God Is Light

1 John 1:5 "Now this is the message that we have heard from him and proclaim to you:  God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all".

Light.  What does John mean, by calling God light?  It seems to me that certain elements of creation are not merely analogies of our Father, but bear His fingerprints, reveal something profound about Himself.  Chief among those elements are water and light.  So what of light?  Light reveals.  Light is energy, power.  Light allows things to grow. Darkness is the absence of light, just as sin is the absence of God in our lives. 

St. Augustine had this to say about God as light: "And happily we shall be near to it, if we get to know what light is, and apply ourselves unto it, that by it we may be enlightened; because in ourselves we are darkness, and only when enlightened by it can we become light... what is it to be enlightened by it?  He that now sees himself to be darkened by sins, and desires to be enlightened by it, draws near to it."  He quotes the psalm "Draw near unto Him, and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed."

It's like we are the moon, and God is the sun. We are a dead hunk of rock, lifeless, incapable of producing light for ourselves. But our nature is capable of this... reflecting the light of the sun. We are able to provide light to a world in darkness by REFLECTING GOD'S LIGHT to others. Just as the moon provides light to earth.

This is probably a silly analogy, but what comes to mind reading this passage is when I am in a dressing room, under the harsh neon lights, without clothes.  It is UGLY.  Everything that I can normally hide with a decent pair of pants or a well-hanging shirt is staring back at me from the mirror.  Every bulge, every stretch mark, becomes hideously, abundantly clear.  And it is me, fully revealed.  Unhidden.  Clear.  "Just as my mama made me", so to speak.  It's not a view I spend a whole lot of time pondering, because it is not pleasant to me.  But some day, I am going to stand before the light of my Father, and see myself as He sees me, without facades.  That's intimidating!  We spend our lives creating fronts, crafting ourselves, our looks, what the world sees, to HIDE what's inside!  And yet, when my time comes, I will come face to face with my Father, and see myself and He sees me. 

“It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of His presence.”
― C.S. Lewis
But, according to what John and St. Augustine say, it's only when we see ourselves as we REALLY are - as sinners, imperfect - that the full realization of God's love can become apparent.  Somebody knows ALL ABOUT YOU, warts and all, imperfections, insecurities, selfish nature and all.... and loved you so incredibly much that He died for YOU.    Only by realizing and accepting that tremendous love can you even begin to perceive your own beauty and value in the eyes of God.  You are loved.  I am LOVED. 

Wow.

Christ is Unexpected Places

Yesterday was Sunday, and I got called in to work.  Usually, I can swing church with my family before heading in, but I was informed that there were ALOT of people needing to be seen at work, and we realized that doing both just wasn't going to be possible.  So I was missing church, and it irritated me.  I mean - it's the LORD'S day.  I'm not SUPPOSED to be working.  I'm supposed to be keeping it holy.  Like by going to church.

When I got to work, I realized that the five evaluations I had been informed of had morphed into seven.  I was going to be here awhile.  I dug in and went to work.  The second person was someone with severe dementia, who required me to physically and completely lift her to the bedside chair.  Once there, we realized I had ripped the IV out of her hand, and she was bleeding profusely all over me.  Great.  No time to change, I sopped up what blood I could and moved on.  The next lady I got out of bed had been incontinent of bowel, and now I had poop all over me, too.  Fabulous.  The next lady's daughter wouldn't let me touch her until I could recite her medical chart verbatim from memory.  I had a headache, my brain wasn't working --- I winged it, but I was HIGHLY irritated.  The next guy was demented, told me he had a bullet lodged in his back and felt TERRRRRRRIBLE, and why didn't I just leave him ALONE????  I really don't need this.  I'm SUPPOSED TO BE AT CHURCH.  I'm supposed to be keeping this day HOLY, and here I am with these people.

So, when I got to the next order - a lady in the ICU who was severely demented - I was really not in a good state of mind.  The nurse told me not to get the lady out of bed, but maybe I could try some range of motion with her.  Fine.  I'll do range of motion.  I grabbed a hand and started moving her arm up and down.  Then her feet and legs, and finally, made my way around to her right hand.  When I got to that side and grabbed her hand to start the exercise, I realized that she was holding my hand back.  So I stopped for a second, and looked down at her.  She had opened her eyes and was looking at me.  And smiling. 

"Oh!" I said.  "Hello!  I'm Monica.  I'm just here to help you."  And the woman kept eye contact with me, smiled again, and nodded ever so slightly.  And squeezed my hand.  She was there, in there somewhere.  Someone's mom, someone's grandma.  She couldn't walk or talk, but she was THERE, in there somewhere. 

It was then that I got this overwhelming, uncanny sensation that I was staring into the face of Christ.  It was weird.  She was just so peaceful, and looking at me so intently and lovingly, with that small smile.  Like Christ was holding my hand, and telling me "you are here with Me.  I am with these, the least of my brothers.  Do unto them as you would do to Me."    It just floored me for a minute.  And felt instant shame at my previous bad attitude.   Christ was HERE.  I had no doubt.  I was exactly where I was supposed to be at this point in time.

Lord, please help me to recognize You, wherever You may be.

A Simple Analogy

You have a favorite uncle, whom you love and loves you back.  When he dies, a messenger shows up at your door with an envelope, telling you that your favorite uncle has left you a vast fortune from his estate.  In awe, you take the envelope, overwhelmed by this information, this amazing gift that has been bestowed upon you.  It further amazes you, because your uncle DID have a son, to whom his estate was promised long ago.  Turns out, your cousin decided not to accept the gift, and so it in turn was left to you. 

Question:  Did you MERIT that gift?  Did you EARN IT?  By accepting the envelope, did that constitute a WORK? 

Unequivocal answer:  NO.  You loved your uncle.  Period.  And he loved you.  When he bestowed a gift upon you, you accepted it.  Simply.  But if you had refused the messenger, as did your cousin,  the gift would've never been yours, despite it being offered to you.

This is so clear to me, I honestly struggle to even BEGIN to see the alternative argument: that we have absolutely NO role in our salvation.  THIS is our role... to accept the gift.  The Holy Spirit will guide us through the rest.  It's our beloved "uncle" that died so that we might have the gift.  He did the hard part.  We are the recipients.  The Jews were promised the gift from the time of Abraham, and yet, when the gift was offered, many refused it.  So the gift was given to you and I, the "gentiles".  WOW.

This is not a one-time acceptance, though.  Our faith is a journey.  Our daily "acceptance of the gift" allows us to continue on that journey.  Every day we are faced with a choice to accept or reject the help of the Holy Spirit, the love of God.  Our job is to continue to say "yes", to persevere in our "yes".  That's obedience, and that's what we are called to do.  Be obedient to the law of love.

A Thought on Sola Scriptura

It struck me today, as I was reading an article about the St. John's Bible that many Christians today suffer from severe myopia.  As in a complete lack of understanding about the history of their own beliefs.  There was Christ, the Bible divinely appeared in whole, the church became "pagan", then Martin Luther and his buds appeared, and viola!  We have today's "TRUE" Christianity.  In the discussions I've had, that truly is as far as this understanding goes.  Among other inaccurate accusations, I've heard time and again how the church "hoarded" the Bible, keeping it from the masses, so they wouldn't understand it.  Kept it chained in the church, so that the "normal folk" HAD to go to the Church to have access to the scriptures.  And it wasn't until Martin Luther came around that anyone even let the scriptures be written in the vernacular!! 

The above article on the St. John's Bible drove home a point that many forget about.  The printing press was invented only a few years before the world met Martin Luther.  Prior to that time, Bibles were painstakingly printed on vellum by HAND - a process that would take years and years for a single edition to be created.  The St. John's Bible today cost $8 million to create.  Each and every edition of the Bible before the printing press was invaluable and rare.  Where would it be safe, protected, and available for all to see?  Individuals did not own them, just as you or I cannot own the $8 million St. John's Bible.  The Church was the protector of the book.  Not to keep it FROM  the people, but to allow it FOR the people.  The Church was the only means that every day folk could access the scriptures at all for the first 1500 years of Christianity.  The Church was the steward, the protector, and the transcribers of the Bible.  There could be no "sola scriptura" prior to the invention of the printing press. 

Oh, and the whole "vernacular" thing?  The Latin "Vulgate" in itself was a translation from the Greek and Hebrew into the "vernacular" of the people - Latin,  In 382 AD, 1200 years or so before Martin Luther. By the end of late antiquity (the eighth century or so) the Bible was available and used in all the major written languages then spoken by Christians. 



By Grace Alone

Stumbled upon this quote from the Council of Trent.  Beautiful, succinct, logical.  For me, end of story.

"That they who sin had been cut off from God, may be disposed through his quickening and helping grace to convert themselves to their own justification by freely assenting to and cooperating with that grace, so that, while God touches the heart of man through the illumination of the Holy Ghost, man himself neither does absolutely nothing while receiving that inspiration, since he can also reject it, nor yet is he able by his own free will and without the face of God to move himself to justice in his sight."