Posts tagged ·

Greek

·...

September 1, 2013 4:35 pm

For us and for our salvation

4 comments
by    in Liturgy

It is no news that I love liturgy. Or rather, I love being excited about liturgy: I love the passion that still transpires through prayers crafted centuries ago. The Nicene creed has probably been said by billions of people (in various forms and languages) and is an example of such a powerful prayer. I’ll focus on one line:

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven.

nicene

Icon of the Nicene Creed in the public domain

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven! It’s not abstract! It’s not “For the world”, or “for humanity”. The original Greek actually starts with “For us humans” – making it clear that “us” is not simply a byword for an abstract concept, but something deeply and utterly personal and communal. The same goes for “our salvation”, where the Greek ἡμετέραν is the emphatic form of “our” (although, admittedly, this form is far more frequent than its non-emphatic counterpart ἡμῶν).

More than that: it is for us and for our salvation that Jesus came down from heaven. Jesus did not simply come to be nailed upon a cross and provide salvation. No, he came first for us. Redemption is not a cold, mechanical adjustment of a cosmic balance sheet. Penal substitution, without love, is nothing. There is a tendency, especially in evangelical circles, to focus too much on sin and thereby on the need for salvation through atonement. This focus is backwards: his love comes first. “For us” comes first, because it is only in the light of this love that the cross can  begin to make sense.

The Nicene Creed does not say “For our sanctification and for our salvation”, either. The Incarnation is Jesus coming down from heaven, to meet us where we are. This isn’t about meeting the potential, sanctified person we will end up being – no, it is about meeting us in the here and now.

But the Nicene Creed does not stop at saying “For us” – it recognises the importance of atonement. “For us” is where Christ meets us, “for our salvation” is where he takes us. In saying the Creed, we should be taken by this movement and filled with a hope that has no bound – a hope of salvation, grounded in the intimate knowledge of Christ’s love.

Next time you read the Nicene Creed, feel the passion and the involvement it invites: from the very first “We believe” to the final agreement “Amen”.

tags: , , , ,
4 comments!
December 23, 2012 1:45 pm

There was no space at the inn… a tale about predestination

4 comments
by    in Bible

As Christmas is coming very, very soon, we all tend to look back to stories of Nativity. Jesus was born in a manger, in a stable because there was no space at the inn.

nativity

Photo – Evelyn Simak, reused under CC license

Surprising? Let’s ignore the historical elements for a bit, and go with the culturally overwhelming view: many people had gone back to Bethlehem for the census, and poor Mary and Joseph did not book ahead because, obviously, they had no smartphone to do so (seriously, how did they cope?). Still surprising – and of all the places that God could choose to be born in, why choose that specific time and place?

The easiest interpretation is to go for the poverty argument: Jesus, siding with the poor and coming to dwell with us, should also dwell with the poor. Simples, makes sense. Except he then goes on to receive Kingly gifts… Ah, the contrasts of Christianity! But that is for another post altogether.

So there is still some surprise. Let us, still imagining the inn as an ancient day Travelodge, suppose there was room at the inn. Joseph (or Mary!) would have given some money and stayed at the inn. He would have been entitled to stay. It would have been a contractual relationship: one where he receives shelter in exchange for money.

That they were allowed to stay in the stable is extra-contractual. It comes as a freewill offering of whomever the stable belongs to: in short, Joseph and Mary weren’t entitled to stay the night there, yet they did. Welcoming the Incarnate God was not forced upon anyone; rather, it was the outcome of a free decision.

The situation may be worse, however. See, as I found out while researching for this post, there was (probably) no inn; rather, Luke was talking about a guest room.

The word κατάλυμα, seemingly, refers to a guest room; whereas inns involving payment are referred to with a different word (πανδοχεῖον). A common interpretation is that Joseph, returning to his hometown, had relatives there who could (and should!) lodge them all. So what happened? We’re just told there was no room in the guest room. Admittedly, the possibility remains that Joseph had siblings (we don’t know about them!), and that they also came back, thereby filling up the guest room. But it seems unlikely that it was so full there was no space at all for Joseph and Mary; especially considering the greater need of a pregnant woman (although that may be a modern Western view).

What this means is that Joseph’s relatives (let us assume) came up with an excuse not to welcome them in, and allowed them, possibly grudgingly, to stay downstairs with the animals. After all, Mary had conceived outside of wedlock, and well-to-do villagers could not possibly allow an unmarried pregger in. So they did the very minimum they could do and allowed them to stay at arm’s length, with the animals.

Rejected, scorned by the ones who should have welcomed him. It’s not a matter of making the positive choice to accept Jesus into the kataluma; it’s a matter of actually refusing to do what we were elected to do, refusing to welcome him into our hearts, minds and souls. That grace may not be irresistible, does not allow us to boast in receiving it, because it is still undeserved and our response is what we ought to do anyway.

Just like Joseph’s relatives, we’d need  an excuse. We find that easily. We say, sometimes, that there is no room for religion, no room for prayer, no room for a relationship in our lives – or that we’re not ready; but that sometime, maybe, we might take the time to look into that. I wonder, what our excuses are sometimes, and whether we make sure there is room nor just in our mind, but also in our heart and soul.

Do we allow Jesus into our stable or do we let him in to our innermost?

tags: , , , , ,
4 comments!
October 21, 2012 5:03 pm

Judge, that you may be judged

8 comments
by    in Bible

The other week, I got assaulted on the street in France (from behind, of course). There was no discernible purpose behind the attack: nothing was stolen; I did not know the guy who did it, and was not doing anything particularly provocative. To this day, I am puzzled as to why the incident happened.

Once the shock had gone, my initial reaction was that I should forgive him. I found it quite difficult to do. There is a reason for that: forgiveness can only happen after judgement. Otherwise, the sin that we forgive is trivialised; and our behaviour becomes an open invitation for  repeated offences. And us Christians have grown, it seems, shy of judging others.

Photo: Colin Smith, reused under CC license

“Judge not, that you be not judged” has become a mantra that gets brought up whenever we are tempted to rebuke someone. Yes, it is Biblical. But when we do restrain ourselves using only that verse, we:

  • are still judging; we are simply refusing to voice that judgement.
  • are distancing ourselves from our neighbour, by adding that screen of hypocritical non-judgementalism between us. We, in a way, refuse to accept our neighbour holistically, that is, as their entire person.
  • are turning a blind eye on sin, which ultimately makes it easier to turn a blind eye on our own sin.
  • are making real forgiveness impossible. And yet, we should “forgive, that we may be forgiven.”

Far, far more importantly, if we aren’t judged and convicted of our sin, we cannot experience the liberating feeling of forgiveness, from which we can grow. That’s why in other parts of the Bible, we are instructed to rebuke.

From that perspective, and with the assurance of forgiveness, I do want to be judged. If I’m “doing it wrong”; or if I have some ink on my forehead (from someone stamping it…) and I haven’t noticed it is still there, I would like someone to tell me. I would like someone to judge me.

That’s why the use of finality (for Hellenists out there, the fact ἵνα μὴ is used rather than καὶ μὴ … καὶ μὴ, as in Luke) puzzles me. Why would I want to not be judged? And Luke’s distinction between judging and condemning indicates that it isn’t just about sentencing (which would preclude forgiveness). But that very distinction also suggests that the key to that verse may be in what we mean by “judge”.

The Greek used here is κρίνω. It is associated with notions of separating (e.g., the wheat from the chaff), of arranging and ordering. This form of judgement is one that divides, and one that is objective rather than interpersonal. When criticising others, we are placing ourselves above them, and indeed forgetting that we cannot throw the first stone. But there is a different form of judgement: a form of rebuking which stems from love. That form of judgement we should not shun, because only through it can we reach forgiveness.

But if we are passing that judgement, then we should allow the process to come to its complete end, with forgiveness; rather than stopping halfway through judgement in shyness because we “should not judge”.

Judgement without forgiveness is sterile.
Forgiveness without judgement is futile. 

tags: , , , , , ,
8 comments!