A few gentle thoughts re: heaven/the universe

I've had an image that is somewhat gentle and sweet that I want to share with you as yet another way of understanding the explanations I've given you about what heaven's like. This also ties in with my recent discussion of genuine awe being reserved for God, but legitimate awe can also include marveling at the natural wonders, such as earth, space, the universe, of God's creation.



God created the universe, and it is exactly as it appears. The more that humans develop telescopes and other scientific equipment, the more can be seen about the universe, marveled at and measured, studied and better understood. I have noticed that those who study the universe as a profession tend to have a strong sense of aesthetics too, for they really enjoy and marvel at photos of outer space, or of earth as seen from space, and want to look farther outward and thus backwards in age. So the wonder of space is genuinely felt by the workers in that profession.



There's a slight temptation associated with studying anything, whether it is a small device or a large natural feature. Familiarity breeds contempt as the saying goes, and I'm not saying it is that strong, but the temptation is that the more one thinks one has collected information, the more one is tempted to feel that the topic (and unconsciously, the thing itself) is "understood" by you and hence somewhat "under your control." Let me give an example. The more one is able to photograph a remote and dim region of the universe, the more the person tends to forget that no one will ever go there. Scientists and other space fans can look at a million photographs of a galaxy that is 200 light years away, for a example, and start to feel that the galaxy itself is "at hand" as much as the photographs are in their actual hands. That is something of a flaw or, rather, an affectation (not affection, but affectation, a presumption) of human thinking. They lose their appropriate awe because familiarity has bred contempt. They now start thinking they can imagine "what it would be like" in that galaxy, just because they have collected some data. They confuse scientific speculation with familiarity. They forget that no human will ever visit distant parts of space, and likely not even venture outside of the solar system itself. Why? Because of the inherent limitations of human physical ability combined with the simple physics and lack of time that humanity can expect per generation. See all my previous lifespan discussion. The universe, indeed the solar system, is simply too vast to ever be explored by humans. Imagining otherwise and taking photographs and making plans simply does not "make it so."



So one can and one must have appropriate awe about the universe, and enjoy it, study it, and even explore the parts that one is able to, in safe, logical and proportionate ways. But the bottom line of reality that everyone must always maintain is awareness that 1) no matter how much you collect "data" it's not the same as assuming you have any genuine insight and 2) it is simply too vast to ever be traveled.



Having said that, follow this analogy with me. As wonderful as the universe is, it is still a created thing, a thing that was created by God. Heaven too is a created thing, but there is a huge difference. Heaven was created by God to be inhabited by his companions, the angels, and the souls of humans who are brought there upon their death if they are believers and they are just and righteous, and heaven does not have matter, energy or the passing of time. The universe was created to be the framing, the infrastructure for life, and human life is all that any human has to really think about, and thus it was created in order to support a system made of matter, energy and time. So on the one hand you have the heavenly realm that was created to support matter-less, energy-less and time-less beings (and is God's natural abode, though he is of course everywhere too), while on the other hand you have the universe that was created to support matter-based, energy-based and time-based beings and objects (people and rocks, e.g.)



So here is my analogy and image. Imagine in one hand a really cool and beautiful piece of plastic. Let's say that it's a pretty, super lightweight and durable object, very high tech and fun to look at and to use. Now, picture the same object in your other hand but made out of solid gold. Here is the bottom line:



Even the most awesome sight that one sees in the universe, peering out into space using the Hubble telescope or whatever, is like seeing really impressive plastic. Ultimately even the largest supernova, the biggest galaxy, the oldest stars, the most mystical appearing nebula or clouds of gas, they are all like marvelous and very useful plastic, plastic that was created by God to be useful and to support existence that is based on matter, energy and time.



One can marvel at how well God created something so good that it is perfect for its niche, its niche being the place where objects and life that rely on having matter, energy and time can and do exist.



But heaven, ah heaven, is so far beyond even the most wonderful sights of the universe that it must be compared to being made of gold, but gold that is not even of matter or light. That is what St. John tried to describe seeing in the Book of Revelation, but here I'm just using it as an analogy to help you imagine the distance between appropriate awe of the universe and appropriate awe of heaven. Not only is heaven of, in this analogy, a much finer material, wrought by God of gold while the universe is wrought by God of really cool plastic, but the beings that exist in heaven exist totally on God's presence: they do not have matter, they do not have energy, they do not exist within any structure of time itself.



So heaven is like a sheet of gold yet it's gold that has no atomic structure, and thus no matter or material existence, no energy, and thus it is not "mental" or "light" or "spirit beams" based, and there is no thread or sequence of time (that is the most difficult for humans to understand), so things do not come into being, or arrive in heaven, and then experience elapsed time. Heaven's eternity is not endless time, it is the absence of time in total and at all. Time will only become relevant again when at the Second Coming bodies are raised and a new place that does have something akin to matter, energy and time is created for those who are saved and who live in the Lord's presence. Regular heaven, however, has no matter, energy or experience of time, not because people are so happy that they are oblivious to time, but because time does not exist as a concept or a reality in heaven.



So no matter how marvelous anything is that one observes in the universe, from the subatomic to the intergalactic, remember that it is still a place that was created to be utilitarian, to provide a use, which is to support in a good way (as all of God's creation is good) objects and living creatures (humans, animals and plants) that are composed of matter, energy and time. Thus it is appropriate to be awed at God's creation and the complexity of life and matter and energy that it supports, all of which have limits to their existence. That's why a really cool plastic item explains it well, since it has a purpose, even if it is only visual or supportive.



However, one can't start thinking one can imagine what heaven is like by looking into outer space, or by smashing atomic particles and looking at the bits. That's because heaven simply does not exist in either matter, energy or time format at all. God, the angels and those who are the dearly departed who are saved and find themselves in God's presence after death are not to be found within structures, no matter how large or small, that are material, energy and/or time based. There is no "God particle" and there are no "angels" in stars. There are no "hidden" dimensions or "multiple universes" (sorry scientists and science fiction writers!) God created and natural laws put into place by God rule all that is needed to support matter, energy and time on the one hand, the one universe, and all that is need to support non-matter, non-energy and non-time, subsisting only on God's actual presence, on the other hand.



That, by the way, is why hell is so terrible. Those who are cast into hell still experience the effects of time, matter and energy, even though they are no longer in the universe. Those in heaven do not experience time, matter or energy; they only experience the complete fulfillment of God.



I hope that you have found this helpful.



(hi young people! just a quick shout out...)

Misplaced awe

This reflection and spiritual direction is particularly directed at the young people (hi there!) One reason is that I know you have many questions and have only gotten from the previous generations for the most part crap. The other reason is that while of course I hope the oldsters are reading what I blog too, and benefiting from it, so many of them are so brain damaged that I really wonder if they will ever get it and repent.

We have a problem. We have many problems but one of the fundamental problems with these modern times is misplaced awe. We (and I'm speaking in fellowship so you understand that I totally get the problem and the blockages people have) want to be awed and need to be awed. There's two types of legitimate awe. Well, really three, but let's look at the really solid forms of legitimate awe first. The top and ultimately only awe that one should feel is with God. One should totally be in awe of God, in totality, in awe with his All Knowingness, in awe of him as Creator, awe of him as the source of all that is truly Good, in awe of his mercy and his love, and in awe of his total power of Judgment and Reckoning. Being in awe of God is not only legit and understandable, but it is the smart thing to do because being in awe of God means that you are in touch with reality. If you are in awe of God and only God, in general that means you have a firm grasp on reality and how the cosmos is ordered and the place of humanity within it. This does not mean you are looking down on humans at all because genuine awe of God raises up humans due to God's awesome gifts (listed above), particularly as Creator and source of all Love and Mercy. Being reality based does not mean that you have to have self loathing of the human race and in fact that is part of the problem because self loathing of one's self or humanity is not reality based, since God did not create anything, including humans, that are inherently low and loathsome. Sin and unrighteousness and injustice are loathsome, not human beings.

The second form of legitimate awe is awe in God's creation. There is absolutely no problem and in fact it is Biblically founded (and alluded to in the Qur'an) as being scripturally correct. Before we go further here is the Big Caution. It is fine to be in awe of God's creation, but NOT to worship or attempt to sanctify any components of God's creation. In other words you can marvel and be in awe of a beautiful sunset, but must not worship the sun, as it is simply a creation of God's. You can marvel and be in awe of beautiful mountain ranges and love their mystery and perhaps even succumb to their challenge of being climbed, but you must not worship the mountains nor consider them a tool in achieving spirituality. That is idolatry. Again, one can have one's breath taken away in awesomeness by mountains and even feel a closeness to God in a symbolic way, but one absolutely must not have a relationship with the mountains that infuses them with any supposed power, for that is idolatry. You can be a scientist and marvel and be in awe as you study DNA and genetics, and admire God's creation, but you absolutely cannot be in awe of how you can play God and manipulate life. That is the path to hell that is guaranteed to take a lot of people with you.

You can fly in spaceships and photograph distant stars and wonder about as yet undiscovered planets and wonder, and this is the key, wonder if God created life on any other planets. All of the universe, seen and unseen, is God's creation, just as the Book of Genesis explains. One of my first career interests was astronomy (the science) not astrology (the occult practice), as a youngster, so I have spent many hours admiring and researching and just marveling about the cosmos... but any awe that I have is 1) rooted in the awe of God's creation, and not imagined powers or capacities of either material or energy beings and 2) dwarfed by the awe that I have of God, and that I never spend even one minute of my life being unaware of.

The third kind of awe that is OK, but a slippery slope, is to be in awe of the actions of a merciful and/or loving person. Every once in a while we read or hear about or even know someone who does something truly awesome. But only God knows the genuine circumstances and what is in the heart of that person, and so one can safely admire an awesome moment, but must stop short of being in awe of the total person. There are two reasons for this caution. The first is that unfortunately in this very ego centric and self conscious society, there are few genuinely real and awesome people but, rather, people who sculpt themselves to have a list of, well, "awesomeness" that is of the world and not of God. These are the people who just seem like, as their handlers put them, (and yes, of course, their genuine family members), "saints on earth" or "angels." Um, remember the Good Samaritan in the Bible? Notice when Jesus told the story to his disciples he did not say that the Good Samaritan was "like an angel," or "like a saint on earth," or "generous" or anything else. He was simply "good," and from Jesus that was the highest praise for it meant that the Samaritan naturally utilized God's, not his own, goodness. The best of "heroes" and other "awesome" people of today are infused with God, not a list of heroic talents and deeds. Just about everyone today is over produced and I must admit I know very few genuinely awesome people (I could probably count them on one or two hands). So the first reason to avoid placing a person on your "awe" list is that few people today are genuinely awe worthy (yep, those bubbles bursting everywhere) and second, awe directed at people inevitably becomes a stumbling block to your having genuine awe of God. If you have awe of God you can recognize the few people that do come along who do something awesome, but the reverse is NEVER true. If you are in awe of people you will never have genuine awe of God because you misdirect yourself as a result in your awe expectations.

This is why I, like most of you, probably roll your eyes when you hear someone described as a "Good Christian." There was a time when that meant a very good thing, which was when it denoted, as I described above, a person who was naturally infused with awe of God and thus lived their life accordingly. But now the "Good Christian" seal of approval is passed around from self praising Christian to other self praising Christian because they attend the right congregation and they follow all the right rules. God may or may not have anything to do with that person supposedly being a "Good Christian." You know what it is like? It's like when being a "lady" or a "gentleman" meant something genuine, and then it became a class thing, a matter of wealth, or even of irony. Perfectly good labels of admiration become something foolish in modern context. Being a "Good Christian" has become a foolish label, because a truly godly person does not seek or need that label as he or she is focused only on God, in awe of him and sanctifying themselves to his will.

Now I am not the spoiler of the party, young people, so don't worry, I'm not saying to drop using "awesome" in slang, as I do it myself! I am speaking of the genuine feeling of awe here :-)

Here is how I can explain to you the collective societal problem that has developed due to misplaced awe. People have fallen into idolatry by being "awe junkies" and "awe seekers." And the reason they do so is that they avoid having awe for God because deep down inside they do not want to obey God and stop sinning, stop being warlike, stop being violence junkies, stop abusing substance, stop being evil, stop being unjust and stop being dishonorable and stop being unrighteous. People think if they tear down and criticize the institutions of God that they have an excuse for not being awed at God himself. Wrong. Oh, how deadly wrong that is.

If anything one must only be in increased awe of God at his forbearance and giving of many (but not infinite) second chances. You could destroy every church, mosque, or synagogue that you feel is too "orthodox" off the face of the earth, and kill or humiliate every person who is genuinely a servant of God and you would not diminish God's awesomeness one speck. It only underscores how God will, at the end of each person's life, and at the Final Judgment, hold each person accountable and there will be nothing anyone can say in their defense, since as we know, God is awesome in his All Knowingness, and knows all that happened, what would have happened, and was in each person's heart. God knows when you deny him his due as the only one to be in awe of, to worship, and the only Deity to exist because you want to keep on having some sort of sin or presumed power/control over others in your life. No matter how much you tear down the religious edifices, no matter what their presumed "quality" in your mind, where you think you can critique how others worship in orthodox settings, God is always God and he knows not only what you do but your motivations at all times.

So, young people, this is what I most worry about for you, which is that the sinful generations who have raised and taught you desire to keep sinning, lying, being unjust, being vicious, being on power trips and lost in a fantasy world, is that they have dangled so much of the real or the imaginary world and universe in front of you as being "awesome," while trying to diminish God and thus they blind you to the truth and hide it from you. Awesome robots and "aliens" might exist, every day in cartoons and other entertainment, but a mention of the legit awesomeness of God is not only lacking but forbidden. Parents and teachers and the whoremongers of commerce fear that if you, oh consumers and spenders of dollars, realize how awesome God is and how pale everything else is in comparison, that they will lose their presumed power over you, over earthly events (such as politics) and most of all through commerce and the almighty buck.

How do you steer through this mess? By recognizing misplaced awe and putting it where it should be instead, as I described above. It's fine to call something awesome (like a great room styling) or even a person awesome (like if they did a really fabulous good deed) and to be in awe of sunsets or tornado chasing or mountain climbing K2, or the beauty of outer space, wondering what's in those other galaxies over there IF one reserves genuine AWE for God. If you remember that God not only created all that exists but remains and always will be in control of it, you can marvel alongside of God at the beauty of life and of the material world while never being in danger of idolizing it and putting pieces of it over God in your priorities. You can call it "guilt free awe," ha. If you reserve genuine awe for God by remembering God as he really is at all times (as I listed in the beginning of this), you need not fear being swept away into sin and neglect because people dangle inappropriate awe in front of you. Who wants to work on world peace if they secretly think there are imaginary forces more powerful than God and that "they" "control" them? Earth has become like an abandoned house full of neglect and ruin with grass that is unmowed and vagrants that sit around waiting for something to happen instead of maintaining their residence. They want to be "awed" by something other than God and they want to watch cartoons of themselves with their presumable "step in" "awesome" powers rather than be in awe of the one true God AND be able to enjoy the awesomeness of his creation.

I hope that you understand what I am saying. Until next time, remember, seek only God and all else will fall into place and be given to you that is good for you.

More about understanding God

So here are some thoughts as helpful follow up to what you read previously about understanding and explaining God's All Knowingness.

If you really understood the imagery regarding God's All Knowingness that I used in order to describe God, and really work with the comprehension and illumination it provides, you should have two simultaneous reactions. One is to be completely boggled by the awesomeness and completeness of God. When you understand that he simultaneously and at all times knows all that there is to know, including the history through eternity of even the smallest quantity of vacuum, nothingness, in the universe, and all that could ever befall it, you have to be totally boggled by the immensity, perfection and completion of God. However, you should also have a simultaneous feeling of "click," of a light bulb lighting, of dawning understanding, a relief that you finally "get" what God is really all about. At the same time that God is revealed as truly all that ever can be or will be, to a level of detail and completion that no angel or human can understand, you should also feel that at last you DO understand a very important part of God, and thus he is, in an almost paradoxical way, more approachable to you personally.

By chipping off this individual insight about God, really understanding his All Knowingness, you receive cascading benefits of illumination and comprehension about him. For one, you lose that mindless, amorphous, fuzzy wuzzy temptation to believe that he's a name, a personification, given to some "universal force." That, you now understand, is total rubbish, because God is the creator and outside of the universe itself, and so the universe's matter and "energy forces" cannot at all be compared to him, and also you realize that any "energy forces" that do exist, and are not bogus human imaginings, fall under God's creative actions and his control anyway. Secondly, you realize that God is indeed a "person" and not some goopy syrup of "vibes" or "energy." God is not a name given to forces that just kind of churn around in a mosh pit of "energy" and "vibrations"... God is a personage, someone who is totally mindful and in control of all that was and ever will be.

By understanding the extraordinary and indescribable scope of God's All Knowingness, you also understand that God can be described as having three basic "activities," very broadly speaking. Again, I'm trying to help by putting them in human context. One is that God creates and then lets creation (and subsequent maintenance and ongoingness of his creation) proceed according to natural laws he has put into place, such as gravity, biology, geology, etc all reveal. So God creates and when he creates he also creates the natural laws that then are the ongoing mechanisms put into place. An obvious example is reproduction, where after creating life, the natural laws and processes that God has put into place allows plant and animal species to reproduce on their own: God does not have to intervene.

The second "activity" that God "spends time doing" is, thus, intervention. God rarely intervenes in the way that most of you think about, such as miracles, smiting evil doers, and/or temporarily suspending natural laws. However, God is constantly intervening in two ways. God is constantly available to have a relationship with any individual person and will respond to prayers, though not always in a way that one expects or can perceive. God is also constantly working on the heart and soul of every person, even those who hate him, through the presence and invitation of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is always there, moving among even the most arid and hateful of people and communities, and even among the worse sinners, trying to reach them and bring them back to genuine humanity, charity, self respect, and relationship with God. This is why you cannot really claim a faith or religion is either "unfair" or "the only way" because its believers believe that only through their rites etc will they be saved by God or whatever. In many ways it is a moot point because God does seek individual relationship and the Holy Spirit does indeed move even in Communist atheist countries, as we have seen in history. However, one must always, as I've boggled before, seek the truth, not the "right" or "best" "faith." If you seek the truth you find it, because God is the truth. False religions and faith put a checkered flag in front of you too soon, so that you think you have found the "right" or "best" "faith," before you have really completed (or even sincerely started) the search and discernment of the truth about God.

For example, it became an anti-establishment fad in the 1960's and continuing today to rebel against the "irrelevant" and "boring" and "hypocritical" faith of one's parents. Now, I'm speaking of the mainstream monotheistic faiths, primarily Judaism and Christianity. Islam has thus far not suffered from the throwing away of the parents' faith by the children just because the children want to sin and feel all grown up and rebel "against the machine" of religion. But for forty years Jewish kids and Christian kids grew up to be denomination switching, converting, God denying, or pagan faith pursuing rebels who think they are smarter than their boring and sheep like parents. Ooops. Why is that an ooops? This is where God's All Knowingness is so important to understand.

How can any one person decide to rebel or religion "shop" if they really understood God's All Knowingness first? One really has to come to know God within one's own family mainstream and orthodox faith FIRST before becoming any sort of religion critic. This is because all the mainstream, orthodox Monotheistic faiths are founded on truths of communication between the one true God and his people, which is why they are described as the offsprings of Abraham. Here's a modern analogy. Suppose you really want to get to know all about a celebrity who you admire. But you decide to throw away thousands of years of dialogue that your ancestors have had with this celebrity, because you want to find the place where you supposedly can really get to know him. I mean, think about it, that's so absurd. But that is what two to three generations of rebellious religion "shoppers" have done, and are still doing.

So when you understand God's All Knowingness and perfection of totality and completeness, and you understand both his creation/let it be role and his role of personal intervention, you realize that the Bible, the Qur'an, and the writings of many orthodox rabbis throughout history is actual records of that "celebrity" that you want to know: and your parents' mainstream faith records their share of understanding the actual God. You should fully respect and immerse yourself in your mainstream orthodox Jewish, Christian and Muslim faith first before seeking "additional" information and most certainly before diving into the rites of other faiths. I mean, if you don't understand the full purpose and relationship of your own faith first, how do you recognize, supposedly, a "better" faith? Duh. :-)

And finally, by understanding God's All Knowingness, you understand the third activity that God engages in which is to be in fellowship with the angels, the humans, and all creation. I don't mean this in the fuzzy wuzzy "they are all one in the ether" kind of creepy New Age thinking. I mean God, as a personage, "hangs out" with the angels, with humans, and with the living things, and the inorganic things, of the universe. It's one of the first things humans learn about God, what God is "like," in the Book of Genesis in the Bible, that God would walk in the Garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve, in the coolness of the evening. [God doesn't get too "hot" or "cold" so one is supposed to understand that God is hanging out with Adam and Eve at the time of day they would most enjoy, doing what many humans do, which is to walk around the yard, or the garden, or sit on the porch, at the end of day.] This is how we know, in addition to other scriptural references, that God spends much of his "time" just being in companionship with the beings he created, and the places that he created.

Just to wrap up this segment of posting about understanding God's All Knowingness, here is another insight that such analogies and knowledge about God should be giving you. Now you understand how even non-believers and people who do some pretty bad things can feel "blessed" and have what they think are "good lives," because while they are alive, they are swept along on the tide of goodness that God has set into motion for everyone. In other words, the rats benefit from being on the good ship. But when the ship goes aground, as it must someday do, either on an individual basis, or a culture or a nation, or totally, at the End of Time, or at a person's death and individual judgment, they realize they were riding the coattails of God's overall blessings and providence, but were doing so as rats rather than good stewards and believers. When one understands God's All Knowingness, you better understand why it seems that bad people get away with a lot, and even have "good lives," but they do not, as God knows the actions of every particle or vacuum that ever was or could be. Their judgment will be full and complete, when it is their time.

However, in this blogging I want to keep you focused on the joyful search for understanding the true God as he has already repeatedly revealed himself as he alone chooses to, so I don't want to close with just that warning above. Those of you who believe in God, or who were deprived of faith, or given false examples to follow, will benefit greatly by taking the first step of understanding that God is truly All Knowing and in control, in the ways that I've described above, as explained in Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy scripture. When an auto accident happens, God is in control because he established the laws of physics where energy and matter react, and humans decide if their use is for goodness or for not so good. Also, humans are flawed vessels, through both their physical limitations and their ignorance or vanity, so they cannot expect to live within a universe of natural laws but act like they are superhuman beings. Every child figures that out when he or she first decides he or she is like superman and then jumps off their garage (a childhood friend of mine did that and got the expected broken leg). Adults need to understand that God is in control through the natural laws he established in his creation, but that adults should not be puffed up about their role. Where they should feel pride is as St. Paul described, pride in Jesus Christ, pride in being brought to God within Jesus Christ, not through their own works or their imagined superhuman powers.

Rather, one needs to have comfort and consolation and understanding that even as God Knows All, he still desires and puts forth the Holy Spirit to help in this, fellowship and parenthood of all humans, bringing them, those that are worthy and just, into the companionship where God is all the time, which are the angels in heaven. God wants to walk with each human in what remains of the Garden on earth, but he will only do so if you truly seek him, not a fraud. God knows every particle and every non-particle that ever was and ever could be... if you understand that and come to accept that knowledge joyfully, that becomes a key part of your foundation of faith and trust in God. I've observed that humans find it difficult to trust God and have faith in him in large part because they continue to not understand the full dimensions of his All Knowingness, and the categories of his involvement, as I've described here. Evangelicals often leap too quickly into telling people to trust God without helping their followers to understand the fullness of God's "dimensions" and thus his trustworthiness. That is why the prophets before Jesus, and then culminating in Jesus himself, performed awesome miracles, as through observation of those powers that could only be God given, people mutually trusted the prophets but also grew in their trust of God, knowing intuitively how only the All Knowing can do those miraculous things that they saw.

I hope you have found this helpful and a special hello, as always, to the young people out there.

God, Christmas, awe of God, and the ordinary

One of the greatest stumbling blocks to both belief in God and in acceptance of Jesus Christ as Son of God and Savior is the inability to reconcile awe of God with God’s attention to ordinariness. The faithful and agnostic secular skeptics need to understand the awe and the ordinariness in order to discern an accurate image of God. This is an especially fruitful consideration during both Christmastime and Hanukkah. Equally, Muslims who have recently conducted the Hajj can also perceive this challenge between the awe of God and God’s attention to ordinariness.

This fundamental contrast, which is a challenge to many, is only revealed in the first place if the believer (and the inquiring skeptic) reads and contemplates the sacred literature in its entirety, and then sits back and lets it somewhat holistically “soak in.” The Jews have the greatest history of understanding that God is awesome and awe inspiring beyond comprehension, yet has a proven history of interacting with his Chosen People in minute detail where necessary. By this I do not mean God as “micromanager” through the Law but, rather, I mean the Biblical stories that demonstrate his intervention and mercy in even small matters of an ordinary person. The same God of all of creation, who appeared to Moses and the Israelites in the great Theophany sent his prophet Eliseus among not just the kings of Israel, but among the ordinary people who suffered, performing great miracles on their behalf. In 4 Kings 4:1-7 one reads how a woman who was a poor widow was about to lose her two sons because the creditors would take them from her in cost of unpaid debts. Eliseus gave her a miracle of an oil jar that was continually filled (this is cooking oil, not oil as we mean nowadays as in petroleum) so that she could sell from this continually filled jar, pay off the debts, and then she and her sons could live off of the income of the this continually filled oil jar without worry. In this one example one comprehends the awe of God, where his prophet can deliver such a miracle in God’s name, and also the ordinariness, for this woman’s name is not even mentioned, we only know that she was the poor widow of a man who “was one that feared God.”

Jesus later explains this aspect of God, his awe inspiring glory and yet his concern for even the smallest and the most ordinary among the world. When telling the Apostles not to be afraid, Jesus said the following:

Matthew 10:29-30
“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father’s leave. But as for you, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Therefore do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

Let me first translate the analogy that Jesus is saying before providing you with commentary. People ate sparrows for food, and two sparrows for a farthing are a low price. Jesus is saying that not even the most humble and low priced animals sold for the most humble and lowly meal is beneath not only the notice of God, but also God’s permission, for God is the one who has provided the food of creation, and is aware of every animal life, and every human meal, no matter how small and humble. It’s like Jesus would remind someone today in modern times that whenever they eat even the dollar menu chicken strips that God not only knows of the meal, the chickens that provided it, and the low price, but is also the ultimate provider of food and humanity’s ability to survive and thrive in the first place. Then, Jesus tells the Apostles to think about it: if God knows the disposition of even the smallest animal in the lowliest meal for a human, likewise, God knows every detail of every person, down to knowing the number of individual hairs on one’s head. Jesus then assures them that since God attends to even the most humble animal in the most humble meal, and has equally detailed constant awareness of each human, how much more value is each and every person to God: “You are of more value than many sparrows.” Jesus thus in the course of a longer lesson and discourse to the Apostles, at one point in comforting them, offers this contrast that I am commenting on now: God’s all knowing and mercy are awesome beyond human imagining, yet God is also concerned about every animal, every meal, and every human to their most ordinary existence and well being.

Jesus performed so many miracles of curing ordinary people that they are not even enumerated in the Gospels. Jesus clearly went above and beyond performing “just enough” miracles to “authenticate” who he was, and how he performed miracles on the behest and mercy of God.

Matthew 15:29-31
And when Jesus had departed from there, he went along the Sea of Galilee; and he went up the mountain and sat there. And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the dumb, the blind, the lame, the maimed, and many others; and they set them down at his feet, and he cured them; so that the crowds marveled to see the dumb speak, the lame walk, and the blind see. And they glorified the God of Israel.

Jesus cured as many who were brought to them, so many that the Gospel authors just describe these scenes in general terms, because it was God’s will that Jesus put a face on God’s mercy and concern for the ordinary person, who suffered ordinary woes in life, such as disabilities. One miraculous cure per location would have been more than sufficient to establish the God given authority of Jesus, yet Jesus went ahead and cured each and every of the suffering who were brought to him. And the people, then, just as Jesus wanted, glorified not him but God for his mercy.

One miracle that Jesus performed brings to mind the miracle of Eliseus as described above. When you read the miracle known as “The Widow’s Son,” (which I’ve discussed in previous posts), remember that the loss of a widow’s son was virtually a death penalty for her too, as she no longer had any means of support or even a provider of food.

Luke 7:11-17
And it came to pass soon afterwards, that he went to a town called Naim; and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. And as he drew near the gate of the town, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a large gathering from the town was with her. And the Lord, seeing her, had compassion on her, and said to her, “Do not weep.” And he went up and touched the stretcher; and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to thee, arise.” And he who was dead, sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother.

But fear seized upon all, and they began to glorify God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us,” and “God has visited his people.” And this report concerning him went forth throughout the whole of Judea, and all the country roundabout.

Eliseus (also spelled Elisha or Elijah) performed his miracle of the oil to save the sons of the widow some eight hundred years or so before Jesus raised from the dead the son of this widow. This is an example of what I describe as the necessity of reading the entire Bible in order to have a holistic or overall view of God; not just focus on citations or “episodes.” Only when one reads the entire Bible can one notice the constancy of God; God is constant and consistent through all eternity and is demonstrated in his interaction with generation after generation of humans. Thus one can see Eliseus have concern for an unnamed impoverished widow who is about to lose her sons and livelihood to seizure by creditors and then hundreds of years later, Jesus in the name of God raise from the dead the only son, and thus love and livelihood, of the unnamed ordinary widow woman of Naim. People who say that God is “arbitrary” are as dumb as a sack of rocks and clearly have never read the entire Bible with any degree of attention or mindfulness to the supernatural constancy of God: a constancy that is rarely recognized or thanked. This is why when I relate the above examples of Jesus’ miracles, I include the passages that relate how perfectly the crowds understood what was happening, that Jesus was not there to glorify himself, but do demonstrate the constancy of God’s complete awareness and love for the ordinary, for those who suffer and endure losses.

I’m writing this on the eve of the fourth Sunday of Advent, just days before Christmas, and that timing is exactly why I am writing on this particular topic. Christmas-celebration of the Nativity of Jesus Christ-should be recognition of the constancy of God that seems contradictory only when modern humans are narrow minded. The ancient Israelites and those in the time of Jesus did not have the stumbling block of thinking that if God is so awesome on one hand, why does God seem to do “ordinary” things on the other hand. Life is one hundred percent ordinary; it is only humans who glamorize certain classes of people and certain elite events. There is no contradiction at all between being constantly struck by the awesome power and might of God, and his unfathomable mystery, and yet understanding that he knows and cares about “every hair on every head.” It is only modern people who do not comprehend that, who then as a result have doubt and even sacrilegious thoughts about the Nativity of Jesus Christ. The mourners at Naim had absolutely no need for explanation or “proof” by this unnamed stranger, who walked up to them, had compassion for a widow, and raised her son from the dead for her. Notice they never even asked his name or his “credentials;” they did not need to, for they saw and believed, and they felt immediately the fear of God (awe) in the miracle wrought by Jesus. Moderns refuse to believe, or they discount God’s awesomeness, thinking he must not be so awesome if he sent Jesus, his Son, to be poor, in a manger, to live anonymously most of his life before two or so years of public ministry and a cruel death, before resurrection. To find the humility of Jesus and his birth among the ordinary people a sign of God being any less all powerful and awesome is a modern affectation and affliction that is truly contrarian and baffling.

This is another reason one must read and with a wholeness of attentiveness have a holistic appreciation of the Bible: one must look not only to the prophets and saints as role models, but to the ordinary people. What did the people of Naim “think” when the unnamed stranger of Jesus Christ walked into their funeral procession, dried the tears of the mother widow, and raised her son from the dead? Did they say, “Well, God must not be so awesome if he sent some ordinary human to do his deeds?” Of course not; people used to understand that it is a sign of God’s awesomeness, power and mercy that he raised up his prophets of the people and among the people, not as some unfathomable creature that is outside of human experience. What the people of Naim instantly said was ““A great prophet has risen among us,” and “God has visited his people.” The two reactions most clearly acknowledged the awesome might and mercy of God, and the fact that God was working among the people. Jews had thousands of years of experience, well known in Torah study that God raises his prophets from among the people, not as an “outside force,” and also that God “visits” his people. The people of Naim instantly recognized such a gift of God, a concern and love for the ordinary people, in Jesus, before even knowing his name.

Notice something else, in the first line of that passage: “he went to a town called Naim; and his disciples and a large crowd went with him.” This is mentioned often in the Gospel that the disciples walked with Jesus from region to region in his ministry, but that also large crowds of ordinary people also traveled with him. Again, one learns to emulate the behavior of ordinary people who lived in the extraordinary Biblical times. They fully retain their awe of God and their glorification of God alone, but they accept the gift of ordinary human to human interaction with what they recognized was this mighty prophet of God, Jesus. This is how moderns must also be and to do so they need to realign their attitudes out of the mushy, meaningless and erroneous “middle.” Humans need to stop being lukewarm about God himself, and have a complete return to being totally blown away by God’s all powerfulness, his mercy and his awesomeness. Likewise they need to stop making every interaction with the divine be only “meaningful” and “impressive” if it is tinged with the occult, the supernatural or the strange. It’s like moderns have so thoroughly forgotten what ordinary life is really like (a curse of narcissism, prosperity and cynicism) that since they no longer know what their own ordinary reality is like, they can’t recognize when God is “into the details” of the ordinary and “visits his people.” Instead of having some “go ahead, impress me” attitude toward God that is rooted in the mushy meaningless middle, people need to remember and regain with a jolt fear of the Lord, of the awesomeness of God at one “extreme,” and at the same time, recognize God’s deep concern for every ordinary person throughout their ordinary life at the “other extreme.” When one sticks to the blah middle one totally misses understanding God at all.

This is how I hope that those of you who read my commentary think of the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus Christ in the upcoming days, and then going forward in your faith and life journey. You cannot understand this holiday, understand God, or even understand one’s own life and human condition if you do not understand the constancy of the “two extremes,” which is total awe for God and his mystery and power, and acceptance of God, and his offer of company, love and concern for you, most especially through Jesus Christ, into your ordinary life. When one wonders, “Well, why would God have a ‘son’ born of a virgin in a manger in poverty ‘only’ to be ‘killed,’” one need only to recall one of the many events that defy that reductionist mentality, which is to think of the virgin’s son walk to Naim and raise the unnamed son in compassion to give him back to his ordinary mother, and hear how the crowds saw and believed. A depressive reductionist mentality about the mutual divine blessedness and humanity of Jesus Christ is totally uncalled for and quite erroneous and in violation of the very clear facts.

I hope that you have found this helpful.