Heavenly Mother ?!

I was at Starbucks at Metrotown mall a few hours ago, feeling the need for a hot chocolate after having made it out for my driving lesson in -10 degree weather. So I'd decided to sit down in the foyer, sip for a bit and get warm before going back outside to catch the Skytrain home. While I was sitting there, this well-dressed chap holding an iPhone came up to me, asking if he could give me a presentation for some 'homework' he was doing for his church. Curious at being approached by an apparent Christian and wondering if he was doing some kind of evangelism with his iPhone, I agreed. He started off by telling me that the earthly reality that we see in this life is a shadow of things in heaven, which is the true reality.

Things were going fine until the I saw the first slide of the presentation at the end of his first sentence. I inquired which church he went to, which I shall leave unnamed. I guess they didn't go in the direction he was expecting after that.

It was the picture on the first slide that didn't seem right. The lower half depicted an 'earthly' family with a father, mother brother and sister. The upper half showed a corresponding diagram of a 'heavenly family' with a corresponding Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother, Heavenly Brother and Heavenly Sister. The Heavenly Mother entity had a question mark above it, implying that we needed to figure out who this was. 'Heavenly Mother? What the...', I thought. Things didn't make sense and a little bell in the back of the head was beginning to tinkle.

It ramped up from there in the next two or three slides. He attempted to stitch together Revelation 22:17, 21:2, 21:9-11 and Galatians 4:26 to make his case that the church is the Bride and therefore the entity that corresponds to the Heavenly Mother in the first slide. By this time, the tinkle had turned into a fire alarm and things were feeling distinctly uncomfortable, so I hit the brakes and asked him to explain how he arrived at his conclusions.

When we got to the root of the issue after a lot of back-and-forth inquiry, it really emerged from his understanding of God as the Trinity. He didn't believe that there were three distinct persons in the Godhead, but just one being adopting different roles, putting on different 'masks' as a Father, then Son and finally Spirit at different points in the recorded history of the Bible. Since there was only a monad in the entity of the Heavenly Father, he could comfortably assume the 'Bride' to correspond to the Heavenly Mother in his family diagram.

I don't remember too much of the conversation after that. However, the more we conversed, it turned out that he interpreted various parts of scripture to mean among other things, that:

• God was male and female in nature, as inferred from Genesis 1:26-27
  
• Christ would appear again in His original earthly body at the time of His second coming
• The 'baptism' Christ was referring to in Luke 12:49-50 referred to Him coming again as the Holy Spirit at Pentecost
  
• There were 'Feasts of God' that Christians should observe post-Cross and Resurrection, such as the Passover, Pentecost and others
• Passover in the Old Testament corresponds to the Lord's Supper in the New Testament
• It shouldn't be called 'Communion' because it was a man-made word not found in the Bible
• It should only be observed once a year at a specific date, because Passover was celebrated in the OT only once a year

There was a whole lot more we could have talked about, but it was past noon and I had to go home and get on with my day. On the ride home, I reflected on how so much could go wrong in doctrine, interpretation of scripture and ultimately the outworkings in practical life with one wrong assumption.

The triune God forms the core of the Christian faith around which any framework of doctrine is built. Discrediting and eliminating the existence, evidence and implications of the Trinity means that one really has no 'Gospel' to share and no good news to tell, because the "God" being talked about is a phony; we're not even talking about the real Person anymore.

- The Wisdom Seeker

What's In The Name?

On Thursday, I was up at SFU to help a friend with the set-up of a talk that he was giving for a new faculty initiative that he'd started recently, and drop in on my former research lab to check on some things. It was also the last day of United Way's book sale, and having picked up 4 books for $2 each (incredible deal!) I'd decided to have one last look to see if there were any nuggets remaining.

Apart from a Reader's Digest Illustrated Bible, my eye fell upon a book with a purple jacket and gold lettering called 'To Know Him By Name'. It turned out to be a beautifully calligraphed volume talking about the very same things I'd written about in one of my previous posts, "Withstanding God's Tests For The Sake Of The Name". The description on the inner sleeve went as follows:

"In the heart of every man and every woman is a longing: to somehow know and understand the God who is beyond our limited understanding. To catch a glimpse of the One our eyes cannot physically see.

Of course, God is entirely, and wonderfully, unknowable. It is this very fact which often reminds us that He is, indeed, God. Yet although we can never understand all of Him, we can explore many facets of His character. We can know God as a trusted friend. We can find hope and courage in knowing Him as protector, healer, provider, creator, and much, much more!

God calls you tenderly by name. Make sure you can call Him by His own. Experience the beauty and power found in fifteen of His biblical names in To Know Him By Name."

Thumbing through the book, I thought again about that previous post, and what I'd written. This time, not about why His name is important and meaningful, but why the God revealed in the Bible and Christian faith is distinctive because He has a name, or even fifteen different ones that He's addressed by. So what if He has one name or more? Why does that make Him different from the Allah of Islam, Brahman or the 330 million deities of Hinduism, or any other faith that puts forward an explanation for origin, meaning, morality and destiny? Two ideas seemed to emerge after a bit of thinking.

Firstly, I think that it is not just that God has a name, but that He is willing to share His name with those He calls His people. It is not just that He is "El", the Powerful God; it is more - that He is willing to impart that power to me, because I need His power in my frailty. He is not just El Emet, the Truthful God; He is willing to impart that truth within me, so that I can stop being a liar and become truthful like Him. He doesn't keep the name "El Yeshuati", God of my Salvation to Himself; He is actually willing to use it to save me. And perhaps most telling of all, it is that He is willing to extend the best name that He has to me - "Father", and call me to be a son in relationship, though I had nothing worthwhile to offer Him.

I believe the implications of this are both significant and powerful in the struggles and challenges I face in everyday life. I believe it calls me to see, think and approach the circumstances that I face differently, because His Word is explicit that God is eager to share the power behind His name to help me through those events. Beyond that, I believe that it is a significant and powerful distinctive of the Christian faith. I do not know of any other deity that is as explicit and willing as the God of the Bible who voluntarily puts His name on the line for His people over and over again, from first book to last:

"If my people, who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14, ESV)

Secondly, I realized that it isn't just that He has His own names that I address Him by. In calling me to be a son in relationship, He is also able and willing to give me a name of my own, one that He has promised to reserve exclusively for me when I see Him face to face. In the book of "Revelation", the last and final book of the Bible, one of the great rewards Jesus promises those who persevere with Him to the end is a new name:

"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will...give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it." (Revelation 2:17, ESV)

"So what?", is among the first thoughts that spring to mind. What's the big deal in getting a new name? I'm fine with the name I've got now. I don't mind being called Kevin, or John, or Peter or whatever else it is that I got named with at birth or christening. I think I've missed the point. Although my name is Irish in origin and means "gentle, lovable", it name doesn't really describe who I am. It doesn't even tell me much about myself. For most of us, we've had to find out about ourselves the hard way - hardship, disappointment, struggle, rejection, heartbreak, introspection, therapy, counselling and a myriad of other scenarios that only provide bits and pieces of insight here and there.

I'm not sure this is conclusive, but I believe that when God finally gives me the new name that He has promised, it will say everything about me than I could ever have pieced together from the broken perspectives that are offered to me in this life. I think it is for this reason that the Bible repeatedly emphasizes that the only one who ever really and truly knows us in entirety is God, and for the same reason that He is able to promise us a new name that only we will know - because He has known it first.

When God revealed Himself to humanity in His utmost perfection, He introduced Himself as "Emmanuel", because it meant that He had come to be with us. If you've been seeking for someone who will know and call you as you really are, and you haven't met this God that I write about, may I encourage you to call Him by His name - Jesus? He has promised to answer those that seek Him with all their heart, and promised that He will not be far away and slow to respond.

Call. He will answer.

- The Wisdom Seeker

Another Sleepless Night

It's 2 AM and I can't sleep (again). This time, it's definitely not because I had too much strong tea before bedtime. A few hours after a Flux CM Leadership small group where we talked about worry and anxiety, I find myself deluged by the same stuff we'd vigorously discussed. Pacing my room as Tolkien scurries around the floor in oblivious and happy exploration before I put her back in her cage, I'm consumed with all manner of thoughts that seem to have erupted out of nowhere.

Where are things headed? Will I do anything significant for God with my life? There's so much I want to pour my life into before He calls me home. Have I been a faithful son with what was entrusted to me? I'm terrified of being "the son that causes shame", that Proverbs talks about. Have I been wise in my affairs? How am I going to accomplish the dreams and calling that I feel propelled to? What if I fail and it all takes a huge nosedive? What if everything sits on the runway and never takes off? Is God happy with me? Have I disappointed Him? Why do things in life seem to be moving so slowly or at a standstill right now? I wish I could get more done, and be more effective. I wish my mind would work faster and I could learn and do more. I wish...Is God listening to this? Where are you, God? No, can't think like that. I know You're there. Can you say something?

After all that furious thinking and feeling like my feet have been firmly planted in mid-air with no conclusion in sight, I do what I should have done much earlier. I open my Bible and start reading. Why is it that I have this tendency to open it as the last resort after going through a mental gymnastics session? "Good grief, man" I find myself thinking. "This is becoming ridiculous. We just talked about all this stuff at small group. Get yourself in line." And as my eyes fall on the words of Psalm 90, some answers slowly emerge and I'm jotting them down here.

"Lord you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth...from everlasting to everlasting you are God...For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night." (Ps. 90:1-2, 4, ESV)

The transient nature of my finite existence only attains meaning in the reality of God's self existence.

The search for my origins is pointless without a place to return to, a place to call 'home'. Without my home that I find with the person of God, it leads me to a void - where I must jump into pitch black on the other side of death, and commit my soul to the great 'Perhaps?'

"You have set our iniquities before you; our secret sins in the light of Your presence." (Ps. 90:8 ESV)

Any attempt to make sense of my own depravity through the construction of a moral framework will ultimately have to be done in pitch darkness without the light afforded by God's presence. It is only in the light of who He is that I can even see the mirror that shows me who I am. Without this, the "isms and schisms" that mankind constructs to hold our fragile societies together are as hollow as ourselves.

"For all our days pass away under Your wrath. we bring our years to and end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away....So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." (Ps. 90:8 ESV)

Contrary to all secular human logic, the search for wisdom for now and forever is fruitful only when I am cognizant of my fleeting life in the presence of an everlasting God.

"Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days." (Ps. 90:14 ESV)

His 'hesed' is all I need to find my peace and satisfaction every morning.

And with that, I'm happy again and find the peace that passes all understanding. Tolkien scurries under my chair, brushing by my foot and stopping to look up at me on her way to explore the area under my study table. Time to put her back in her cage. I can go to sleep now. Good night.

- The Wisdom Seeker