In My Father's House XV
Here’s the irony!
Marjorie reminds me that we gave this plaque as a gift to my parents some years ago. I’d forgotten. (I’m terrible at remembering gifts given or received. Not sure why, it’s just the way I’m wired I suppose.) Now I shake my head, for who could possibly subscribe to such an empty promise? Do you think people ever imagine their lives ending like this? So I’m done with empty slogans about the human condition. Nor is it enough to say that living well-off in a material world will guarantee that one does not suffer. For existential suffering, the sort of mental stress that comes when your worldview is challenged to the core, is in some ways a far more damaging condition to the soul.
The fact of suffering in this world may cause us to question the kind of God we do or do not believe in. It’s often said that we come into the world with nothing and take away nothing of material importance. But for those who have been subjected to real oppression and suffering, we’d want to hope for more than that. For me the idea that bullies and tyrants and incorrigibly evil people could go into the nothingness of beyond and never have to give an account for their behavior is truly disturbing (as is the corollary that we live in an accidental and meaningless universe).
Worse still is the idea that the innocent victims of injustice will not be recompensed for all the evil done against them, and makes me believe more strongly in a moral and just universe where all wrongs will be righted, and evil destroyed once and for all. All in good time. In what the ancient Greeks called the Telos, or the fullness of time.
In the traditional Christian funeral of Queen Elizabeth II we heard these words read out to all. They are the words of Paul, once a self-confessed sinful man who hunted early followers of Jesus to the death. After his personal transformation on the way to Damascus (where he had a vivid vision of Christ) he was determined to preach a gospel filled with hope to atone for his actions. We are not promised prosperity or freedom from suffering. Everything about this world is perishing with death the final destination in this life. But this is only half the story:
“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come to pass: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?’” (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).
For people of faith that’s no mere slogan or imagined future. It’s either true or there’s nothing at all to hope for!
In My Father's House XV
Here’s the irony!
Marjorie reminds me that we gave this plaque as a gift to my parents some years ago. I’d forgotten. (I’m terrible at remembering gifts given or received. Not sure why, it’s just the way I’m wired I suppose.) Now I shake my head, for who could possibly subscribe to such an empty promise? Do you think people ever imagine their lives ending like this? So I’m done with empty slogans about the human condition. Nor is it enough to say that living well-off in a material world will guarantee that one does not suffer. For existential suffering, the sort of mental stress that comes when your worldview is challenged to the core, is in some ways a far more damaging condition to the soul.
The fact of suffering in this world may cause us to question the kind of God we do or do not believe in. It’s often said that we come into the world with nothing and take away nothing of material importance. But for those who have been subjected to real oppression and suffering, we’d want to hope for more than that. For me the idea that bullies and tyrants and incorrigibly evil people could go into the nothingness of beyond and never have to give an account for their behavior is truly disturbing (as is the corollary that we live in an accidental and meaningless universe).
Worse still is the idea that the innocent victims of injustice will not be recompensed for all the evil done against them, and makes me believe more strongly in a moral and just universe where all wrongs will be righted, and evil destroyed once and for all. All in good time. In what the ancient Greeks called the Telos, or the fullness of time.
In the traditional Christian funeral of Queen Elizabeth II we heard these words read out to all. They are the words of Paul, once a self-confessed sinful man who hunted early followers of Jesus to the death. After his personal transformation on the way to Damascus (where he had a vivid vision of Christ) he was determined to preach a gospel filled with hope to atone for his actions. We are not promised prosperity or freedom from suffering. Everything about this world is perishing with death the final destination in this life. But this is only half the story:
“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come to pass: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?’” (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).
For people of faith that’s no mere slogan or imagined future. It’s either true or there’s nothing at all to hope for!