Stephen
Terry, Director
He
Died for Us
Commentary
for the November 5, 2022, Sabbath School Lesson
But the angel of the Lord
called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. "Do
not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know
that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only
son." Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its
horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering
instead of his son.
Genesis
22:11-13, NIV
Life is persistent. Those of us
who are gardeners know how persistent it can be. We carefully plant rows of vegetables
and no matter how much time and effort we expend in protecting our hoped-for
harvest from weeds, they never seem to stop sprouting and threatening to choke
out our crops. We may look back to Adam's fall as the instigator of our current
struggle with these "thorns and thistles" interlopers. But many do not question
where they came from, only that this unending warfare between the gardener and
his nemesis exists. Even though modern chemical weapons are deployed in the
battle with some success, the weeds seem to mutate to be ever more capable of
surviving the toxins. Some, like poison oak or poison ivy, have their own
chemical arsenals against us that will make the unwary rue carelessness when encountering
them.
We should understand this
persistence to survive, to live. When we are faced with a life-threatening
experience, we instinctively struggle to survive. When we are drowning, we gasp
for air and reach out desperately to grab onto anything that might save us. Because
we are going on instinct instead of rational thought, our desperation might pull
others down to a watery grave with us. Lifeguards face this danger whenever
they attempt a rescue from drowning. Fortunately, they receive training in how
to deal with this problem. Most of us do not.
Despite this powerful instinct
to go on living, even at great cost such as the loss of our physical well-being,
we are nonetheless faced with an unavoidable eventuality. We are going to die.
Some will die after four score years or more. Others will die much earlier. Most
will die of illness, sometimes exacerbated by poor lifestyle choices or simply
the result of a bad roll of the genetic dice. A few will die from accidents.
Though we hear about death by accident on the news media constantly, it is a rare
occurrence. This is why accidental death insurance is so inexpensive. So, if
death is inevitable, no matter what form it takes, why do we still cling to
life so perniciously? Could it be that there is more to life than we think?
While death exists all around us
and claims each of us in our time, birth and new life also abound and this brings
our thoughts to where all of this life came from. The book of Genesis tells us
that the power of life derives from the breath of God. This may be a metaphorical
way of saying it is beyond our understanding. Poetic metaphor can sometimes cross
over the intellectual divide to those things not amenable to logical syllogisms.
While we are rational beings well suited to live and thrive in a rational
environment, we are also keenly aware of the limits of rationality. Although we
have a rudimentary understanding of the concept of infinity, we are unable to
construct it, we can only use symbolic placeholders. Despite the plasticity of
our mental processes, we simply cannot visualize infinity. The same problem
exists with life. The holy grail of biology would be to create life from
inanimate matter. But thus far we have been unable to isolate that enigmatic
force discrete from the organism that possesses it. We can only terminate life
as evidenced by the cessation of metabolism.
We often model the brain as an
organic computer processing data elements, but we are unable to find in that
the source of sentience. Science fiction has speculated that if enough data,
and enough band width are available, sentience will naturally derive. A recent
Amazon Prime series, "Upload," plays with this idea in a world where our data,
and thereby our self awareness can be uploaded into a computer at the point of
our demise, and we can be preserved, depending on our ability to afford the financial
cost, forever. But eons of existence have revealed this simplistic
understanding of human sentience for the fantasy it is.
The Bible offers us a way out of
this conundrum. But unlike science fiction, it does not teach us that humanity
will one day become smart enough to preserve our conscious identities indefinitely.
The closest we have been able to come is the preservation of the body in the
brain-dead purgatory of life supported by apparatuses capable of taking over portions
of our metabolism, such as breathing, hydrating, or ingesting nutrients, all
without conscious awareness of the ongoing maintenance of life. However, whether
we are willing to consider the Bible as an answer to the life paradox, our continuing
search for that life spark that grants us sentience afloat within a metabolic
sea tells us that something inside us denies the idea that life as we now know
it is all there is. By definition, rationality is limited to that which is
proven to exist through rational demonstration, but despite all the scientific
advances made possible by that means, we cannot produce sentience, true self awareness
to mimic our own.
The Bible tells us that we were
not intended to return to the dust we were created from. The organic sentience
was to continue unending, but we failed to recognize the invigorating source
that sustained that, described in Genesis as the "breath of life," emanating
from God, to whom we were in intimate connection. We chose to disrupt that connection
though we were warned that death would be the alternative result. This left us
like a lamp unplugged from the wall socket and wondering why so much darkness
now abounds. Despite its many colorful stories, some of them even conflicting
with one another, the Bible strives to get one main point across. Let's get
plugged back in so we can get back on track to the fullness of life we were
intended to enjoy. This does not mean we will not die. Our bodies are too far
gone to support a never-ending existence. But Paul, writing to the Corinthian
Church told us that we will be resurrected to receive bodies that are capable
of lasting forever.[i]
But how is this possible? Paul
also tells us in the same chapter that Christ's resurrection from death is
proof of its reality. We can reject that as irrational fantasy, but if we do,
Paul says we remain with our miserable lot, a short life followed by nothing to
look forward to but eternal death. Science has borne this out for there has
been no one raised from the dead after several days of putrefaction, as was the
case with Lazarus. Even Jesus remained in the tomb over the Sabbath and into
Sunday demonstrating that this reanimation was something beyond human ability
to achieve. His resurrection was the earnest toward our own eventual rise from
death at the Parousia. What a party that will be as we rise to meet our Lord, and
also to see our loved ones once again who died in the hope of that resurrection.
Many through the ages have
chosen to be baptized as a public demonstration that they place their faith in
Jesus and that promised resurrection to eternal, uncorrupted life. Those who
have chosen to give themselves to that hope through baptism also receive the
Holy Spirit as mentor and guide.[ii]
When we take that step, we are far from being ready for the depth of all that
means, so we are fed children's spiritual food. It is simple, but it is
adequate to nourish our growth to the point that one day the pablum is set
aside for the meat of the word and the ever-increasing light it can shine into
our hearts and minds. As we continue to allow the Holy Spirit to grow us spiritually,
meanness is shed in favor of kindness. Jealousy passes away in deference to
love. Envy succumbs to compassion and empathy. Grasping greed extends its hands
in self-sacrifice and service. In short, the Holy Spirit strives to re-create
in us what we had in the beginning, an image of God[iii]
as manifest in Jesus.
Since, as both John[iv]
and Jesus[v]
tell us, God is love, the Holy Spirit's work is demonstrated in our lives as we
also become more loving. This is the fullness of the purpose of Christ's incarnation.
Paul said as much in the love chapter he wrote to the Corinthians. We may see
ourselves as theologically perfect in every way, but if we don't have love, we
have failed to understand the message of Christ and the work of the Holy
Spirit. It is not just sentience for which we were made. Humanity was created
to rise above the fallen state we now endure. Jesus, who was one with infinity,
chose to step into our finite experience to show us what could be and did all
in his power to make that experience ours should we choose to accept it. He set
the light of God in contrast to the darkness of our lives. Many have chosen darkness
instead of light.[vi] But the light remains. Who
will come?