and churches.

I don’t believe the response of the Jerusalem believers was a matter of simply obeying commands issued by the Apostles.  St. Peter would have addressed Ananias and Sapphira differently had they been commanded to sell their entire property and give it to the church.  Their sin was not in keeping some of the proceeds for themselves but in lying to the church and the Holy Spirit as they claimed to have given everything from the sale of their property.  So it seems likely that something other than commands from the Apostles were motivating Christians to sell their property and give everything to the Church that the Church might distribute what was needed by people within the church as they had need.

I suspect that their motivation was connected to their frequent breaking of bread.  The Lord’s Supper ceremony invites us to partake of Christ whether that partaking is in reality or a symbolic ritual.  The Supper is given so we might actively remember Christ.  It also reminds us that we who partake of the one body and blood, one loaf and cup are ourselves one earthly body of Christ.  As Christians partook of Christ in the Supper they were reminded they had been purchased and freed from sin by the precious blood of Christ.  They also were reminded that their brothers and sisters in Christ were the body of Christ.  This reminded them that whenever a brother or sister had a need, that Christ regarded that need as his own need.  Therefore it was a simple step from taking the Eucharist to seeing that Christ has purchased our property in purchasing us.  It was also a simple step to seeing that God has blessed us with plenty to see that he has given us an opportunity in blessing us to give to those in our midst who are in need, because we are one in Christ.  Both our blessing and our need belong to Christ who has often provided within the church the supply for the poor brother in the abundance of the rich brother.  For we have been made one in Christ.

Again I would love to hear your comments about how this passage might have played a role in your life.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Predestination in Christ (4) Romans 9-11


Do We Know Predestination at all?

Part Four – Romans: Chapters 9 through 11.

Written by Dan McDonald

 

When I was younger in age and in the faith I imagined truth to be something capable of being understood and explained.  Now I think of truth as something having its source in the glory of God so that at some point we see truth as something which melts away in beauty beyond description in the distant horizon.  I see predestination in this way.  I realize through this doctrine that I am called to Christ without anything within myself being the cause for which I am chosen.  This is something too certain in the Scriptures for me to doubt or deny.  Yet as I read of God’s choice of the patriarchs in Genesis and I can see that God chose Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and also Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah; I also find that our Lord did not stop caring for and watching over the nations, Hagar, Ishmael, and Esau.  Still I am certain that my view of things is not easily viewed as confirmed by the ninth through the eleventh chapter of Romans.  I am convinced that what I have expressed is not complete.  Perhaps it is not essential that it be complete.  Perhaps I am meant only to speak what is upon my heart and mind and cast it forth into the discussion of God’s people to be criticized where it is wrong, and otherwise to have such thoughts confirmed and built upon where this blind hog has found an acorn of truth.

I almost see my understanding of our predestination “in Christ” fitting if we view the choosing of the patriarchs as the choosing of the Christ to be born from their lines rather than the choosing of this one for salvation and others not being chosen for salvation.  If the patriarchs are chosen specifically as a way for the Holy Spirit to identify where and whom it was who would be born the promised seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob then Romans chapters nine through eleven may well tell the story of how God first narrowed the field associated with the Messiah until there was but one Messiah whose life fulfilled the promise of God made to the patriarchs.

Perhaps Romans 10:4 serves as a verse describing how in the times before Christ’s arrival the work of showing forth the Messiah was done through a winnowing process where God showed there was a choice of one and only one to fulfill the promises of the Gospel.  Romans 10:4 describes that “Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness, to everyone who believes.”  The Apostle Paul’s word regarding how Christ is the end of the law is the Greek word “telos” which can mean “end” in the sense of a destination or a goal.  So if we look at the Law as having a goal that goal in God’s purpose was Christ.  So the Law as a standard looked upon all the rest of us and evaluated us as “sinners” and as those who have “fallen short of the glory of God.”  But when Christ came the Law knelt to the ground and worshipped him as the one who was what the Law had been given to identify as the one to come.  John the Baptist in representing the Law at the Jordan River in the same manner realized that while he baptized here was the one whose baptism John himself needed.  But this one standing before John was the one who was himself to fulfill all righteousness.

Following this verse, St. Paul begins to show how predestination’s field is widened through the proclamation of the Gospel.  It was at first narrowed until only the one chosen stood in the waters of the Jordan, but as he came and fulfilled the promises then men and women began to believe upon the Gospel and found themselves united with Christ in his predestination.  Predestination is the doctrine of God’s choice of one that the many might be blessed.  Thus all Israel will be saved.  Those who believe are to be grafted into the vine.

Before the coming of Christ the Spirit of God worked to reduce the potential promised seed from a whole nation to the one true Messiah.  Thus predestination was a narrowing of the possible promised descendants. But once identified in his life, death, burial and resurrection Christ could be proclaimed in the Gospel and the many who would respond to God’s grace and mercy in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ would draw near to him and none who would come would in any wise be cast out.  Thus with the proclamation of the Gospel the field of the predestined would grow until all Israel would be saved according to God’s purposes of kindness.  This is predestination “in Christ.”  With this my words, perhaps forever, about predestination are complete.  I write not as one who has figured these truths out in perfection, but as one with poor eyesight seeing the truth as if through a fog melting into the mist of a beautiful and not fully explainable horizon.  I believe that even if I cannot see clearly what is beyond the horizon it is enough to know that what is there is “in Christ.”

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Predestination III - Predestination and the Patriarchs


Do We Know Predestination at all?

Part Three – Predestination as Prefigured in the Patriarchs

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            This is the third of a four part blog on the doctrine of predestination.  The two previous blogs are available on the links to the right side of this page.  I have sought in these blogs to present the theme of predestination as a theme that is Christocentric.  The primary lesson to be discerned in St. Paul’s understanding of predestination is that God has chosen us in Jesus Christ.  There is a great mystery in this doctrine of predestination, a mystery I cannot begin to explain.  It is a mystery in keeping with the great mystery of salvation wherein we know only in part, but we are by God in his mercy fully known.  So we learn to seek his understanding and his insights but remain content not in what and how well we know something, but in the consolation that in our weakness God yet has fully known and chosen us in his Son.  It is my suspicion that our being chosen in the Son; is a blessing extended toward us in our union with Christ by grace through faith.  That is as God has chosen to bless his Son from the foundation of the earth by making him the one in whom all things are created, and by whom the many are redeemed to become the one in whom the heavens and earth are unified and held together in Christ; so in our participation in him by faith we are included so much in the predestined purposes God has for his son, that we are thereby made as God’s adopted children predestined ones in Christ Jesus.  Beyond that I acknowledge that this blessing is surely by grace and through faith and a mystery of which I am unable to explain.

            It is my desire in this blog to show that God’s choice of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob provided blessing for those around them and did not indicate God’s rejection from salvation of those passed over for the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  For God’s choice of the patriarchs was his choice of the promised seed through whom all the nations and families of the earth would be blessed.  Thus even though there is a clear choice of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the stories of these patriarchs in Genesis always reveal blessing to those over whom Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were chosen.

            God chose Abraham, from out of the nations to become the father of a new nation, of a great nation.  One might suppose this meant destruction for the other nations, but God’s promise was not the destruction of the other nations, but that through Abraham’s seed all the nations and all the families of the nations would be blessed.  This prefigures the blessing to come through Christ and expresses the eternal choice of Christ from before the foundations of the earth.

            What about God’s choice of Isaac over Ishmael?  The unfortunate modern tendency, (especially by many American Christians) to treat Middle Easterners with contempt because of their association with Ishmael is a bigotry not supported by the Scriptures.  The wondrous and touching story is told in Genesis 21:1-21 of how Ishmael was cast out of the house of Abraham along with Ishmael’s mother Hagar.  Yes, God chooses Isaac over Ishmael in regard to God’s choice to bless Isaac with the promised descendant rather than Ishmael.  But there are hardly any more touching stories in the Scriptures than how God consoled Hagar as she is cast out of the house of Abraham.  Hagar, without means of providing for her son, cast away from the tents of Abraham, is tempted to abandon her son.  She cries out to God to at least be merciful to hide from her eyes his death.  But God consoles her, speaks comfort to her, and expresses how he has heard Ishmael’s cries and will make of him a great nation because he is of the seed of Abraham.  This narrative shows us that God’s plan for the nations involving the choice of Abraham and Isaac is not meant for Ishmael and Hagar’s destruction but for their blessing as well as that of Abraham and Isaac.

            The same is true regarding Jacob and Esau.  The two brothers become hostile and hateful towards each another.  One was manipulative and self-serving, while the other was careless and seems in his youth to have chosen the temporary over the everlasting.  In exile from Esau Jacob becomes blessed of God, and begins his return to the Promised Land.  But at the river Jordan he faces Esau who has become powerful.  Jacob’s entrance into the Promised Land appears to be blocked by Esau.  Jacob, from his abundant blessings arranges to bless his brother and to seek reconciliation.  He arranges his life like the Prodigal younger brother trying to come to appeal to the older brother, but in this case the older brother sees Jacob; and he races towards him and embraces him.  Jacob’s entrance into the land is made possible by reconciling with his brother.  Jacob blesses Esau from the abundance of blessing with which God has blessed Jacob. (Genesis 33) Likewise Esau embraces Jacob having been blessed.

            The stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are stories of how God chose to bless one to bless and not to destroy the many.