In His Will Is Our Peace

Nay, ‘tis the essence of our blissful fate

To dwell in the divine will’s radius,

Wherein our wills themselves are integrate;

Whose being from threshold unto threshold thus

Through all this realm doth all the realm so please,

And please the King that here in-willeth us

To His own will; and His will is our peace;

This is the sea whereunto all things fare

That it creates or nature furnishes.

Paradise, III.79 - 87

Ephraim the Syrus - Hymns on the Nativity (3)

In his second hymn, Ephraim the Syrian writes:

“Glory to the Husbandman of our intellects! His seed fell on to our ground and made our mind rich. His increase came a hundredfold into the treasury of our souls. Let us adore Him who sat down and took rest; and walked in the way, so that the Way was in the way, and the Door also for them that go in, by which they go into the kingdom.”

“Blessed the Shepherd Who became a Lamb for our reconcilement! Blessed the Branch Who became the Cup of our Redemption! Blessed also be the Cluster, Fount of medicine of life! Blessed also be the Tiller, Who became Wheat, that He might be sown, and a Sheaf, that He might be cut! Blessed be the Architect Who became a Tower for our place of safety! Blessed He Who so tempered the feelings of our mind, that we with our harp should sing that which the winged creatures’ mouth knows not with its strains to sing! Glory to Him, Who beheld how we had pleased to be like to brutes in our rage and our greediness; and came down and was one of us, that we might become heavenly!”

“By the Fruit of His stem He grafted us into His Tree.”

“Praise we Him, Who took away the curse of His thorns!”

What strikes you about the above? What is its focus? What is its foundation?

Isn’t Jesus Christ, the Son, the center of this hymn? (Keep in mind that these are excerpts, the hymns themselves are lengthy by our standards). Unlike much of what we produce today, the hymns of the Fathers were centered on the Trinity and God’s glory and work in humanity.

The above excerpts, as is true of the entire hymn and the other Hymns of the Nativity (there are a total of nineteen), are permeated with Scripture. I did a quick count and identified around thirty references and allusions to Scripture just in these excerpts. This is another characteristic of the Fathers, they live and breathe God’s Word – much of their ministry is seamless in that their ministry is saturated in the Bible – they are clothed with the fabric of Christ the Word of God, and the Word of God as Christ revealed and revealing.

Can we see that Christ is everything to Ephraim? Can we sense the exaltation of Christ in this hymn? Can we feel the glory of glorifying God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit?

As we ponder the many facets of Christ in this hymn, can we enter into the hymn and know Christ in all of these ways as our Way? Is Jesus Christ all of these things to us? How are we beholding the glory of Jesus Christ as we meditate on the Word of God contained in Ephraim’s hymn?

Is Jesus Christ everything to us? (1 Corinthians 1:30 – 31).

One of the great temptations in this life is to seek our core identity outside of Jesus Christ – the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil manifests itself in a number of ways. We trade Christ for career. We trade Christ for possessions. We trade Christ for earthly power. We trade Christ for success. We trade Christ for fame. We trade Christ for pleasure. We trade Christ for sports. We trade Christ for entertainment. We trade Christ for racial and ethnic identity. We trade Christ for money. We trade Christ for politics. We trade Christ for nationalism. We trade Christ for foreign policy. What can you add to this list?

We are quick to justify and rationalize our trading Christ, our seeking glory elsewhere than in Jesus Christ. Can we see how we do that? Can I see how I do it? What about you?

When we experience times of disorientation and uncertainty we soon (hopefully) find what our core identity is – it is either Jesus Christ or it is something else. Ephraim the Syrian can help us discover the glory of Jesus Christ as our all in all, the center of our lives, the anchor of our souls. As we know Christ as everything, we can be a blessing to those around us to God’s glory.

Let us hope that we can see the world for what it is, and Jesus Christ for who He is – and live in the light of this understanding.

Ephraim Syrus – Hymns on the Nativity (2)

In his second Hymn on the Nativity Ephraim writes:

“Glory to the Beautiful Who conformed us to His image!...Glory be to Him on High, Who mixed His salt in our minds, His leaven in our souls. His Body became Bread, to quicken our deadness…

“Thanks be to Him Who sent His Heir, that by Him He might draw us to Himself, yes, and make us heirs with Him!”

As Paul writes, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ…” We have been “predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren…” (Romans 8:16, 17, 29).

We see in Hebrews Chapter 2 that in the Incarnation Christ came to declare the Father’s Name to His brethren; and that in the Incarnation that through Christ the Father would bring “many sons to glory”.

The glory of Christ’s Sonship in the Father is beyond our comprehension, so also is the glory of our sonship in Christ and the Father. The one Son has become the many-membered Son, the Bride has come forth from the sleep of Jesus Christ in the grave, a Living Temple came into existence on Pentecost, the Jerusalem which is above has begun its descent to the earth.

We are learning to eat of His flesh and drink of His blood – to live by, and in, and unto Jesus Christ for the glory of the Father. We are learning from Jesus Christ to live by doing the will of our Father and His Father, our God and His God.

The Nativity, the Incarnation, is so much more than the observance of a day in December, it is the joining of the Godhead and Manhood – it is a Way of Life. It is God walking the earth then; and God walking the earth now. It is Christ living in His transcendent People for the Father’s glory and catching them up into the koinonia of the Trinity. It is Christ walking this earth in shoe leather, even barefoot – as He mixes His salt in our minds, His leaven in our souls, His Body has become our Bread.

Let us now live as broken Bread and poured out Wine for others; let us fulfill the destiny of the Son in our Father.

Ephraim Syrus – Hymns on the Nativity (1)

This is a good time to recall that, “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations” (Psalm 90:1). Our faith is ancient, it is timeless, and it is unchanging; that is, God’s Word and Truth endure throughout all generations. Our faith, that in which we believe, that which envelopes us, that which we breathe – has always been and will always be - for our faith is Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

When I say “You have been our dwelling place in all generations” I confess that I am not alone but am part of a People. I confess that while I experience faith on a personal level, that I also experience faith as a member of Christ’s Body, His Bride, His Church – and that while in one sense my faith may be mine, that it is also ours. God is our dwelling place – I live in the Trinity with my brothers and sisters.

We do not derive our faith from newspaper headlines. We do not interpret and define our faith based on the media. We do not even chase after (let us hope) Christian celebrities who promise a quick fix and simple interpretations to the complexities of life, who promise a painless and Cross-less sanctification, and who would have us baptized (functionally) in their own names rather than in the Name of Jesus Christ.

Centuries ago, in ancient Syria, Ephraim Syrus wrote a series of hymns on the Nativity, the birth of Jesus Christ. The conclusion to Ephraim’s first hymn is, “Today Godhead sealed itself upon Manhood, that so with the Godhead’s stamp Manhood might be adorned.”

Immanuel, God with us (Matthew 1:23), would become, in and through Christ, God living within us (John chapters 13 – 17). A new Creation would come out of the grave on Easter morning, a new Man. We have been brought out of Adam and into Jesus Christ (Romans 5:12 – 21).

No wonder Ephraim writes in his second hymn, “Glory to that Hidden One, Whose Son was made manifest! Glory to the Living One, Whose Son was made to die! Glory to that Great One, Whose Son descended and was small! Glory to the Power Who did limit His greatness by a form, His unseen nature by a shape! With eye and mind we have beheld Him, yes, with both of them.”

Ephraim continues, “Blessed He Who sealed our soul, and adorned it and espoused it to Himself. Blessed He Who made our body a tabernacle for His unseen Nature. Blessed He Who by our tongue interpreted His secret things. Let us praise that Voice whose glory is hymned with our lute, and His virtue with our harp. The Gentiles have assembled and have come to hear His strains.”

Let us remember, in the midst of confusion and insanity, while high and low, rich and poor, may throw off the restraints of moral good and ethical sense, while humanity is rejecting the image of God; that our God has been our dwelling place in all generations – including our generation. The Patriarchs, the Apostles and Prophets, the Church Fathers, the saints through the ages are with us. We are on pilgrimage to that City whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11) – our roots are in the heavens in Jesus Christ; we are strangers and pilgrims on this earth.

We are not accidents looking for a place to happen; we are the sons and daughters of the Living God. In Christ, “Godhead sealed itself upon Manhood, that so with the Godhead’s stamp Manhood might be adorned.”

Francis de Sales - Prayer (7)

This is the second of the two “notes” I want to make on the “fourth way” to prepare for prayer; the first note was on “imagination"; this one concerns the “Blessed Sacrament”.  Francis de Sales writes:

“The fourth way is simply to exercise your ordinary imagination, picturing the Saviour to yourself in His Sacred Humanity as if He were beside you just as we are wont to think of our friends, and fancy that we see or hear them at our side. But when the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is there, then this Presence is no longer imaginary, but most real; and the sacred species are but as a veil from behind which the Present Saviour beholds and considers us, although we cannot see Him as He is.”

I was recently reading a book on prayer which recommended some Roman Catholic writers, with cautions. That is, after recommending the writers the author of the book wrote, in effect, “Now remember, Catholics believe such and such about this and that and we don’t believe those things.”

It seems to me that if we are going to mature as men and women in Christ and His Body, that at some point we ought to become secure enough, and knowledgeable enough, to dialogue with traditions within the Body that don’t see and understand things the way we do - without us feeling threatened. Why cannot we learn to understand others and to learn from others? There may be other traditions that have enriching Biblical perspectives. I admit, to my shame, that I have made the grave error of taking the word of others about what other movements and traditions believe within the Church, without actually reading original material from those traditions, or talking to others within those traditions. I have also made the error of thinking that traditions are monolithic, that everyone within a given tradition, even Roman Catholicism, sees things the same way – this of course is foolish. Perhaps we could argue that the more monolithic and uniform a tradition is, that the less thoughtful the people in that tradition are? (I write this within the context of Mere Christianity and the historic ancient creeds).

When Francis de Sales writes of the Blessed Sacrament, and of what I previously termed Presence with an upper case “P” – I hope it will give us all pause to consider our understanding of Communion, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s Table, the Love Feast; whatever we are prone to call the breaking of the Bread and the sharing of the Cup.

It seems to me that the Scriptures portray Communion as a many-faceted diamond, the height and depth, and length and breath of which we can spend all of our lives exploring and beholding.

Matthew draws our attention to, “Take, eat; this is my body…Drink from it [the cup], all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant” (Matthew 26:26 – 30).

Mark shows us, “Take it, this is my body…This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark 14:22 – 26).

Then Luke, “This is my body which is given for you…This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:14 – 23).

Where do we have warrant to make anything of the Bread and the Cup which our Lord does not make? Why do we sometimes insist on pulling down to our natural understanding that which is a Divine mystery?

In Luke 22:19 and 1 Corinthians 11:24 we have the concept of celebrating Communion in “remembrance” – and yet the Greek word [anamnesis] translated as such means more than simply “remember”; quoting the entry in Kittel, there is an “active sense” which carries with it “that they actively fulfil the anamnesis’’ [the remembrance] when the Eucharist is celebrated.

While the Gospel of John does not contain an explicit account of the Last Supper, let’s recall that John has the washing of feet in the Upper Room which the Synoptics do not record, and let’s ponder John Chapter 6, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56). If this was a “hard saying” then, let’s not be surprised that it is a hard saying now. Through all of this we are encountering dimensions which are above and beyond our comprehension, but which, nevertheless, we are called to participate in, to taste, to enjoy, and to live by. Let us not forget that we are called to be “partakers of the Divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

We see in 1 Corinthians 10:16 – 17, “Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing [koinonia] in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing [koinonia] in the body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”

Here we have the mystery of John Chapter 6 and of 1 Corinthians Chapter 12:12, “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.” As Augustine says, “As is the Head, so is the Body.”

When we partake of the Loaf and the Cup, we partake of Christ and, in Christ, we partake of one another. We are one Bread in Jesus Christ. When we participate in the Lord’s Table we ought to be careful lest we “be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord…not discerning the body rightly” (1 Cor. 11:27 – 32). Yes, I may not rightly discern the Head of the Body; but I also may not discern the members of the Body – I cannot rightly do one if I do not the other; any more than I can say “I love God” if I hate my brother.

Francis de Sales shows a respect and reverence for the “Blessed Sacrament” that we seem to have lost – no matter our tradition. Francis lived sacramentally, seeing all of life as a many – faceted sacrament; perhaps it isn’t too much to suggest that his sacramental understanding was anchored in the Presence (with an upper case “P”) of the Blessed Sacrament.

Saint Francis de Sales Prayer (6)

There are two “notes” I want to make on the “fourth way” to prepare for prayer; one concerns “imagination" and the other the “Blessed Sacrament”.  Francis de Sales writes:

“The fourth way is simply to exercise your ordinary imagination, picturing the Saviour to yourself in His Sacred Humanity as if He were beside you just as we are wont to think of our friends, and fancy that we see or hear them at our side. But when the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is there, then this Presence is no longer imaginary, but most real; and the sacred species are but as a veil from behind which the Present Saviour beholds and considers us, although we cannot see Him as He is.”

The word “imagination” is a word, like so many words, that can mean different things to different people, and mean different things in varying contexts. It is like the world “myth” in the sense that while most people use the word “myth” to mean something that isn’t real, that has no foundation in reality; others may use it to specifically refer to stories of ancient gods, like Greek, Roman, or Norse; while still others may use it to refer to stories with ancient roots that reach backward into a collective consciousness of primal truth that has been refracted in various ways through the ages. In this latter sense what is contained in “myth” may be true to one degree or another, it may have its foundation in truth, even though much of that truth has been clouded by layers of extraneous additions to the “true” story or the “true” myth.

While the latter sense of the word “myth” is seldom used by most people, God used this sense of the word to draw C.S. Lewis to Himself as Lewis engaged in discussion with J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson during a watershed night in Oxford, England. The more we use the word “myth” in this context the easier it is to see what it means and the more comfortable we become using it – otherwise using “myth” to refer to a narrative that can be true to a lesser or greater degree can seem strange and uncomfortable.

When Francis writes, “…then this Presence is no longer imaginary, but most real…”, what does he mean? I do not think that Francis means that Jesus’ presence is not real in the four ways that he suggests we prepare for prayer, but rather that Francis is saying that in the Blessed Sacrament that Jesus is “most real” or “especially Present” – perhaps we can call it Presence with a capital “P”. Such an understanding is consistent with Francis’s view of life and living in communion with God and others – Francis saw life as holistically sacramental, in much the same way that Brother Lawrence “practiced the presence of God” throughout the day. Indeed, we can find this view of our life in Christ in Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant men and women through the ages, as well as in the Fathers – its roots are in Scripture.

Therefore, when Francis uses the word “imagination” he is not suggesting that we engage in something that isn’t real and substantive, but rather that we use our God-given ability to picture images, to see and sense things beyond what our natural eyes see, in order to affirm that Christ is with us. In fact, the very basis of using our imaginations in this manner is based on God’s Word! “Lord, your Word says that you are here, help me to see you.”

In Ephesians 1:18 Paul prays “that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know…” In the Prophets we read statements such as, “The words of Amos…which he saw concerning Israel” (Amos 1:1). In Hebrews 11:27 we are told that Moses endured “as seeing Him who is unseen.” And of course we have a verse which I cite frequently, “…while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). Was Elisha falsely imagining horses and chariots of fire (2 Kings 5:15 – 17)?

I don’t pretend to understand what the imagination is, any more than I really understand the interplay of the heart, mind, soul, will, spirit, and body. I find it more prudent to often think and write in terms of our “inner man” or “inner woman” – to use integrated holistic terms and images. I trust God’s Word to do its marvelous work within us (Hebrews 4:12). What I know is that we are new creations in Christ Jesus and that we are being recreated and renewed is His Image (Ephesians 4:24; 2 Cor. 5:14 – 17; Romans 12:1 – 2).  

As with our hearts and minds, if our imaginations are not bathed and grounded in Jesus Christ and His Word we will misuse them. However, to fear the misuse of the imagination more than to fear the misuse of the mind seems to me to be more a question of “taste” and “preference” than of Biblical thinking (my apologies to those who will disagree, I mean no offense). After all, our minds are in darkness without Christ, and when we come to Christ our minds often still hold us in bondage – refusing to accept the fact that we are the children of God, children of freedom in Jesus Christ; or refusing to accept the fact that the work of Christ in the Atonement is perfect and that we cannot add to it – only Christ makes us righteous. As I write this, it occurs to me that our minds guide our imaginations – what I set my thoughts on I imagine – so sanctified thoughts and hearts ought to lead us to sanctified images.

The Bible is a book of images and narratives, along with what we term didactic teaching – but I think it is fair to say that the images from Genesis to Revelation which permeate the Bible form the context for the teachings – not in any sense to make one primary and the other secondary, for again we want to see things holistically, and to see all things in Jesus Christ.  Is not Jesus Christ the image of the invisible God? Are not all things to be wrapped up in Jesus Christ? Is not our calling to behold Jesus Christ? How can I behold Him if I do not see Him?

As with much of life, we need grace when we ponder these things – we don’t all hear the same way and we don’t all see the same way. There have been times when parishioners have come to me with an idea, with a vision, and I haven’t “seen” it, but I’ve trusted Christ’s working in His people and have encouraged them to pursue God’s gift in them – there have been some wonderful results to the glory of God. If we keep Christ central we have great freedom to learn and grow in Him and with one another – that freedom also includes the freedom to learn by making mistakes.

In business I learned that I needed to trust others who “saw” things that I couldn’t see, I had to trust their vision. This doesn’t mean that there wasn’t give and take as they helped me see what they saw and as I helped them clarify their vision. I worked for a man who could look at a run-down apartment community and see its potential if it was purchased and rehabilitated – he had a passion for providing affordable housing, for providing nice places for people to live. Whereas I could only see the current condition of the buildings and the challenges and problems – he could “see” the end result. I’ve had interior designers who saw a vision I couldn’t see, and it amazed me how they could bring their vision to life. While my vision for some of these things improved over time, it could never come close to equaling what those “saw” who are naturally gifted in such areas.

When we read a text, or view a movie, we hear and see differently. When we ponder memories – we can think about the past differently, we can see it differently, we can feel it differently. For some of us the past can be present, for others the past is past. Reading a text can be information for some folks, while for others it can be a visual experience.

This is one reason why it is important to respect one another, to listen to one another, to try to understand each other, and why we should not discount others who see and hear things differently than we do. This is one reason why we ought to remember that, as Christians, we are members of the Body of Christ.

It is also why it is critical that we are anchored in Christ and His Cross and His Word – Christ and His Cross and His Word must always be our measure, must always be our North Star, must always be our life and breath and, to use a natural image, our filter. Our love is to abound more and more in all discernment, wisdom, and knowledge – so that we will approve things that are excellent. In love, we are to hold one another accountable in Christ for what we see, hear, think, and feel – we need one another to keep us centered in Christ and His Word. The Christian life is personal, but it is not private – we are called to live in koinonia with the Trinity and with one another. Of course it has private elements, but I must not attempt to privatize my life in Christ any more than Christ has a life that He can privatize in God the Trinity – such a thing is incomprehensible, words fail me here, I can’t pursue this thought any further.

Well, it looks as if I’ll have to consider Francis’s words concerning the “Blessed Sacrament” in my next post in this series.  

Let us pray that our hearts, minds, wills, bodies, souls, spirits, and imaginations be sanctified completely in our Lord Jesus Christ, submitted to His Word, indwelt by, and joined to, the Holy Spirit.