YOU SAY SO
Matthew 27:11-14
11-14 Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “You have said so.” But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?” But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.
Cosmos – beautiful order. Created order. A closed equation. A whole, beyond the comprehension of the individual parts. No matter how the experiments and calculations of the parts are done or what conclusions are reached, they all ultimately illustrate and prove the order. Whatever their perspective or conclusions, they are only proving a changeless point. Perhaps Unbearable, with a capitol U, to the mind determined to be independent, but in the mist of the inevitable frustrated question, “Are You the King?” the calmest, most settled voice ever heard whispers, “You say so.” No matter what we think or do, we can only prove the inevitable Reality.
No matter what knots and twists
We add to the tapestry,
They only add to the texture
And wonder of the Design.
The alive, dancing, graphic message
Suspended across the swirling
Black hole, vacuum of souls.
The light from penetrating, Unapproachable
Bursts through the infinitely varied
Colors of the Creator poured
Into the laser lenses of the created
Becomes the Salty light of the world.
How am I responding to that? That’s a very important question to ask myself.
Hitting the natural mind’s brick wall between the concepts of the complete sovereignty of God and the volition (sovereignty) of Man, and trying to appease the apparent insoluble conflict between the two, may cause me, like many in the church, to take the position that it is not in anyone’s interest to bring the subjects up in the same context. When put on the spot, they disguise their non-proliferation with some intellectual-sounding platitude which reveals the non-reality of their non-motivation, “I just can’t go there.” No matter how we may be motivated, Man cannot have one without the other. They are One Point, One Subject, One Concept – in the Mind of God. He created it and He is One – THE One.
Sh’ma Yis’ra’eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.
The problem with the “I can’t go there” position? It is not a position at all. In fact, it reveals that our own conclusion on any subject, is still the ascendant authority in our own double-minds, which – by definition – blocks the Holy Spirit’s work of transforming us by “the renewal of our minds” – which means – we prefer to be independent of God’s logic. Especially when the Holy Spirit is saying something foreign to our way of thinking, or not thinking in this case. [Rom 12:2, Eph 4:23]
This renewal work of the Holy Spirit is showcased during the feast of Pentecost by the ecstatic proclamation of the attributes of God, spoken by the Ruach HaKodesh through the disciples in each of the startled bystander’s language. Not only was the Window of Heaven opened to each disciple, but all were enraptured by the View and Company. Their natural reflex was to become, quite unintentionally, the direct messengers of that Reality in human language. That is the precise definition of the “Glory of God.” God’s Person and Reality conveyed through human beings, to human beings, in the natural world. Not necessarily by the human’s determination, “I’m now going to be the purveyor of the Glory of God,” he said, as he swaggered to the sacred desk. But the human’s spontaneously articulated expression of personal interaction with God and all that is going on around Him, pours a glimpse of Him into the natural world.
Yes, it is impossible for us to process the whole view of God. We are only able to see and understand what He reveals to us. What He is pouring in, is then to be poured out. [Without extracting elements that make no sense to us.] The filter for that spontaneity is simply the childlike being He would make of us, rather than our independent analytical manager of information. He is the one issue [outflow] from our lives that is most valuable when constrained and checked by nothing but what He has already revealed in the continuity of His Word.
“Pilate, everything you are and do answers the question. Am I the King of the Jews? Yes – King, Maker and Savior of the Jews – then the World – and YOU are the proof right now.”
Next Issue: GOD-FORSAKEN?