How Christ Bends the Space-Time Continuum
Knowing Jesus involves a space-time continuum. Consider: When someone comes to "see" Christ, all three members of the trinity are involved; moreover, all three (known) dimensions of time coalesce. As Peter, one of Christ’s disciples, wrote re: knowing Christ— God the Father has his eye on each of you, and has determined by the work of the Spirit to keep you obedient through the sacrifice of Jesus. May everything good from God be yours! (1 Peter 1:1-2, The Message, emphasis mine)
Salvation, by its very nature, is a miraculous melding of community and physics. Somehow God the Father, gifted with endless foresight, works out his plans in partnership with the active, transformative Spirit. Their purposes have been decisively set in motion by the hands and feet of Jesus.
Inexhaustible prescience comes to bear on a pinpoint moment. The huge weight of the infinite past (the Father's knowledge) leans down on the present with enough force to send our souls hurtling into the future, careening toward heights too thin for time.
Salvation is a cosmically epic moment.
But not a moment only, also an action—an act that flares to life at a given instant and blazes, paradoxically uniting all of time, and all of God’s person with mine. Kindled in one soul by three persons, salvation smolders under eternity’s roofless sky.
Births into Christ are heaven’s bonfires.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Miraculous Liaison
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6 comments:
Arie . . . you can find my Xanga at http://www.xanga.com/seethering . . . and fairly soon, I'll be regularly publishing a blog. Ought to be more directed and themed than my Deep Remembrance via Xanga. As you've cracked the KC Star and sundry online publications, I'll make sure you know when my ButterflyTheory blog starts kicking day-to-day.
//David
Perhaps that is what Keirkegaard means by living in the face of eternity? Needless to say, describing it is certainly a raid on the articulate (think: Four Quartets, "time before and time after.") In fact, it is funny that you mention it I have been thinking about these very things, particularly as related to time. It has been a pet project ever since a dear friend texted me concerning how the timeless can enter time.
Thanks, David. I'll await the arrival of ButterflyTheory with interest.
Funny that you mention the KC Star. It might be more accurate to say that they "cracked" me. And a sharp *crack!* it was. I applied for a job there several years ago, and my application obviously got lost in a pile of paperwork, since I never heard back. No doubt they bitterly regret their carelessness now. ;)
"...a raid on the articulate"
I like that. Eternity makes us all stammer. You may be right about Kierkegaard, but I haven't read him extensively. My friend Tim would be the one to ask...
I wanted to add a thought on the original post:
Rudolph Otto wrote,
"One cannot of one’s self enter upon faith… faith, in the deepest sense of the word, cannot be enjoined, it can only be 'kindled,' that is, 'given.'"
This is why I find salvation "flaring up" to be a meaningful picture.
Aha! The Rudolph Otto quote helped me to understand your thought at the end of the post about births into Christ being "heaven's bonfires". Now I get the metaphor! Before reading the quote I was thinking, "Man, people coming to Christ are like heaven's bonfires, that's such a potent picture but hmmm... what does he mean exactly?" Thanks for adding extra illumination for your slower readers (meaning me).
I'm picturing God blowing life-kindling air on the little wooden tepee of sticks that constitutes our souls and setting us ablaze with the fire of His salvation! He is the creator and fanner of the flame.
Thanks for your post.
LEV
"I'm picturing God blowing life-kindling air on the little wooden tepee of sticks ..."
I like the concrete metaphor there. I can picture the flame coming to life.
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