Reflections on Ch. 3 -- What Jesus Knew: Our God-bathed World

What is it that God is God, if he is not God to you? – Martin Luther

This is a dense and plodding chapter, to my taste. It spends a lot of time making points that seem obvious to me; though I realize that the heaven/earth dualism has never made much sense to me. I resonate more with the Hebrew understanding, that Willard argues for here, of the integration of our world and God’s. Here’s what I think is going on here:

Jesus is well known in our culture. He is in some quarters thought of as a mostly divine being – human, yes, because the plan of salvation requires it, but not completely so. This is the “Away in a Manger” view: the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes. In other segments he is thought of as a beacon of peace and gentleness. Yet others view him as a dispenser of platitudes – turn the other cheek, do unto others… -- that might add something to an already good life. Willard argues that we really don’t think of Jesus in the way that makes the most sense: as brilliant, as having complete insight into human nature and the human predicament, as teacher of a whole new way of living.

Reading this I realize how rarely I saw Jesus in this way. One of the drawbacks of living in a “Christian” culture is that it’s easy to see Jesus baptizing our habits and assumptions, rather than truly challenging them. Then it’s a short step to hearing Jesus’ critique of the things we and the culture struggle with: lust, personal responsibility, etc. and miss any critique of our culture’s innate acceptance of poverty, insistance on self-reliance (the Lord helps those who help themselves), war as a means of solving problems, and so on.

In this chapter, Willard begins his presentation of Jesus as a brilliant teacher whose way of life makes sense when viewed flying right side up. Here’s how he makes that argument:

Jesus knew God intimately, better than we actually can know our human parents. The Trinity is deeply connected, in constant communion. A famous Orthodox icon of the Triune God shows three beings, full of light, seated around a table, dipping their hands into the same bowl. This is a community of constant interaction, of common purpose, of shared thoughts at the deepest level.

As a result of this knowledge, Jesus describes God as a constantly present force in the world, a joyous being who cares for his children. Willard notes that God constantly experiences the scenes of immense beauty that change our lives or at least give them new perspectives, and God is present in the farthest reaches of the cosmos, the light of which doesn’t reach us for millions of years. This being, whose life is beauty, truth and awe, is not a petty watchman making sure we don’t trash our puny corner of the galaxy.

Jesus, Willard writes, “was and is a joyous, creative person” who declares to his followers that the person who has seen him has seen his Father. He was known for the joy that flowed through him. He attracted followers precisely because he was not like the “religious” leaders of the time – serious and judgmental. Jesus’ purpose was to bring his disciples to a point where their joy would be complete. And he assures us, Willard says, that “our universe is a perfectly safe place to be.”

• If those who see Jesus see God, what does Jesus’ personality tell us about God? What can we learn from Jesus about God’s attitudes toward and desires for us, his creatures?
• What is joy? What would it mean for us to have complete joy in Christ?
• Is our universe a perfectly safe place to be? How would we have to re-conceive it to feel perfectly safe and at home?

Willard notes that Scripture consistently places “the heavens” near and accessible to us. God calls out to his people – to Abraham, to Jacob, to Moses, to the Israelites – from “the heavens,” but from right here, with the sound of his voice, with pillars of cloud, with fire. God’s presence with Israel is guaranteed, even when the nation is in exile. In the New Testament, God speaks and sends a dove at Jesus’ baptism, and flames appear at Pentecost. Even more, God’s incarnation as Jesus shows that God is not only with us, but is us – takes on our flesh and limitations. In short, the Judeo-Christian tradition views the space around us, the world we live in, as filled by God.

• What does it mean to look at our ordinary, everyday worlds and see them as inhabited by the God who created the universe?

Matthew’s gospel refers to the “kingdom of the heavens” more frequently than “the kingdom of God,” – which is the term used throughout the rest of the New Testament. This is not a coincidence, he says. How we see the connection determines whether we will see God as intimately involved in our lives (and our lives as intricately interwoven with God’s) or as the Deist clockmaker of the founding fathers, who set the stage and leaves us to write, direct and act the play ourselves.

Some strains of Christianity view God as a far off being in the heavens, wherever they are, pulling the levers of the world behind the curtain of space. Others view God as only existing in our hearts. Neither of these extremes, Willard argues, do justice to the God Jesus described. Rather, God is:
• not hidden but revealed by the world and events we experience
• everywhere in time and space but not localized – all events and places are accessible to him
• “seen everywhere by those who have long lived for him”
• Possessed of unbodily personal power

God’s full world is described as “all things visible and invisible,” Willard says, and in this world human existence is good “because God is constantly poised to do ‘exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or imagine, in terms of the energy that is working in us.’” (Eph. 3:20)

In this world, however, things are not what they seem. “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” This existence is limited, seeing through a glass darkly, but eventually we shall see clearly, with maturity. “There are none in the humanly down position so low they cannot be lifted up by entering God’s order, and none in the humanly “up” position so high that that they can disregard God’s point of view on their lives.”

• “To become a disciple of Jesus is to accept now that inversion of human distinctions that will sooner or later be forced upon everyone by the irresistible reality of his kingdom. How must we think of him to see the inversion from our present viewpoint?"

This chapter reinforces an insight that I had many years ago and have struggled with ever since. Christianity is not just a set of things to believe, or even a way of thinking. It is not just a way of living, although that is closer to reality. It is at root a new way of looking at the world, new eyes to see what is right in front of us. The problem is that culture is, at it's root, a way of looking at the world as well, and it is not God's way. So I am constantly called to go beyond thinking that is compatible with the culture I am swimming in, such as knowing that God hate's injustice, and being called to the view of God's kingdom, which is that I must perceive injustice and then do something about it.

It would be so much easier if we could keep flying upside down and rest on platitudes of Jesus to make the disorientation easier to take. Grabbing the stick and forcing the plane to roll is much, much more work.