Our minister makes his living, together with his wife, photographing weddings, balls, schools and graduations. It is a high turnover, low margin business (I have had some tutorials about such things from the pro photographer, who says that all photography business are very marginal at best). So when the text yesterday was that unbelievers have the glory of God veiled, he had photos of veils, and weddings, and brides, and talked about how we could be blinded, by our errors, our sins, and our biases.
The very fact that we cannot stand much truth means that we will not see truth when it occurs.
However, he missed something from this text. No one has seen God: for we cannot withstand him. Moses asked to see the face of God and was told that this would be lethal: at the end of his life he was taken to a mountain and was shown the Land by God, then died, seeing just his back.
We are fallen. We cannot see the glory of God as reflected in nature. We use theories that were not meant to explain everything to patch together a world that does not include the divine, or spirit, and then wonder why books on spirituality and fantasy fly off the shelves. For we are not purely of this world. We are not merely flesh. We were made to be in the presence of God, in the light[1]. We have neither the hide nor eyes to tolerate darkness, even if we call it good.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
(John 1:1-18 ESV)
I am reminded that we are moving into Lent… away from considering the Incarnation of God and moving to his death. But today’s passage is about Incarnation. Christ came to save sinners.
But he could not save people who would die in his righteous and holy state. He had to become a man, and we cannot tolerate that much truth or that much knowledge. Our head hurts, or our shame kills us. He had to become human.
The one who made all, who had been from the beginning, had to leave his power and become a babe: to be born of a woman, come into the world, to pain, to fear, to sorrow, and live in this world, preaching truth until it offended the self-righteous so much they ensured he died. This is a love I cannot understand. We honour those who leave the comforts of the West to go and serve God by living as a witness in other countries, who accept discomfort: and we give greater honour to those who die for the faith, as we should.
But the saints and martyrs bear faint and pale witness to the sufferings of Christ.
When he came we did not know him: my fear is that in the church, as it is now, we would reject him, as the Pharisees did, for our theory will again blind us to the truth.
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1. One of the first things you learn when you start doing photography as a serious hobby is that it is not about the scenery or subject. It is about the light. You can take days to get the light to a point where it is optimal, and that film (or file) is the one you show: the others are but trials. This is why pros have lighting kits to control such things, and amateurs suddenly pull their car off the road, or stop hiking, and pull our the tripod. And it is why the picture today was taken with a cellphone — light is ephemeral, and that is what I had in my hand.
Interesting; I know a minister in Canada who does the same thing.
We have three teaching elders: one works part time in his own business, one runs the NZ branch of servants to the Asian Poor part time, and one is full time and does the admin (together with an admin assistant). We ahve two female leaders paid by the church — one to work with the young families and children, and one with the elderly. There are two congregations in the church, about 120 in one and 200 in the other.
Ah.
The pastor I know has a ‘mission plant’ congregation of around 20 people. He does wedding photography across the border, on Saturdays, to supplement what little he earns as a pastor, in the fledgling little church.