seeing the invisible, knowing the mysterious

“He is the image of the invisible God…” (Colossians 1:15)

How do you have an image of something that is invisible? What does it mean to make the invisible “visible”? Paul here asserts that Christ did just that – He made the invisible God visible to us. Surely Paul meant that God became more visible than He is in nature, where God’s creativity, majesty, and power are plainly obvious to those with eyes to see (Romans 1:20). Jesus brought us something more than nature could ever offer us.

But what is that something more?

Maybe Jesus was the most perfect analogy we could ever have of who God is. You know how we often use analogies to attempt to understand or explain what we don’t know very well? Like how, when referring to the doctrine of the Trinity, a pastor might say, “Well, it’s sort of like water: it can be a gas, a solid, or a liquid, but it still remains fundamentally water.”

But most, if not all, of the analogies we use to describe God are limited. There is a point at which the analogy breaks down. If God is the Groom and we are the Bride, then what does it mean to have sex with God? I don’t mean to be sacrilegious here; I only wish to show the limitations of the analogy.

I think Jesus is different. Maybe Jesus showed us who God is most clearly because He lived in our shoes for 33 years. He laughed, cried, ate, drank, walked, and experienced the whole gamut of what it means to be human. God’s personal attributes were clearly seen in these concrete experiences, which everyone can identify with. Jesus showed us God’s character and attitude and motivations and thoughts in the most powerful way possible: by living them out in the fabric of human experience, so we can look at His life and say, “OH, that’s what God is like! I understand now – if God were in my shoes in this experience, this is how He would feel and act, and that means God must be…”

Maybe the analogy doesn’t quite break down, because we are also made in the image of God. We are persons, just like God is a person. The glorious hymn declares “God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.” And what else could love but a person? Maybe Jesus showed us what sort of person God is by living among us.

Maybe?

Makes me want to look more closely at the life of Jesus, at what He said, how He acted, what the Gospels say about how He felt and thought. Makes me think that herein lies a key to the knowledge of the Holy, a knowing and experiencing of the most stunning and beautiful Reality there is.

what’s most important in life?

If I have the language ever so perfectly and speak like a pundit, and have not the love that grips the heart, I am nothing. If I have decorations and diplomas and am proficient in up-to-date methods and have not the touch of understanding love, I am nothing.

If I am able to worst my opponents in argument so as to make fools of them, and have not the wooing note, I am nothing. If I have all faith and great ideals and magnificent plans and wonderful visions, and have not the love that sweats and bleeds and weeps and prays and pleads, I am nothing.

If I surrender all prospects, and leaving home and friends and comforts, give myself to the showy sacrifice of a missionary career, and turn sour and selfish amid the daily annoyances and personal slights of a missionary life, and though I give my body to be consumed in the heat and sweat and mildew of India, and have not the love that yields its rights, its coveted leisure, its pet plans, I am nothing, nothing. Virtue has ceased to go out of me.

If I can heal all manner of sickness and disease, but wound hearts and hurt feelings for want of love that is kind, I am nothing. If I write books and publish articles that set the world agape and fail to transcribe the word of the cross in the language of love, I am nothing. Worse, I may be competent, busy, fussy, punctilious, and well-equipped, but like the church at Laodicea – nauseating to Christ.

(Note: From Chuck Swindoll’s “Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life”, a paraphrase of I Corinthians 13)

–

If love is the most important thing, what can/should be happening in my life to increase that?

rejoicing in small beginnings

I spent some time reading old entries in my journal today, and came across this gem of a verse.

“For who dares make light of small beginnings? These seven eyes will joyfully look on the tin tablet in Zerubbabel’s hand. (These are the eyes of the LORD, which constantly range across the whole earth.)” (Zechariah 4:10)

The context of this statement is the rebuilding of the walls of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Israelites returning after their exile at the hands of the Babylonians. This chapter in Zechariah also contains a verse that is familiar and precious to many Christians: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of Hosts” (Zechariah 4:6b).

I identify with these verses. I feel like God says to me, “Who dares make light of small beginnings in your life, Joel? Do you dare to make light of what I’m doing in your life, small though it may seem?” When I read these verses, I am reminded that God is truly like a Father to us, and delights in every small step we take forward, as we learn how to walk in the Spirit. He does not despise our small, faltering steps; no, he delights in our small beginnings. He rejoices over us.

I needed to read those verses again and be reminded of the love of our Heavenly Father. This is a delightful implication of the Gospel: since I have already been freed of attempting to earn my way into heaven by my own works, I know that salvation is by grace alone, sola gratia, and can therefore entertain the possibility of doing things solely for my Father’s pleasure, and not to appease His wrath.

Armed with this reminder, I oppose my tendency to feel depressed or hopeless as I consider who I should be and the gap between that and who I currently am in fact. I take comfort in my loving Heavenly Father and dutifully and joyfully continue moving forward, knowing that He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it unto the day of Jesus Christ. And that He rejoices in each step and small beginning that moves me further toward that day of completion.

for unto us a blog is born

this is my 4th blog, i think. [edit (9/29/09): a recent conversation with anna has confirmed that this is a lie - this is in fact my 5th blog, counting one more blog that i created for purposes of photography] the first one was called “elthinks”, and was very much tied to the person i was in the last few years in malaysia before i left for ozarks, arkansas. the second one was called “snapshots of el”, and was created primarily to keep in touch with my friends and family. it succeeded for awhile, and finally fizzled out completely on january 29 of this year. and then i created another blog, called “el and cognitive science”, as an attempt to externalize my thought processes for my senior thesis. that blog died this summer, and i can’t even remember how to get to it now.

so this is my 4th blog. why a 4th blog? why not just keep one of the other 3 going?

that’s a good question. i guess there might be a few good answers to that, but i can think of two in particular right now. the first sense is that i’m really moving into a very different phase of my life. i see myself doing lots of growing in the next 5-10 years, most obviously through my phd training, and also as an eventual husband and father, and eventually a usefully productive member of the scientific community. it seems reasonable to me to place a watershed marker at this point in my life, as i have just begun phd training in a new place, and that milestone is conveniently temporally localizable.

secondly, i also have a newfound coherence (gained over the last month or so) to my view of myself: three separate, uniquely important, and sometimes intertwining strands of faith, music, and a fascination with minds uniquely defining who joel chan is. i don’t expect this framework of identity to change all that much for the rest of my life, perhaps only adding a 4th thickening strand of “family” as i get married and eventually raise children.

so i think this is a good place to start a new blog. a fresh book to begin a unique continuation of a story that traces its roots back 23 years and who knows how much farther back in the mind of god.

on this blog i will share semi-filtered thoughts on faith, minds, and music as they occur and occasionally converge in my life. perhaps some of those thoughts will be of value.