Adam and Eve had the benefit of walking with God in the Garden of Eden (our idea of eternal life), landscaped for their creature comforts. To ensure their absolute obedience, God also planted a tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:8-9).
They failed the test. They ate of the tree. Shame,
symbolised by nakedness, overwhelmed them. They hid from God after doing the
unpardonable. Grave consequences followed. First, they died spiritually. God
was no longer walking with them. Now, they had to provide for themselves by the
sweat of their brow and in pain. Then they died physically. And, in the next
generation, conflict arose between Cain and Abel. God was pleased with Abel’s
offering, and not with Cain's. Murder followed. Then mayhem with an assortment
of sin became the norm.
God came down from the heavens. Mount Sinai (Horeb), with
Moses, merged with the heavens. God was in the Word Cloud. God spoke to Moses.
God wrote the Ten Commandments on two tablets and handed them over to Moses.
1400 years later, Jesus, the new Moses, perfected the Ten
Commandments. The First four of the Ten Commandments relate to our relationship
with God. The next six relate to our fellow men. They contain the ‘do not’ for, as we said, that was the norm then.
In the Gospel of Matthew 19:16-22, The Rich Man and the
Kingdom of God, notice Jesus' line of questioning of the rich man. He
focused on the six ‘do not’ commandments:
16 Just then a man came up to Jesus
and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” 17 “Why
do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is
only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” 18 “Which
ones?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you
shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false
testimony, honour your father and mother,’ and ‘love your
neighbour as yourself.’” 20 “All these I have
kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
It would be fair to assume that those
who have chosen to read this article are also seeking eternal life. Most
of us have inherited our faith – and some have converted from other faiths or
faithlessness. We get our clarity on eternal life from one indisputable fact.
Jesus suffered, died, went down to the dead, and on the third day He rose and
ascended into heaven.
As St Paul says, “If there is
no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And
if Christ has not been raised, your preaching is useless and so is your
faith.” – 1 Cor 15:13-14
The question we need to ask is
how seriously do we take the matter of eternal life? Worse, do we take it for
granted that because we have not committed murder or adultery, or theft or
borne false witness, and honoured our parents, and loved our neighbour as
ourselves, we will receive eternal life?
There are two problems with this
illusion that we maintain.
One, the ‘do nots’: we have
committed murder when we allowed death through hunger; committed adultery by
entertaining adulterous thoughts; stolen by retaining what does not belong to
us; and have borne false witness when we gossiped without any knowledge of the
person's circumstances; and we have not honoured our parents when they
experience loneliness, they are not provided for, their loss of memory becomes
a source of embarrassment and annoyance to us, and when they fall sick we feel
burdened by the responsibility of caring for them; and lastly, do we really
understand what is to love ourselves to truly extend it to our neighbours in a
way that will benefit them?
Two, the relationship with God:
In Ezekiel 24:15-24, the passage
is on ‘Ezekiel's wife’s death’. We have to infer that Ezekiel loved his wife
dearly. What is this Bible passage conveying to us about what God wants to tell
us?
God is saying, 16 “Son
of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your
eyes.” 20 So I said to them, “The word of
the Lord came to me: Say to the people of Israel, ‘This is what
the Sovereign Lord says: I am about to desecrate my sanctuary—the
stronghold in which you take pride, the delight of your eyes, the
object of your affection.” – Ezekiel 24:16,20-21
We have got to ask: ‘What is the
delight of our eyes, the object of our affection?’ In this instance, God is
talking not of a person – Ezekiel's wife's death being a metaphor. God is
talking about the Jerusalem Temple – the sanctuary. The Israelites came to
believe that as long as the Temple is there – God’s presence is there – and
they can go about their merry lives – in breach of every commandment of God –
both the relationship with God and with their fellow men.
To disabuse them of this belief,
God says, “I am about to desecrate my sanctuary”. Repent, says God. Did they?
No. The Temple was razed to the ground by King Nebuchadnezzar 1 – God’s own
instrument for this purpose. They restored the Temple and rebuilt Jerusalem
under Nehemiah on returning from the Babylonian exile, and desecrated it again
to be destroyed in 70 AD, this time by the Romans – the same people the
Israelites asked to crucify Jesus, because their law did not permit them to do
so themselves.
So, we have got to ask the
critical question: what is the person or object that is the delight of our
eyes that neither lets us relate to fellow men nor to God?
The rich man at least kept the tail-end commandments, and
Jesus, knowing the hearts and minds of men, accepted it at face value and was
pleased with the rich young man. Do we think we can at least pass this
test?
21 Jesus answered, “If you
want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the
poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad,
because he had great wealth.
That was his object of affection. He could not let go.
The ‘Account of the three companions of Saint Francis of
Assisi (c.1244) follows in Post Script on how another very rich man, Lord
Bernard, did with the help of Blessed Francis. It is good to note in the
companion read how Francis discerned if Lord Bernard was doing the right thing.
So do read it.
-
Mathew Anthony
No comments:
Post a Comment