G.K. Chesterton once wrote “There are two ways of getting home, and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place.” He tells the story of a boy whose cottage stood on a steep slope, who went on a quest to find the figure of a great giant. It wasn’t until he was far enough away from home that he looked back and saw that his own cottage, placed on the hillside, was but part of a giant figure. He had always lived on it, but it was too large and too close to be seen. Only through the perspective of distance could he see what he was searching for, but had already owned. Perspective is key to understanding. So here’s an analogy….
What if I, in some unfathomable miracle, discover that the world is going to explode in 2000 years, killing every living thing. No one else had made the discovery before, and no one else in all of future generations is capable of making the discovery. What’s more, I know how to STOP it. I alone, in all of history, know how to save the world. What would I do with that knowledge? What would YOU do? How would I let innocent people in the future know the keys to salvation?
The first thing that comes to mind is to write it down. Of course. Write down what you know is the TRUTH. But how do you know that the book will survive 2000 years? This isn’t exactly time capsule material. This information needs to be OUT THERE in order to be of use. How do you know that 2000 years from now, people will understand the language of the book? How do you know that, when copies are made of the book, errors are not introduced into it? After all, this information is precise. These people need to know EXACTLY what the truth is. How do you know that, in 2000 years, the book will be understood in the way you intended it to? How do you make the information live?
If it was me with this life-saving knowledge, the logical answer, of course, would be to gather trusted people, and give the book to them. Train them, teach them about how the “Truth” is to be interpreted, and then make sure they gather trusted people around themselves to pass the information onward. Because the salvation of the world depends on them getting it right, this cannot be a haphazard process. I would stress to them the importance of protecting the information intact. In essence, I would be granting them authority – MY authority – to tell people what is true. Would I want this to be democratic over time? Should people in the future be able to vote to determine, based on whatever their current beliefs happen to be, what is TRUE? There is only one way to stop the catastrophe, and I am the only one who knows it. As smart as future generations might be, they cannot know how to avert the impending doom of the planet. So I give authority to a select few, to ensure that this information is transmitted correctly. I also give them the mission of spreading the truth around, so as many people as possible know about it. It’s my entrusted friends’ job (and also the future generations that they train) to educate people, so that the TRUTH can be understood correctly.
Now we’re going to expand the scenario. There’s a BAD GUY. Of course there is. Every movie, every book, every story since the dawn of time has a bad guy. And this bad guy is pretty intent on making sure that all of humanity IS blown up at the end of time. I know, and you know, that people are flawed to begin with. We are weak. We make mistakes. Big ones. Even with the best of intentions, people can be swayed away from the TRUTH. And this BAD GUY is pretty persuasive. He uses outright intimidation, threats, violence. He seduces people with big promises. More subtly, though (and much more deadly to our cause) he uses RATIONALIZATION. He’s very convincing and conniving, and very good at persuading people that a little change here and a little change there to the TRUTH will not effect the outcome. He makes future generations feel smart, so that they think they’re smarter than ME, and can figure out another way to avert the impending catastrophe. But there is no other way. Only MY way. This BAD GUY is the king of “divide and conquer”. He wants splintering, and disunification, because it makes an easier adversary. My TRUTH is being actively attacked every step of the way. And I have entrusted it to two very imperfect and unreliable mediums… paper and people. So what do I do? What do YOU do?
If there was some way I personally could keep in contact with future generations, I undoubtedly would. I rarely leave my children at home with a sitter without calling several times to make sure everything is okay. Future generations are going to need to hear my voice. I could make a video recording – it would help people to actually see my face, and would benefit those not able to read. But this is a one-way conversation, not two-way. It’s just my image, and not actually ME. That might provide encouragement, and so it’s a useful tool, but it’s not ME. What future generations need is MY personal guidance. If I was away, but could call them with encouragement, wisdom, support, they would hear my voice, feel my presence, and receive the help that only I could give them, to carry out the mission I’ve laid before them. In reality, though, this is not plausible. I am not divine. I will not be around after my allotted time on earth is through. Jesus, however is a whole different story.
What you or I would logically do in Jesus’ place 2000 years ago, is exactly what He DID do. Unlike Mohammed or Moses, He did not directly write anything down. He spoke words, He gathered trusted people to Himself, He instructed many in the TRUTH, but entrusted the interpretation to a very few. He gave authority to the few, and commissioned them to spread the Truth to the world. In other words, Jesus established a church FIRST. It was the members of the Church who wrote down what Jesus said, sent letters of encouragement and interpretation to each other, and it was the church who established what would enter into the final Cannon of the Book. The church came first, and grew by oral tradition, and THEN the book was established (hundreds of years later), by the authority of the church. This authority was granted to the church by Christ. The written word is incredibly important, but remember… at the time of Christ, only one of 10 people could read. They relied on instruction from others, as they could not always read a book for themselves. A single book the size of the Bible would take 3 years for a scribe to copy by hand, and require the pelts of several hundred animals to make the vellum paper. Such a book would be incredibly expensive – the equivalent of 3 years’ wages of the average person. The book was not readily available, (even when finally established 300 years later) so the people gathered together to hear the Truth, to have the Book read out loud to them. So the Church and the Bible go hand in hand. There is not one without the other. It is why our founding fathers established a Constitution, and a Supreme Court to interpret that Constitution. The document could not stand the test of time on it’s own, without the protection and correct interpretation of the authoritative body. We know that the Founding Father’s intentions when establishing the Constitution are often not considered when interpreting the rights of citizens in this day and age. Jesus knew, just as you or I do, that people and paper are not enough. They are both flawed mediums, and easily attacked by the forces of evil.
Jesus, because of His divinity, has another means of protecting His truth that would not be available to you or I. He has “The Advocate”, the Holy Spirit. He sends a piece of Himself to be with each one of us… guiding, inspiring, opening our minds and hearts to true understanding. He has not left us alone. Through the sacraments, He also touches us in a very real and physical way. This is not symbolic. It can’t be. We need HIM, and not just an image or symbol of Him, in order to complete the task set before us. It is the difference between seeing a video of, or being in the presence of, a real person One is a representation of the person, the other is really there to interact with. And we NEED the real presence of Christ in our lives. We are not capable of completing the task on our own, because we are flawed.
Throughout history, humanity has discredited Jesus’ “plan” in many and different ways. This is the influence of the “evil one” that Jesus warned us against. Think about it. Jesus left a book, a church, and His True Presence through the Holy Spirit. The book has been translated incorrectly, parts left out, at times modified to distort the truth (compare a Jehovah Witness Bible’s version of John 1:1 to your translation, and see what a difference one word makes). Yet the church, throughout history, has strived to protect the Bible, intact and whole. It has educated people to read in order to understand. And it has not ceased to interpret the Bible in the way that it’s writers intended. Her job is to protect the Truth, and this is not a democracy. Imagine how silly it would seem to hold a council to vote on the reality of gravity. We humans really want to be able to float unaided off the ground while still living here on earth, and so…. we get together and vote down the reality of gravity. Regardless of what we determine in our council, regardless of how we vote… gravity remains unchanged. We will still be pressed unfailingly to the earth, whether we think we’re floating or not. People do not have the power to change an absolute truth. It just is.
There are some that say that the church has lost it’s authority because it has lost it’s purity. The church has been infiltrated by sinners, and therefore has lost the power that was given to it by Christ. First, I would say… who are we to divest authority in something GIVEN that authority by Christ himself? Secondly, I would point out that God has used sinners throughout history to accomplish His ends, just as He has used holy men. Did Jesus not know from the beginning that Judas would betray him? Yet He still made him one of the 12, and used Judas to bring about the conclusion of the New Covenant. Humanity has failed it’s covenants with God over and over in it’s history – beginning with Adam and Eve. God knows humans are frail. It doesn’t matter. He uses us anyway. Despite our weakness. Because of our weakness. There are liars, even in the church, and the TRUTH is not in them. But the TRUTH remains what it is, and is unchangeable. Something that is true does not worry whether it hard for someone to believe, and cannot be true but different for different people. And the church’s job has always been to protect the TRUTH on earth. That TRUTH remains, whether there have been imperfect people at the helm or not. Whether there have been EVIL people at the helm or not. The message does not change.
Jesus, part of the everlasting Trinity, left us His presence to dwell in our hearts, to burn the Truth within us, to allow us to hear His voice, to guide His two imperfect mediums in ways that ensure his TRUTH is protected and remains unchanged through all time. Because He so loved the world… that we might not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16).
No comments:
Post a Comment