The Lamb who was slain

Chris Whittington writes:

The great seventh-century teacher of prayer St Isaac the Syrian understood the kingdom of heaven to mean the gift of contemplation, the gift of seeing clearly, of transfigured awareness. With this in mind, we might look again at when Jesus was asked when the kingdom of God would come, as if it wasn’t here and might suddenly appear at the right time in the future. He answered, ‘The coming of the Kingdom cannot be observed, and no one will announce, “Look, here it is,” or, “There it is.” For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you’ (Luke 17.20–21, NAB). 

It’s easy to pass over how deeply challenging Jesus’ answer was. It’s equally easy to overlook the life-changing invitation wrapped within his words. The kingdom is not going to ‘come’, because it’s already present, within us. The kingdom cannot be observed by the thinking, conceptualizing mind. Just as the eye which sees cannot see itself, the kingdom cannot be made into an object of awareness, because it is that which sees, awareness itself – pristine, luminous, the imageless image of God. The kingdom of awareness cannot be observed by the discursive, conceptualizing mind, but it can be known by the heart, by means of a simple, loving intention. At this threshold the mind must fall silent, and allow love to carry us over. 

The Missing Peace, p.26

Awareness is the very heart of the contemplative life, and the means by which it is lived; and yet, as Whittington points out so clearly here, it cannot be seen or touched by rational inquiry. 

Early in his letter to the church at Colossae, Paul writes:

He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.  

(Colossians 1:15-20 NRSV) 

If this is so, then Christ crucified stands at the metaphysical core of existence itself: the cross runs all through that is as dye tints the whole body of water to which it is added. More than that: it was not "added", it was there since the beginnings of time itself. The crucifixion is not merely an event that occurred in around 33AD; it is fundamental to the Istigkeit itself, the very ground of being itself. Christ is "the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world." (Revelation 13:8 NIV)

These things cannot be calculated or established by analysis: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8 NRSV). The awareness of what is, of the ground of all becoming, can only be known by unknowing, so that the eyes of the heart may open in the stillness; for "Christ is all and in all" (Colossians 3:11 NRSV).

Joy, pain and the fruits of the Spirit

Carl (Skye) McColman writes, in a fine (and very long) article on his Substack:

So what exactly is joy? Let’s turn to John Bradshaw again: John Bradshaw: “Joy is the exhilarating energy that emerges when all our needs are being met. We want to sing, run and jump with joy. The energy of joy signals that all is well.”

So joy is an emotion, but it is also an energy. Bradshaw believes it emerges in us spontaneously, when all our needs are being met. From the place of faith, I would frame that slightly differently: joy is a fruit of the Spirit in our hearts. When we are aligned to love, joy occurs naturally within us. So I’m not opposed to the idea that joy emerges when our needs are being met, but I would suggest it’s not just about needs, but it’s about love. Maybe no contradiction there, for the greatest need in the human heart is the need to love and be loved. And fortunately, God is love, and through the Holy Spirit, God’s love is poured into our hearts (that’s in the Bible: Romans 5:5, in case you don’t believe me).

John Bradshaw also suggests that when the energy of joy emerges in our lives, this is a signal that “all is well.” And this reminds me of the wisdom of one of greatest mystics of the Christian tradition: a 14th century woman named Julian of Norwich. Julian was a visionary who experienced sixteen life-changing visionary encounters with God and Christ and Mary. She is most famous for saying “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” But she also said “The fullness of joy is to behold God in all.”

That bears repeating: The fullness of joy is to behold God in all.

McColman goes on to recall that after being seriously injured in a major car accident in his early thirties, the nursing staff in the hospital were surprised that he was so positive and cheerful. He had retained joy, in other words, despite his trauma. 

Joy, I have discovered, is not at all tied to happiness, to "having one's needs met". There have been times in my own life when I have had to accept pain, both physical and emotional (I survived a serious farm accident a few weeks short of my 50th birthday, and lived only to deal with the almost instantaneous loss of home and livelihood that ensued) and yet I can recall few times in my life when I have been so conscious of the presence of God. Like McColman, I had not been deserted by joy.

"By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things." (Galatians 5:22-23 NRSV) 

The Greek word μακροθυμία is translated here as patience; in the NIV it is rendered forbearance; but I would suggest that for our present purposes it could as easily be read as acceptance. For the fruits of the Spirit are not, it seems to me, individual gifts given one by one, but are all of a piece. Joy is in our acceptance - in our patience - just as peace is found only in love. And it is in the nearness of God (however we explain to ourselves that inexplicable presence) that we find that the fruits of the Spirit enfold all that we experience: that we come to "behold God in all".

The mercy of the cross

Paul declares that "sin reigned in death." [Romans 5:21] Sin is the human failure of vocation, with all that this entails. When we sin, we abuse our calling, our privileges, and our possibilities. Our thoughts, words, and actions have consequences. They were meant to. That is what being image-bearers is all about. Sin risks replacing good consequences with damaging ones. Turning away from the source of life, we invite death to fill the vacuum. Both these elements, sin and death, need to be dealt with on the cross. The whole New Testament and Paul in particular declare that this is what was achieved. That is why the cross launches the revolution.

Tom Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Rethinking the Meaning of Jesus' Crucifixion, p.84

Sometimes people who are introduced to the Jesus Prayer in its usual form - Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner - are dismayed by the phrase "a sinner", associating the word with the placing of ticks against a long list of dreary transgressions, rather than an embracing of our own reality in the light of God's mercy.

When we pray for mercy in this way, we are in effect aligning ourselves with the cross. We pray to Jesus, the crucified saviour, for the mercy he has already given on the cross. As Brian Zahnd explains (The Wood Between the Worlds: A Poetic Theology of the Cross, pp.16-17)

But if the point is not appeasement, how do we associate Good Friday with forgiveness? Allow me to suggest that we think about it like this: On Good Friday the sin of the world coalesced into a hideous singularity that upon the cross it might be forgiven en masse...

Jesus was killed, not by God, but by the hands of wicked men. With great violence the principalities and powers sinned the sin of the world into the sinless body of Jesus. When the sins of the world became the sinful singularity of Good Friday, the one who knew no sin was made to be sin (2 Cor 5:21). The body of Jesus hanging upon the cross was made to be the repository for the sin of the world. What does sin look like? ... It looks like the innocent one nailed to a tree bearing in his hands and feet and side the entrance wounds of sin.

Not only does seeing the cross in this light explain the final words of the Jesus Prayer, it gives us a glimmer of insight into the mystery of the intercessory aspect of the Prayer: that it is not merely a prayer for mercy for the one praying, but for all creation in its agony of becoming (Romans 8:22).