STATION 23: THE KOAN: REALMS BEYOND RATIONALITYThank you, dear reader, for joining me on this journey. Thank you for your attentiveness. Thank you for having spent your precious time working with me in these serious matters. As we come to the end of this writing, after so many pages one could think that we have said something about God, or that we have learned something about the cross or perhaps even ourselves. Maybe in some small way that is true. But, ultimately what we are dealing with in the revelation of God through Christ, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, is something that goes completely beyond our capacity to comprehend. The Bible points to this as it talks about no eye has seen nor has the heart conceived of the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. It talks about the wisdom of God being foolishness to this world, and about being transformed by the renewing of our minds. Jesus talks about having many things to teach us, but that we cannot bear them now. So, in the final station of the cross, I want to leave you with the clearest point I can. Ultimately, God cannot be understood. He must be experienced. Life cannot merely be talked about or read about. It must be lived. What do I mean by this? For instance, if you have never eaten chocolate, how could I describe it to you? All I could do would be to explain chocolate in terms of something else which you might have eaten which tastes like chocolate. Ultimately, there is no substitute for the simple raw experience of chocolate. The same is true of the color red. How would one describe red to a blind man. It cannot be done. In exactly the same way, all of the several thousand words in this writing amount to nothing, ultimately, because they are only words. It is only talk. It is only ideas. It has nothing to do with the reality of God, because one taste of the divine light, one taste of the divine presence, will tell you more about the reality of God then 100,000 books ever could. That is what the death and resurrection of Jesus is partially about. The disciples say throughout their writings, the things which we saw, all the things which we heard, the things which we felt, we make known to you. They're not talking about the things they believe or the things that they think or the things that they theorize, but the things that they had heard, seen, beheld, and their hands had handled concerning the word of life. Jesus came to the Earth so that we might see Him, feel Him, know Him, handle Him. He is still here today to be known, to be seen, to be felt, to be handled. No amount of rationalizing, no amount of thinking will ever substitute for the full truth of God. What do I mean? I ought to give you a term which not too many Westerners are familiar with, and that term is a "Koan." It comes from the Zen Buddhists. To the Western mind, Zen Buddhists are a very strange bizarre peculiar lot. They go around asking very bizarre questions like, what was the look of your face before you were born? What is the sound of one hand clapping? They tell weird little stories, all trying to get you, one way or the other, to have a short circuit in your brain so you can stop thinking and rationalizing and experience and know that there is reality beyond the power of words to convey. Lau-Tzu, 500 years before Jesus said, "Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak." Now what does this have to do with the death and resurrection of Jesus? Everything. You see, we have now spent several pages talking about Christ's passion from many different angles, but in its fullest sense, Christ's passion remains an ultimate mystery that we cannot penetrate. I will give you a Christian Koan, and that Christian Koan is the cross of Christ. It goes like this. God sent to the Earth His son as a perfect man. He was perfect love. He taught people all they needed to know about life and the Kingdom of God. He cast out their demons. He healed their sicknesses. He contained within His very palm the power of eternal life, and freely, without expectation, offered that forgiveness and eternal life to everyone. As a result, humanity took this man and they beat Him, they whipped Him, they pounded nails into His hands and feet, strung Him up on a cross and watched Him die. And, that constitutes the salvation of the universe. Now, that is much stranger than the sound of one hand clapping. That is a Koan of such power, such depth, that having spent all of these thousands of words, we have said almost nothing. Because the life, death and resurrection of Jesus provide us a window into infinity. Infinity is a very strange concept. Most people conceive of infinity as being just a very big number, a few million, a few billion, maybe even a trillion. Most people don't even know the name for 1,000 trillion. But, you see a trillion times a trillion times a trillion is the barest tiniest immeasurable fraction of infinity. Likewise most people think of eternity as being a very long time, but once you've spent your first several hundred trillion trillion years in Heaven, you won't even be ready for your morning coffee break, because eternity, by its very nature, lies outside of time. Infinity by its very nature lies outside of numbering. The cross of Christ gives us a vision, a gateway, a portal, a view into the life of the spirit, a life beyond time, beyond space, beyond limitations, where even death has no hold, where evil and good are merged into a oneness of life, where the small minded-ness of popularity is seen for the illusion that it is, where all suffering is but a temporary blip, a hiccup, in a life longer than the human mind can comprehend--a realm of absolute forgiveness, complete total limitless love and glory and grace, beyond even our faintest comprehension. That's why I say that the cross of Christ is a Koan, because it seeks to short circuit our brain. The wisdom of God is, in fact, foolishness to this world. To say that sending the world's most perfect man to the Earth as God in the flesh to heal, to love, to forgive, to instruct, to resurrect, and murdering such a person, executing Him as a criminal against humanity, constituting a salvation, is completely nonsensical. It does not fit. It cannot be explained. And, I have spent
several thousand words attempting to explain to you what
chocolate tastes like. I invite you to put down this pamphlet,
and perhaps take it up again on another day, more as a reminder
than a guide, and to continue to draw closer to the throne of
God's grace, for this infinite power that resurrected Jesus,
lives inside of your heart. Remember the Euongaleon. You are
right now forgiven. The war is over, and the only reality is
eternal life, bliss, peace, love, joy and the fruit of ecstasy
from the Holy Spirit. |
|
[Home] [Colorful Introduction] [God's Name] [The Revealing Science of God] [Jesus Died for You] [Contact] [Support]
(c) 1996-2008 The Church of Yahweh. All rights reserved. May be freely
distributed, but never sold. |
