Author: James

For the past two weeks I have been contemplating the Holy Spirit, as is my want these days. This led me to Paul, for whom the Spirit was the driver…..from which a startling fact jumped out of the bushes and blocked my path of thought. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, amplified a few years later by his letter to the Romans, was the first written explanation of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Messiah, the Christ. Mark’s gospel, the first of the four included in the canon, was written later.

Now, it is fair to assume that Mark knew Paul, and further, that Mark knew both Paul and Peter while they were in a Roman prison. Both Mark and Peter would have had access to Paul’s letter to the Romans. Suddenly I formed this picture of Peter discussing with Mark, and maybe Paul as well, the pressing need to get the facts written down to support the new religious faith Paul had launched throughout the empire with his travels and his elegant writing. So, how does this insight affect one’s reading of Mark?

Well, first off let’s consider how Mark begins his discussion of Jesus’ ministry. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mk. 1:15). What does this mean? The only references in the OT are to worldly kingdoms (God’s kingdom of Israel, 1 Chr. 17:14; 28:5) and God’s formation of a kingdom that will endure forever, Dan. 2:44). Mark gives no explanation, but reports seven verses later that in the Capernaum synagogue the people were amazed at his teaching because he taught as one with authority, not as a teacher of the law (Mk. 1: 22). Again, Mark offers no explanation of such teaching, but instead he reports Jesus’ authority over a demon who is tormenting a member of the synagogue (Mk. 1:23-27). The salient event was not the teaching but the demonstration of Jesus’ authority.

The ensuing events early in Mark’s gospel demonstrate Jesus’ power of healing, beginning with Peter’s mother-in-law, extending then to all the sick and demon possessed people of Capernaum and Galilee (Mk. 1: 29-39). Next, Jesus demonstrates his power to heal leprosy (Mk. 1:40-42). The emphasis is first and foremost to establish the authority of Jesus by eye witness examples of the power he possessed to heal and cleanse human sickness. In fact, this behavior of Jesus created such an outpouring among the populace, Jesus had to keep moving from town to town (Mk. 1: 35-38).

Somehow, for me, Peter’s thinking comes into perspective. Peter knows that Paul only knew the risen Christ crucified, and then only in spiritual form. Paul had lots of critics and detractors as he aggressively advocated his calling. Peter knew Jesus of Nazareth and all the wondrously marvelous work he did that led to his torture and death. I can see him admonishing Mark, “We have to get these facts written down. Don’t embellish or interpret such that you can be criticized. No one can dispute what actually happened. First, I remember how he established the credibility of his teaching by demonstrating his power over all manner of sickness. He cured everyone of their ills, and it darned near overwhelmed him. Here’s what happened….”

So, here we have it. Thank you, Mark.

Last week I suggested that God communicates God’s will with us through God’s Holy Spirit, and thus we might question how much of God’s Spirit we can handle or how much we should handle as God’s people? Well, perhaps the greatest mind and the most notable Christian apologist of the 20th Century, C.S. Lewis, considered every conceivable understanding of humanity, including wisdom, reason, morality, sensibility and virtue….and ended up with Christ.¹ And having done so, I am not sure he ever figured out what that meant for him or us. But on June 8, 1941, as the bombing of Britain by the Germans intensified, Lewis gave his most famous sermon to a packed house at the twelfth century Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Oxford. ² Its title was “The Weight of Glory,” an obvious reference to St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians wherein he wrote, “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.” (2 Cor. 4:17).

For Paul, as for Peter, the preparation was to suffer in this life (see Ro. 8: 18; 1 Pet 1: 6-7). The resurrected Christ even commented that Paul would suffer much for the sake of His name (Acts 9: 13-16). For Lewis, though, suffering was not paramount. What Lewis reasoned was that we should try to please God as a child tries to please its father, so that when we stand before God, we find that God is pleased with us, God accepts us, and we are welcomed into the heart of things. And Christ has shown us the way, which is to love our neighbor, taking our neighbor’s burden on our own backs to enable us both to follow our Captain into the Glory of God (Mk. 12:31).

Of course, C.S. Lewis was sermonizing. His point was that the promise of eternal Glory in the embrace of God is so immeasurably enormous, why on earth would any sane mortal ignore the pathway toward that reward? Yet, the question remains, how and how much do we take on our neighbor’s burden? And how, may I ask, are we able to do so joyously, humbly, and without judgment? Jesus came so that we would have life and have it abundantly (Jn. 10:10). May I suggest that perhaps we are back to square one, beckoning God to grant us that portion of the Holy Spirit that we can handle; and praying that God will grant us a greater portion from time to time to nudge us along God’s path just as a parent teaches a child. Gradually, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we may be able to lose our life to save it (Mk. 8: 35). That’s my own hope, anyway.

1. Lewis published The Pilgrim’s Regress in 1933, an allegorical search for God. The book is available with annotations on Amazon.
2. This sermon can be found currently in a paperback book The Weight of Glory, along with other addresses of Lewis. I also have a printed copy that I can make available to anyone interested.

Seems to me Christian leaders created a lot of trouble in their political decision ( 5th Century) to define God as three persons in one, a Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost comprising one triune God. Now, that is a complex notion, very difficult if not impossible to grasp in any manner meaningful to life. Yes, we have testimony about the Son from witnesses to his life, and we have testimony about God from the Son and from witnesses and prophets in the saga of Israel recorded in our Old Testament. But I never really understood the Holy Ghost, not even after they started calling it the Holy Spirit, though that change helped.

As it turns out, scripture may be really helpful if we go back far enough. In the early days God spoke directly with Noah (Gen. 6:13) and Abraham (Gen. 17: 1-21). God appeared in human form to Abraham and Sarah (Gen. 18: 1-15), and God wrestled with Jacob (Gen. 32:24). God interacted directly with humans until the Exodus. God’s direct speech and commands to Moses were effective with him, but when God spoke directly to the people of Israel, God’s action scared them nearly to death. (Ex. 20: 18-19).

So, thereafter, God began interacting with humans by providing measures of his Holy Spirit to reside in the mortal being, thus enriching the power of the mortal being. God’s first move in this direction was to reduce the measure of God’s Spirit in Moses, spreading portions of God’s Spirit from Moses to the seventy elders of Israel in the desert (Num. 11: 16-17). God also provided the tabernacle’s artisans with God’s “divine spirit” to enable them to design and build to God’s specifications (Ex. 31; 2-4). And God provided the prophets with various measures of God’s Holy Spirit. When Elijah was about to be taken into heaven by the whirlwind, he asked his successor, Elisha, what he might do for him before he was taken. Elisha asked to “inherit a double share of your spirit.” Elijah responded that this was a difficult request, but “if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not , it will not.” (2 Kgs. 2:9-10) Measures of the Holy Spirit are granted only by God.

Jesus promised the disciples that God would send them the Holy Spirit to reside in them forever (Jn. 14: 15-17). I think God communicates with you and me by sending a measure of God’s Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us. The real question may be, how large a measure of the Holy Spirit can each of us handle before the weight of glory is too much for us cracked vessels to bear? Jesus was filled to the brim with the Holy Spirit, and went to the cross obedient to the will of God. Moses bore a huge burden, as did all the prophets and most of the disciples and apostles. Perhaps our prayer should be, “God grant me the measure of your Spirit that I can bear.” Or perhaps, “God strengthen my weak character to enable me to accept and bear with gladness a greater measure of your Holy Spirit.” (See Ro. 5: 3-5).

The Gospel of Mark has always left me flat. It is brief, uninviting and less than fully informative. Matthew and Luke took this brief account and made grand narratives. Two weeks ago I began reading Mark and thinking about the man who wrote it. Perhaps he was the John Mark of Acts 12:12 or Peter’s son (1 Pet.5:13). His agenda seems to have been to record Peter’s recollections of the salient aspects of Jesus’ ministry. There is no fluff or added color to the narrative. I began forming an image of Jack Webb as Sergeant Joe Friday in Dragnet, “Just the facts, ma’am.” I could see Peter in the Roman prison saying, “No Mark, forget all that. Just get down the facts of what happened.”

For example, Mark begins with Jesus’ baptism and has Jesus whisked into the wilderness by verse twelve. Matthew prepares us for this moment with three chapters of 65 verses. Luke outdoes Matthew with three chapters and 170 verses. But for Mark, all the church needs to know is that Jesus was baptized by John, blessed by God the Father, driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit for forty days in the company of wild beasts and beset by Satan’s temptations while being waited on by angels. Then Jesus is off gathering his first four disciples, preaching scripture with authority, casting out demons and curing the ill, proclaiming the kingdom of God is near, so repent and believe in the good news. All this occurs in the first 34 verses of the first chapter.

In the old Dragnet television show that ran weekly in the 1950’s, witnesses would recount all manner of information, local color and gossip, while Sergeant Friday listened politely with his notepad and pencil, invariably to interrupt with “Just the facts, ma’am.” to close off the extraneous. Mark is not concerned with accuracy in tying Jesus to OT scripture. His opening verses 1-3 refer to Isaiah, but actually combine Malachi and Isaiah. His explanations of Jewish law, scripture and custom are questionable. These inaccuracies expose for me the writer’s real mission which I am thinking was to reveal the essential Jesus to the gentiles. I am finding a new an unexpected appreciation for this earliest gospel from the recollections of Christ’s first chosen apostle.

For example, I have always looked somewhat askance at the story of Jesus’ temptations by Satan in the desert wilderness as recorded in Matthew and Luke (Mt. 4:1-11; Lk. 4:1-13). There were no witnesses, nor does it seem likely that Jesus told this story as his own recollection. However, this rite of passage story does reflect a rich tradition in Hebrew scripture and literary narratives. Mark is uninterested except to note that Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness. The Son of God was impervious to temptation and mortal danger as he welcomed solitude and prayer in preparation for his ministry. Nothing heroic as suggested by Matthew and Luke.

I also find this introduction refreshing because it clearly demonstrates that Mark is reporting what Peter knew as Peter remembered events. Peter had not been introduced to Jesus until after his baptism and time in the wilderness. The earliest Peter would have known about Jesus was from his brother, Andrew, who met Jesus at the Jordan (Jn. 1:37-42). What Peter remembers most clearly is when Jesus came by his fishing boat and that of the Zebedees, calling for him, his brother Andrew, James and John, to follow him. (Mk. 1: 16-20).

Now, the commentators all take great pains to explain that we don’t know who Mark was, but that Peter was likely his principal source of information. What if Peter was his entire source? What if the Gospel of Mark is simply Peter’s witness transcribed by Mark? Just the facts, ma’am. Sorta refreshing, actually. And to some real degree, thrilling. Perhaps we should try reading Mark, imagining that we are listening to Peter tell us about the real Jesus Messiah he knew. Peter was plain spoken (Acts 2:22-25,32; 2Pet. 1:16). Might be a spell binding one act play.

Picking up where we left off last week, it seems to me that the tiny part of God’s Spirit that is implanted by God into each human is an eternal something because it is of God from God. I have been thinking quite a lot about this something we call spirit. In our culture the term “spirit” connotes a substantive quality because it is always modified by an adjective to give its substance relevance, such as kindred, competitive, broken, poor, generous, evil. Even the Apostle John warned of testing the spirits to see if they are from God, or possibly of the antichrist (1Jn. 4:1-6). We muddy the water further with our English definitions of soul and spirit as synonyms (see OED). Quickly we get off the track and become confused.

Spirit, naked of adjectival bias, is purely ethereal like the wind or a breath. It has no density, no mass, no chemistry, no properties of velocity or inertia. However, its presence can be sensed by humans in the nervous system. It is utterly mysterious and can be defined only by what it is not. The Greeks termed it πνευμα (pneuma). The term soul, on the other hand, is nakedly substantive without adjectival bias. And while the English language defines soul as immortal like spirit, the Greeks knew the soul as the inner self of mortal life. They called it ψυχὴ (psyche). All this is relevant only because the New Testament (except Matthew) was written in Greek. The letter to the Hebrews reveals the distinction clearly, “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit…” [ psyche from pneuma in the Greek] (Heb. 4:12). Luke’s gospel records Jesus’ cry from the cross, “Father into your hands I commend my spirit.” [pneuma in the Greek] (Lk. 23: 46).

So, here is my take. This is for me. I am not preaching, but sharing with you where I am. The spirit is implanted in us by God at birth, perhaps through the spirit of the mother. I don’t know. The spirit is a blank presence except for a very basic code from God’s Holiness Code in Leviticus of what is right and wrong. The spirit is both a presence and a force during our mortal time here, but we can choose to listen and obey or disregard. The soul becomes the repository of all that each of us is in our inner self…our hearts if you will. The soul is naked before God. When our mortal time is at an end, the eternal spirit that is within us by God’s work becomes the force that carries the soul with it to God. So for me, my soul is my log book that my spirit will carry to God. Thank God that Jesus loves us, even me.

Last week I suggested, based on Scripture references, that God’s Spirit, a Holy Spirit, was in Jesus, creating our triune God, Son and Holy Spirit in one union. The question then arises, do you and I have a spirit, and if so, what is its nature? How do we think about it? Does Scripture help us?

In Genesis, God acknowledges that God’s spirit does abide in humankind, but God was displeased with the humankind creation, and vowed “‘ My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh…'” (Gen. 6:3). Commentators on this passage assert that “spirit” refers to the breath of life present in all animal life (see Gen. 7:15). The psalmist and prophets used the term ‘spirit’ to reference a human attitude or a state of mind that God alone was capable of strengthening (see Isa. 57:15-17; Ezek. 11:19; Ps. 34: 18; Ps. 51:10). Suppose that God’s breath of life is indeed a spirit, a tiny part of God’s Holy Spirit, that is provided to each human at birth to abide in the biological flesh created in the womb of woman.

The brightest and most articulate Christian apologist of the twentieth century, C.S. Lewis, certainly thought so. He recognized a moral law of nature imbuing in every human being the knowledge of right from wrong. This we know because we are humans and therefore have inside information. “And because of that,” he writes, “we know that men [and women] find themselves under a moral law, which they did not make, and cannot quite forget even when they try, and which they know they ought to obey.” (Mere Christianity, 23) He argued further that there must be somebody or some force behind this reality because it prevails in all human society everywhere for all time. Yet it is not physical matter that can be identified or quantified. And it is not a force that must be obeyed. It is simply there. In our time, George Lucas magically brought The Force to us in wide screen adventure.

There is something in each of us that cannot be explained by science. It is not biological. We can only describe it as spiritual, a force that affects our biology because it affects our brain, but does not emanate from the brain. We think it emanates from the heart, though there is no scientific evidence. Ezekiel had the vision that God would put a new spirit in God’s people, giving them a new heart (Ezek. 11:19). At Gethsemane Jesus made reference to a willing spirit in conflict with a weak flesh (Mt. 26: 41) which likely refers to that part of humanity that God’s spirit enters to direct us to overcome the lower more corrupt aspect of our human nature. (see Davies and Allison, Matthew, Vol. 3, 499). So if the spirit of God is in us…..some modicum of spirit from God that speaks to us of the “oughts” as C.S. Lewis opined, and provides us with an entry point or portal in our human existence for the Holy Spirit to enter, what would this awareness mean for you and me?

More of this next week.

I went too fast last week. Sorry. Let’s go back and spend two or three blogs on the who and what of Jesus because for me, getting this straight has a big impact on how I view myself. In John’s gospel, he describes Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman whose knowledge of God is derived solely from the Pentateuch. She thinks the difference between her and Jewish Jesus is where God is to be worshipped. Jesus tells her, “God is Spirit,” and is to be worshipped “in spirit and truth.” (Jn. 4: 24) The woman responds that she knows the Messiah is coming and will explain everything when he comes. Jesus then replies, “I am, the one who is speaking to you.” (Jn. 4:26)

What is quite significant for me, and maybe for you, is Jesus’ use of the two words, “I am,” to identify himself. All the English bibles I reference (NIV, NRSV, KJV and Roman Catholic) translate the statement with the predicate “he”, as “I am he”, thus identifying for the woman that Jesus is the Messiah she anticipates. But this predicate does not exist in the Greek. Jesus simply says ὲγώ εὶμι which translates “I am.” Use of the implied predicate narrows what Jesus actually said and meant. He did not just mean to identify himself as the Messiah, but more so to transcend that status of male humanity (he) to that of God which the woman would recognize as God’s identification of Godself to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” (Ex. 3: 14). Paraphrasing the Nicene Creed, “eternally begotten…true God from true God…of one being with the Father.”

Further, God describes Godself as Holy, instructs God’s people to be holy and informs them of the behavior holiness requires (Lev. 11:44-45 and 19: 1-35). If God is spirit as Jesus asserts, then God’s spirit is a Holy Spirit. Thus, the spirit in Jesus is the Holy Spirit. Now I wonder, what does all that have to do with me? Do I have a spirit? Is it holy? Can it become holy? Does that matter or is my behavior all that matters? More next week.

Last week I alluded to the long (300 year) discussion of just how mortal beings would describe, think of, and worship Jesus Messiah. After all, we have no means of describing God in the language of mortal humankind. As we began the New Year, I continued my reflection on Jesus Messiah.

Jesus made discerning his nature quite difficult, actually. The two synoptic evangelists, Matthew and Luke, agreed on the miraculous birth, but the disciple John in his gospel alerts us to Jesus’ divinity as his own conclusion and as witness to Jesus’ teaching. He begins his gospel in poetic reflection, laying down the theme. In the beginning, Genesis 1, was the Word (bear with me) of God who created our world. God said “let us make humankind” Gen. 1:26. For John, “He was in the beginning with God.” Jn. 1:2. John witnesses Jesus saying in argument with Jewish leaders, “‘Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.'”. Jn. 8:58. And further, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me…..This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life…” Jn. 6:39-40.

So, for John the apostle, the matter was pretty simple, if not utterly mysterious. “…the Word became flesh and lived among us…” Jn 1:14. If we read John’s gospel carefully (try Chapter 6 for starters), we find his realization in reflection that God in Jesus was Spirit, and Jesus’ teaching is that God makes the Spirit available to all humankind if we each will learn to know and accept it in our human existence. He taught that we can do so by listening to his teaching and accepting this learning in our hearts. In so doing the kingdom of God is present in us.

Okay. This is a lot of stuff for me to try to absorb, let alone convey. But as we start a New Year, perhaps we might think on the Kingdom of God as here and now with us if we will listen and learn. And it has been there since Adam, for God wills it. Only we seem yet to not get it.

Reflecting on the celebration of another Christmas Day, my thoughts linger on the opening stanza of William Chesterton Dix’s 19th Century lyrics to the 16th Century ballad “Greensleeves.” Indeed, what have we here? Both Luke and Matthew reported the testimony of Mary, Joseph and other witnesses, all of which expressed wonder at what they perceived to have occurred. For the disciple, John, the truth simply stated was that “the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Jn. 1:14)

Yet the question of this child’s very nature occupied the Christian intellectual communities, principally in Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople, for over 300 years until finally in 381 a political council in Constantinople settled on a Christian Creed, modifying the one agreed upon in Nicea 56 years earlier. The matter is settled. We recite the Creed. The church moves on. The narrative continues. Nothing to ponder. I wonder.

For 300 years after the death of Jesus Messiah an endless effort was made by religious intellectuals to deny the reality of what had occurred. Jesus was not real, but only an apparition (docetism). Jesus was not God incarnate, but was rather adopted by God at his baptism, like Moses, Abraham and other mortals (Adoptionism, Ebionism). Jesus of Nazareth was human until God entered into him and occupied his rational soul, making him less than human (Apollinarius). There were also the finer points of whether Jesus was two persons in one body (Nestorius) and whether Jesus was not eternally with the Father but created at some point in time to mediate between God and humankind (Arius).

What would the church be if any of these theologies, among others, had prevailed? What would our faith be if we had not listened and taken to heart the testimony of witnesses, concluding that God had come to be with us as humble human servant? Is our annual ritual sufficient to sustain our awe in reflection? I hope so. For in my mind the miracle of the child proceeds to the miracle of the resurrection.

This Christmas week I am thinking about angels. The amazing Christmas story is the work of angels communicating with humans to announce the arrival of God on earth as foreseen by the prophets centuries earlier. Angels first visit barren Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah to inform them of a child in the offing they are to name John. Then six months later the same angel visits Elizabeth’s cousin, Mary, a virgin betrothed to Joseph, to inform her that she too will bear a child created in her by the Holy Spirit. When Joseph discovers Mary is pregnant, an angel visits him in a dream to inform him that the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. The angel commands Joseph to accept Mary, welcome the son and name him Jesus (“Yahweh saves”). The angel arrives in the vicinity of Bethlehem at Jesus’ birth to announce to the shepherds in the fields that a savior has been born. This bit of awe is accompanied by whole slew of angels proclaiming Glory to God.

The birth process is reported only in Matthew and Luke, and each writer has a different agenda. Matthew focuses on Joseph, wise men visiting from the east, and the cruelty of Herod. Luke’s focus is on Zechariah, Elizabeth and Mary. Yet both agree that these events were the work of God through God’s Holy Spirit taking the form of an angel. Luke names the angel as Gabriel, perhaps in reference to the prophet Daniel’s experience, or perhaps at some point during his early research he learns that Zechariah told his family the angel announced himself as Gabriel. Matthew does not name the angels in his story.

So what are we to make of these angels appearing on the scene? Are they simply literary devices; ie., fictional characters created to advance the narrative? Prominent commentaries on Matthew and Luke immerse their discussion in biblical tradition of divine revelation in dreams. Angels arrive to make announcements and give direction. The birth story, they argue, had to be consistent with the resurrection story. The early church needed to understand God’s mission for Jesus from the very beginning. Without the resurrection we would not be singing “Angels We Have Heard on High.” With the resurrection, we can deduce that God was active from the very beginning, as foreseen in Isaiah’s prophesy. If this is really God’s story with Jesus as God’s actor, then Luke’s and Matthew’s accounts are effective storytelling consistent with biblical tradition.

But suppose we look at things differently. Luke set out to write the “truth” of what had occurred. (Lk 1:4). It seems improbable that he would then immediately launch into a literary fabrication consistent with biblical tradition. His considerable reporting of the women in Jesus’ life and ministry would indicate that his research included interaction with Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha, and perhaps even Elizabeth or her family. Luke was present in Jerusalem and with disciples on the road with Paul within 20 years of Jesus’ death. If the women would have interacted with anyone other than John, it would logically be Luke. Matthew was a publican tax collector in Galilee near Capernaum and not far from Nazareth. He would have had access to Joseph and Jesus’ brothers. He was a contemporary of Jesus and John the Baptist, but he would have had oral testimony of older Jewish citizens of Herod’s behavior 30 years previous at the time of Jesus’ birth. Even though Matthew’s notes in Aramaic were later crafted into Greek by some unknown scribe, and even though Luke enjoyed his literary skills to the point of hyperbole and style, the events they each recorded smack of real testimony by real participants and witnesses.

My take is that the Holy Spirit did indeed come in the form of angels to inform and instruct the participants in what God was doing with them and the world they inhabited. From my point of view, this story recounts what occurred here on earth 2,000 some years ago. Knowing this, I find the resurrection a slam dunk obvious truth. Not vice versa.

Tonight, Dec 21, 2020, I watched the huge “star” in the southwestern sky just 20 degrees above the horizon here in the clear southern California desert, realizing in awe what the wise men saw, looking southwest from their eastern home toward Israel and Bethlehem.