05 December 2008

Advent, Lost & Found

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Advent. A time of waiting. A time of being still. As the culture around us swirls in frenetic activity and self-imposed stress. Rather, advent is a time of seeking. And finding. And being found.

From God with Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas, edited by Greg Pennoyer and Gregory Wolfe:

We are all searching, and ultimately—whether we know it or not—we are searching for God. Ultimately, we are searching for the Ultimate, and the Ultimate is God. It is not easy, searching for God. . . . The fact is that we do not really know what we’re looking for or who we’re looking for. Almost a thousand years ago, St. Anselm of Canterbury said, “God is that greater than which cannot be thought.” . . .

God is, quite literally, inconceivable. And that is why God was conceived as a human being in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Because we cannot, even in thought, rise up to God, God stooped down to us in Jesus, who is “Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.”

As we are searching for God, the good news is that God is searching for us. Better yet, he has found us. The great question is not whether we have found God but whether we have found ourselves being found by God. God is not lost. We were, or, as the case may be, we are. . . .

We are forever seeking, while the forever for which we seek is now. Awaken to the truth that any place contains every place and every moment contains eternity. And that is because Christ is Emmanuel, the One whom the Book of Revelation called the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. . . . He is the Word of God who called into being everything that is or ever has been or ever will be. He is the One in whom past, present, and future are always now.


{hat tip: First Things blog}
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

1. *God with Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas* says:
“We are all searching, and ultimately—whether we know it or not—we are searching for God. Ultimately, we are searching for the Ultimate, and the Ultimate is God.”

The Scriptures say:

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
—Romans 3:10-12—see also Psalm 14:1-3 and Psalm 53:1-3

I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.
—Isaiah 65:1

Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer?
—Isaiah 50:2

Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not.
—Isaiah 65:12

I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.
—Isaiah 66:4

And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not;
—Jeremiah 7:13

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
—John 3:19-20

And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.
—John 5:40

And Romans 1:18-24, which does not say that human beings do not seek God, but rather that they depart from Him.

2. *God with Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas* says:
“God is, quite literally, inconceivable. And that is why God was conceived as a human being in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Because we cannot, even in thought, rise up to God, God stooped down to us in Jesus, who is ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God with us.’”

The Scriptures tell us many reasons why the Lord Jesus was sent to Earth—why “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us”. To my knowledge, nowhere do they say, explicitly or implicitly, that one of these reasons—much less *the* reason—is that God is inconceivable. Truly, no one can fully comprehend God. But, as we read in Romans 1, Psalm 19:1, and Psalm 97:6, His Creation tells of Him, and we can comprehend Him in part by it. He has also revealed Himself to us in the Scriptures, and we can comprehend Him in part from them.
Yet even with these things, and even after the first Advent of the Lord, we cannot fully comprehend God. I think, for example, of the doctrine of the Trinity.

3. *God with Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas* says:
“Awaken to the truth that any place contains every place and every moment contains eternity.”

Do the Scriptures teach this? Does Heaven contain Hell? Does Hell contain Heaven?


—Salvatore

SOLI DEO GLORIA