Tag: spiritual reality

The Real Thing (Hebrews 9:24-28)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Strange Shadows (Shadows and Substance), by Gertrude Abercrombie, 1950

For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 

Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the holy place year after year with blood that is not his own, for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world.

But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once and after that the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (New Revised Standard Version)

I admit that the Book of Hebrews in the New Testament is one of my favorite books of the Bible. I also recognize that Hebrews is one of the most difficult books to deal with. And specifically, chapter 9 can be quite mind-boggling.

The author of Hebrews, whoever he was actually was, did the intellectually and theologically staggering job of establishing continuity between the two testaments of the Bible.

He compared and contrasted the old (or first) covenant with the new (or second) covenant, examining the Levitical priesthood and its sacrificial system, with Christ as the high priest whose singular sacrifice ended all sacrifices.

The old sacrificial system began on Mount Sinai. Moses sprinkled the sacrificial blood of bulls and goats on both the people and the tabernacle. He was consecrating them, and the sacrificial implements, so that everyone could participate in the worship of Yahweh.

In the new covenantal system, blood is also used to purify. Yet, the heavenly tabernacle could not be cleansed with the blood of animals. It required a better and superior sacrifice. (Hebrews 9:23)

The Sacrifice of Christ, by Elizabeth Wang, 2002

That sacrifice is Jesus. He was both the high priest officiating the ritual, and the actual sacrificial offering. It is the life of Jesus, given in self-sacrificial death, which enables worshipers to come to God without any obstruction whatsoever.

Jesus does not have to keep offering himself. It was a one and done affair. One sacrifice on behalf of everyone. Once for all.

This is, of course, a distinctively Christian view and approach to the problem of guilt, shame, disobedience, and death. It has been a very compelling view for millions of people over the past two millennia.

In whatever way one seeks to understand and make sense of the author’s line of reasoning concerning a Christian approach to sacrifice and dealing with sin, what is apparent to me is that the author talked of a reality that we do not presently see.

The author of Hebrews was lifting up something important that he wanted us to notice. He was pointing out the reality of spiritual forces that have the power to both destroy and give life.

The earthly objects that we can see, touch, feel, hear, and smell are mere representations or shadows of heavenly things.

Many people, if not most people, today would say that invisible things such as our ideas and philosophies of religion are mere mental ways of understanding the objective reality in front of us that we can use our five senses to detect.

But the author of Hebrews insists – and I believe rightly so – that it’s the other way around. Everything we are presently experiencing with our objective senses is a projection of the ultimate invisible reality.

In other words, this entire world will pass away, because it is but a shadow in the history of eternity. The invisible God is the real deal. The heavenly sanctuary is reality. Love is the permanent operating system of eternity, and not your 401(k) or the next political election.

Jesus the Christ has offered himself once for all time, and for all sins. And he did it because the triune God – Father, Son, and Spirit – is a community of unitive love. That is, God is Love. So therefore, God can only do that which is love.

The end of time is not yet here. This present world with all of its inconsistent ways of doing both good and bad is still with us. But Jesus will come again.

The sin issue has been dealt with, once and for all. Christ did that. Jesus will return in order to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

If we must wait, let us do it patiently, with all of the faith and endurance it requires. Yet, this is not a passive waiting. We are to be busy proclaiming the good news of God’s invisible realm with both words and sacraments – with the signs and shadows and representations we have that point to the reality of God.

Everything visible and tangible on this earth is mirroring a greater, better, and superior reality which we cannot see with our eyes or touch with our hands.

Christianity is unabashed that all things point to Christ, who is the first and the last, the alpha and omega, the be all and end all of everything.

Come, Lord Jesus, Son of God, Son of Humanity. We long for you to return in glory and set us and this entire sinful world aright with your divine justice.

Be our guest, Lord Jesus, our Savior and Friend. We receive in faith your salvation. We trust that both the physical food and spiritual food you give will sustain us for our work and worship in this world.

May it be so, to the glory of God, and through the enablement of the Holy Spirit. You are one God – Father, Son, and Spirit – in one holy community of Love, now and forevermore. Amen.

Face Reality (Numbers 20:22-29)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Aaron’s Death, by David Roberts, 1842

The whole community of Israel left Kadesh and arrived at Mount Hor. There, on the border of the land of Edom, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “The time has come for Aaron to join his ancestors in death. He will not enter the land I am giving the people of Israel, because the two of you rebelled against my instructions concerning the water at Meribah. Now take Aaron and his son Eleazar up Mount Hor. There you will remove Aaron’s priestly garments and put them on Eleazar, his son. Aaron will die there and join his ancestors.”

So Moses did as the Lord commanded. The three of them went up Mount Hor together as the whole community watched. At the summit, Moses removed the priestly garments from Aaron and put them on Eleazar, Aaron’s son. Then Aaron died there on top of the mountain, and Moses and Eleazar went back down. When the people realized that Aaron had died, all Israel mourned for him thirty days. (New Living Translation)

There is a tendency for us “enlightened” humans to believe that we are far more advanced than our ancestors – who did not know all that we very smart people today know.

Such a mental stance only demonstrates that perhaps we are getting more stupid as the centuries and the millennia wear on.

Despite all of our accumulated knowledge and research, and incredible technical advances, we have (in my humble opinion) strayed rather far from a wise understanding of anthropology and theology. In other words, many people in this contemporary world have little to no idea about who they are, why they are here, and what to do when life and death happens.

The death of Aaron the priest happened over 3,500 years ago. Yet, here I am, referencing it. Why? Because there is meaning to it. The ancients have a great deal to teach us, that is, if we have the spiritual and emotional ears to hear, and eyes to see. Notice just some of the lessons they continue to teach us…

The Need to Accept Death

Just as we have all been born into this world, we shall all die someday. If we are such an enlightened people, it would seem to me that we all might have highly developed coping skills, strategies, and ways of honoring and accepting the inevitable death of another – not to mention having adequately prepared for our own demise.

And yet, we go on, day after day, as if we will live forever. Then, when someone we care about dies, it’s as if we cannot believe it has happened. But there is only one sure event in this life, and that is death. It is inexorably coming, whether we like it, or not.

It also seems to me that a great deal of contemporary religious piety is shallow, and does not plumb the depths of real spiritual substance. The irony of it, for many, is that they long for heaven, but ignore death. This is nothing but the denial of reality. Our very real lives here and now must be contended with, including the inevitable death to come.

Reality is the one substantial door that must be acknowledged, experienced with all of our senses and emotions, and passed through – not denied. Only through complete acceptance of this world can the greater reality of the world to come be truly known.

Fantasy and endless gospel songs about heaven can only lead us astray. We picture a future of our own imaginations, which deludes and dulls us of how to actually pass from one dimension to another.

Death was a daily reality amongst the Israelites in their forty years of desert wandering. They understood that each individual passing was inextricably connected to the whole of the community.

John Donne was an Anglican priest and poet in seventeenth century England. He was insistent that all humanity is connected, that whatever happens to one of us, happens to all of us. I take some liberties in contemporizing his Old English language written in 1627:

“No one is an island, entirely independent. Every person is a piece of the continent, a part of the main body of land. If a clod of dirt happens to be washed away by the sea, the whole land mass is the less, just as if an entire peninsula fell off into the water. Whether a friend dies, or anyone in the world dies, it diminishes me because I am involved in the whole of humanity. Therefore, never question to know for whom the bell of death tolls; it tolls for you.”

John Donne (1572-1631)

The Need for Bereavement

A story is told of an old Sufi mystic who visited a sheikh in Baghdad. He found the sheikh gazing into a bowl filled with water. So, he inquired about this odd practice. The sheikh replied that he was watching the moon in the basin. To which the Sufi mystic cried out:

“Unless you have a boil on the back of your neck, lift up your head and look at the sky! There you will see the moon as it is, and not in this basin. Why are you leaning over basins, when all you are really doing is depriving yourself of what you are really looking for?”

Sufi Master, 13th century

As a Pastor and Chaplain who engages in a lot of grief support for those who have lost loved ones to death, and who has dealt with hundreds of people with significant emotional issues, I can say that a lot of people’s grief goes unattended. A good many people go looking for comfort, all by themselves, in staring into a bowl of water.

Death is real. And when someone close to us dies, it hurts like hell. It’s as if somebody came along and pulled the rug out from underneath us. We are flat on our backs and unable to get up.

The only way we can get back up is with the help of others. When Aaron died, the entire community mourned for a full month. Perhaps nothing speaks more to the modern delusion of death and grief than of taking a day or two off work, then expecting to return as if nothing ever happened. No wonder so many people end up in significant depression and anxiety.

The Need for God

Ignoring God is what got the Israelites in their predicament of desert wandering in the first place. And it is also what got both Aaron and Moses a refusal by the Lord to enter the Promised Land.

God isn’t some genie in a bottle that we can control, or a divine Santa to receive presents from. Like death, God is a reality that must be contended with. To go your own way, and decide which commands and instructions you’d like to keep, and which one’s you’ll discard, will not end well – not to mention simply stating that there is no God at all.

Humans are creatures, formed by their Creator. Obedience to God is vital, not optional, because the Lord’s presence is much like the unseen and constant force of gravity. You ignore it at your own peril.

Although we have a lot of freedom in how we can live our lives, and the choices we can make, there yet remains a basic way of existence for everyone. And that way is meant for good, not evil; it has its foundation in the character of God. The Lord is pure love, justice, righteousness, and goodness.

Therefore, as people in God’s image and likeness, we too, are to live in a way that is just, right, good, and loving. To not live in this way would be like walking off the roof of your house because you don’t believe in gravity – then blaming God for your broken body (and soul).

The Need for Ritual in Transition

Israel was transitioning from desert wandering to entering the Promised Land. They were also transitioning leadership from Aaron to Eleazar. And it was all acknowledged with rituals to help people make those transitions.

The community did not simply get an email from Moses informing them of a new priest and welcoming Eleazar to the company. There was an extended time of mourning the loss of Aaron, and a meaningful ritual that demonstrated the change of leaders.

Transitions can be hard. But with every change there is a transition time that must be faced and walked through. Rituals can help us with that. If we ignore this reality, we will find ourselves unable to navigate changes that we personally never asked for. 

The following are some things that I have found helpful in handling change and dealing with the transition from one reality to another:

  1. Maintain personal spiritual rituals. If the change is one that I did not choose, then having regular times of silence and solitude, prayer and bible reading, fasting and journaling help me make sense of what is happening and put it in proper perspective.
  2. Maintain personal health rituals. Freaking out by burning the candles at both ends, forgetting to eat sensibly, and ignoring exercise only exacerbates the change and makes the transition time unbearable.  Instead, take the time necessary to remain healthy through proper sleep, nutrition, and activity.
  3. Grieve and ritualize your losses. Lament, I would argue, is a spiritual practice – a necessary one. It is also biblical.  To focus on next steps without acknowledging transition is to set oneself up for later emotional difficulty and/or trauma. Unpack the heart and allow yourself to feel the loss.
  4. Be patient. Rituals cannot be hurried. The Lord cares more about our spiritual growth and character development than avoiding painful transitions. Let God teach you all that you need to learn.

Institutions and faith communities are sometimes notorious for being inflexible and allergic to change. But, after all, they are made up of real flesh and blood people. To struggle with change is to be human.

Let’s first help ourselves to know how to cope with needed transitions so that we can do the important work of transitioning others from one spiritual place to another. 

It’s high time for us to face the reality that the ancients have much to teach us – including ancient literature such as the Bible.

Broken and Poured Out (Matthew 26:6-13)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper. While he was there, a woman came to him. She had an alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. She poured the perfume on Jesus’ head while he was eating.

The followers saw the woman do this and were upset at her. They said, “Why waste that perfume? It could be sold for a lot of money, and the money could be given to those who are poor.”

But Jesus knew what happened. He said, “Why are you bothering this woman? She did a very good thing for me. You will always have the poor with you. But you will not always have me. This woman poured perfume on my body. She did this to prepare me for burial after I die. The Good News will be told to people all over the world. And I can assure you that everywhere the Good News is told, the story of what this woman did will also be told, and people will remember her.” (Easy-to-Read Version)

It seems that much of the world’s default response to events right in front of their eyes is to be judgmental, binary, and negative – as if everything is a simple sum of right and wrong, good and bad – and all adjudicated by our perceptions and perspectives on it.

The disciples reflexively moralized the actions of the woman and her jar of expensive perfume. What a waste, they believed. They thought they knew better and could do better.

But there was more going on in today’s Gospel lesson than what meets the eye. In the Apostle John’s account, the woman in the story is identified as Mary, a woman with a sordid background who had her life transformed through meeting Jesus. (John 12:1-11)

Near the end of Christ’s life, as he was about to enter Jerusalem and be arrested, tried, tortured, and killed, this woman, Mary, is aware of what is happening when others are not, even the disciples of Jesus. Her own brokenness cracked open to her the true reality of life.

The surface event itself is a touching and tender moment in history. This woman, whom everyone knew was a damaged person, took a high-end perfume and broke the entire thing open. She then proceeded to anoint Christ’s feet with it. You can imagine the aroma which filled the entire house with expensive perfume for all to smell. 

The woman, Mary, was affirmed by Jesus for seeing the situation as a possibility and opportunity of loving her Lord. Mary alone had the vision amongst all the disciples, and the accompanying action, to enter through the door of risk in order to connect intimately and lovingly with Jesus.

Mary’s love, radiating outward for all to see, reflected the genuine love of God for the world – a love so great that Jesus would soon experience death and burial because of that love for humanity.

The disciples were grumping and cursing about the right way to do things; whereas Jesus blessed the woman with no reference whatsoever to morality or ethics. Mary had no concern for playing the numbers game and counting money, but instead focused on the ultimate value before her.

Giving what she had to Jesus, Mary demonstrated the path of true discipleship. She helps open our eyes to the realities which are right in front of us:

  • The broken jar of perfume shows us her brokenness and our need to be broken. (Matthew 5:3-4)
  • An extraordinary and extravagant amount of perfume was used, picturing her overflowing love for Jesus. (John 20:1-18)
  • The perfume was poured on the head of Jesus, and she herself used her hair as the application (according to John); hair is a rich cultural symbol for submission and respect. (1 Corinthians 11:14)
  • The perfume directs us to the death of Jesus. (John 19:38-42)
  • The perfume highlights for us the aroma of Christ to the world. (2 Corinthians 2:15-17)
  • There is more to the disciples’ response than mere words about perfume; the Apostle John specifically names Judas as questioning this action – the one who is not actually concerned for the poor. (Matthew 26:15)
  • The woman and the disciples (specifically, Judas and Mary) serve as spiritual contrasts: Mary opens herself to the sweet aroma of Christ; Judas just plain stinks.
  • The perfume presents a powerful picture of the upcoming death of Christ, for those with eyes to see; he was broken and poured out for our salvation. (Luke 23:26-27:12)

Christianity was never meant to be a surface religion which only runs skin deep. The follower of Christ is meant to be transformed, inside and out, so that there is genuine healing, spiritual wellness, and authentic concern for the poor and needy. 

Keeping up appearances is what the Judas’s of this world do. However, the Mary’s among us dramatically point to Jesus with their tears, their humility, their openness, and their love.

In this contemporary environment of fragmented human ecology, our first step toward wholeness and integrity begins with a posture of giving everything we have – body, soul, and spirit – to the Lord Jesus. In receiving the love of God, we can then freely give that love to a world locked in the shackles of tunnel vision, judgmentalism, and incessant moralizing.

To take the risk of breaking ourselves open and becoming vulnerable, we find love. In finding love, there we see intimacy. And where there is intimacy, there is the relational connection which transforms the dark and the negative to possibility and light.

Loving Lord Jesus, my Savior, and my friend, you have gone before us and pioneered deliverance from an empty way of life and into a life of grace and gratitude. May I, and all of your followers, emulate the path of Mary and realize the true freedom which comes from emptying oneself out for you. Amen.

Forsaken (Jeremiah 2:4-13)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Hear the word of the Lord, you descendants of Jacob,
    all you clans of Israel.

This is what the Lord says:

“What fault did your ancestors find in me,
    that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols
    and became worthless themselves.
They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord,
    who brought us up out of Egypt
and led us through the barren wilderness,
    through a land of deserts and ravines,
a land of drought and utter darkness,
    a land where no one travels and no one lives?’
I brought you into a fertile land
    to eat its fruit and rich produce.
But you came and defiled my land
    and made my inheritance detestable.
The priests did not ask,
    ‘Where is the Lord?’
Those who deal with the law did not know me;
    the leaders rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal,
    following worthless idols.

“Therefore I bring charges against you again,”
declares the Lord.
    “And I will bring charges against your children’s children.
Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and look,
    send to Kedar and observe closely;
    see if there has ever been anything like this:
Has a nation ever changed its gods?
    (Yet they are not gods at all.)
But my people have exchanged their glorious God
    for worthless idols.
Be appalled at this, you heavens,
    and shudder with great horror,”
declares the Lord.
“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
    the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
    broken cisterns that cannot hold water. (New International Version)

We are all wounded lovers. Keeping a steadfast commitment to someone who’s fickle, and sometimes spurns our love, is a universal feeling of deep hurt. And that is precisely how God felt about the ancient Israelites.

The feel of today’s Old Testament lesson is like being in a divorce court – God lamenting the distance which evolved between divinity and humanity. It happened because Israel went after other lovers, and practiced infidelity in their relationship with the Lord.

Since a person tends to take on the character of the god they follow, Israel had become a mess of a people. Because the gods they turned to were nothing but worthless idols. The Israelites became empty and vacuous, drained of all the robust spiritual character within their nation.

The object of love determines the quality of love.

To lose God is to lose our way of being in the world.

And the reason we lose God is that we stop telling our stories of grace, love, and forgiveness. New life, over time, becomes old hat. We end up forgetting where we came from, and so, discover that we don’t really know where we’re going.

We suffer from a severe case of spiritual amnesia.

God is who God is; I Am who I Am – and not as we may think God might be. The Lord is tied to justice and righteousness; and so, is concerned for both the individual and the community. Private life and public life each need to be characterized by integrity, service, and meeting one another’s needs.

Public institutions, corporate businesses, and even faith communities all collapse without the guiding compass of civic duty, social justice, and community service. Leaders everywhere have forgotten that power and authority is divinely given, not personally earned.

Whenever a people loses sight of their foundational stories and ethical points of reference, systemic evil arises to keep certain folks in power. And the rest of the people are coerced into serving those in authority. It’s a situation ripe for the judgment of God.

The Lord will take people to task for failing to remember who they are, where they came from, and thus, what they’re supposed to be doing.

Tragically, the Israelites swapped their God for other gods who are utterly unreliable and, frankly, not real. They lost touch with reality itself, not being able to distinguish between truth and error, and unable to discern what the good life actually is.

We must take God on God’s own terms. We are people created in the image of God, not people who create a god in the image they want. We can no more do that than a cake can claim self-existence apart from the baker.

Heaven and earth are witnesses to the folly of human forgetfulness – a lack of memory which forsakes commitment to the Divine. It’s the sort of madness that can result from a lack of sleep or water.

In such a condition, we need living water. We cannot conjure it up. There’s no way to be our own source of life, any more than a child can birth itself without any parents. Life must be given. Life is a gift.

The gift has been given. The real issue is whether we will receive it, open it, and use it.

There are many questions which cry out for us to answer:

  • Will the ego get in the way of living well?
  • Will a false sense of self delude us into believing we are the architects of our own reality?
  • Will we colonize others for what they can do for us, rather than seeking to uphold the common good of all persons?
  • What is our relationship to power and authority?
  • What are we doing with the influence we have?
  • What fault have you found with God?
  • When are we going to renew our vows to God?
  • Who are you?
  • What are you doing?
  • Where are you going?
  • Why are you here?
  • How, then, shall we live?

Sovereign God of all, I will try this day to live a simple, sincere and serene life, repelling every thought of discontent, anxiety, discouragement, impurity, and self-seeking; cultivating cheerfulness, magnanimity, charity, and the habit of holy silence; exercising economy in expenditure, generosity in giving, carefulness in conversation, diligence in appointed service, fidelity to every trust, and a childlike faith.

I will try to be faithful in those habits of prayer, work, study, physical exercise, eating, and sleep which I believe the Holy Spirit has shown me to be right. And as I cannot in my own strength do this, nor even with a hope of success attempt it, I look to you, O Lord God my Father, in Jesus my Savior, and ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Amen.