(31) The Passion
It is with the holiest fear that we should approach the terrible fact of the sufferings of our Lord. Let no one think that those were less because he was more. The more delicate the nature, the more alive to all that is lovely and true, lawful and right, the more does it feel the antagonism of pain, the inroad of death upon life; the more dreadful is that breach of the harmony of things whose sound is torture.
As found in MacDonald’s unspoken sermon “The Eloi”
(32) Eli, Eli
Thus the Will of Jesus, in the very moment when his faith seems about to yield, is finally triumphant. It has no feeling now to support it, no beatific vision to absorb it. It stands naked in his soul and tortured, as he stood naked and scourged before Pilate. Pure and simple and surrounded by fire, it declares for God. The sacrifice ascends in the cry, My God . The cry comes not out of happiness, out of peace, out of hope. Not even out of suffering comes that cry. It was a cry in desolation, but it came out of Faith.
As found in MacDonald’s unspoken sermon “The Eloi”
Thanks for this. I struggle with this, though. It seems that it’s not in the worst extremity that we have difficulty crying out for God–we scrabble at the most desperate hope we can. I’d like to hear what you think.
One of the most triumphant portions of Jesus, though, at death, seems to me to be (and I’d like to read what Macdonald thought of that) “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” He did not rail against those who hurt him. Not only that, but he interceded for them. He also pointed out that many of us do awful things without fully understanding what we do. It renovates the idea of the just world hypothesis–that all things happen for a reason–in the spirit of Job and the blind man, who he said was not blind because of the his own sins or the sins of his parents.
Becky (my wife) and I are reading through “The Baron’s Apprenticeship,” by Macdonald, and have come to some really good passages on faith struggles and integrity. I think that Macdonald was maybe (I’d like to hear what you and others think) a functional Christian–that he found it much more important to look at the heart, rather than at the set of beliefs. I wonder where he would score on the questionnaire we just took from the Faraday Institute.
Thanks.
That’s yet another Macdonald book I’ve never read! It’s high time I start another. Thanks for the mention.
As with most of the posts I put here, there is much to be gleaned by reading more of the sermon all around the selection. This one is no exception in that regard. In fact I already included more than Lewis did, who ended this one at: “…declares for God.” Indeed, tomorrow’s selection will itself yield more light for this, and already helps form my response here. It isn’t that hope, love, felt presence - all of those precious gifts aren’t to be sought and enjoyed by believers, but that even in their stark and complete absence something of a true self (all that is left?) is now naked and in stark relief, left with nothing to hide behind. None of which (we pray) is a normal course of life for most of us, even at life’s end I suppose. But something makes it important to believers to know that they cannot [will not] face any extreme beyond the desolation finally faced (and conquered) by their own Master. That, I think, is something of the essence of Macdonald’s thought here.
Thank you for your comments and insight. I look forward to that. It is a good meditation! Pretty much any time I don’t see Macdonald’s point at first, there is another, deeper reason that he’s right!
I think there may be some truth to this, though I would be cautious about it. I doubt that the insightful, and yet simplistic grid could do justice to Macdonald’s complete vision, which seems to me to overflow with substance every bit as much as function. I think it truest to say that he saw functional obedience as a key to what (if anything) might be hoped for of accurate understanding.
With all the ellipses I’m trying to strip this back to MacDonald’s basic point, at least what I understand it to be in this quote.
What a powerful concept: The Will to Faith.
Rather than: the Will to Power.
But what a hard thing. In this stripped down desolation with no support – to will faith. It would require relying on memory at the very time when memory, subjected to all manner of doubt, is no longer helpful.
And another stripped back piece:
Venerable Father Abraham! Second father of the human race!..forgive someone who would speak in praise of you if he has not done so properly. …[H]e shall never forget that you needed 100 years to get, against expectation, a son of your old age, that you had to draw the knife before you kept Isaac; he shall never forget that in 130 years you got no further than faith.
(Fear and Trembling, S. Kierkegaard, ed by Bruce H. Kirmmse, Bookshare ed. 25%)
How is this done authentically in the face of such doubt. Somehow getting to faith at all would be a triumph. Willing oneself to believe God seems a requirement, but how?
Nicely observed!
I think the standard observation for this is that we never can make the first move - God must do it. And I think that age-old, baptized wisdom still carries its truth today. While Macdonald was no Calvinist, I don’t see him disagreeing with this.
And if I’m not mistaken, you add … “yeah - but what about long after all the ‘first moves’ have been long faded into history and even beaten away by faulty memory and a life of challenges?” That’s a good question. Just as it is fitting for ailing and fading parents to be sustained in their final years by the stronger hearts of their young, should we hope that God’s new-budded graces in our various families and communities must also suffice even when our enfeebled, and possibly dementia-ridden minds are robbed of such feeling or expression?
Abraham had met with God the Killer personally. Jesus had His own thirteen hundred day track record of being God incarnate. And even they had trouble believing Him. Human normal for all those who met Him.
What do we have?
This [poorly conceived posted I had written and removed] needs more work.
I don’t think there was ever a non-Calvinist who thought we could come to Christ without any help from the Spirit.
Reminds me of Steve Brown, a blessed old Saint who is still kicking it. He is also a Calvinist, and once said, you make the first move, God will make the second, and by the time you get to the third, you will see it was God all along.
Yes Miss, sorry Miss.
When I had God, for decades, I made everything work in that light, no matter how ghastly. I always had a theodicy, an excuse for God, because there was no questioning, no doubting Him.
But now that there is no reason for Him, no warrant, no anomalous, anachronistic spark of divine intelligence, no excession, I don’t have to make excuses for Him. And in my intentional invoking of Him yet, I still don’t have to.
(33) The Same
Without this last trial of all, the temptations of our Master had not been so full as the human cup could hold; there would have been one region through which we had to pass wherein we might call aloud upon our Captain-Brother, and there would be no voice or hearing: he had avoided the fatal spot!
As found in MacDonald’s unspoken sermon “The Eloi”
Oh, forgive me, Martin!
The “this” was the pathetic post I had slapped up there yesterday and reconsidered.
“This needs more work” was in reference to my awful, incomplete effort. I have ended up communicating exactly what I had no intention of saying. I’m so sorry!
I know Kendel : ) I was toying with you : ) SORRY!
Nice uppercut. Felt very much the way the sidewalk toyed with my face last summer. I’ll work to learn to keep my guard up.
You have misdirected your toying reaction against theodicy in my direction. The probability of theodicy from me is very low, approaching zero, in discussions with you. That’s been deliberate and careful decision.
I had no intention to develop such a reply to
either.
I can only apologize.
Thanks for this, Merv.
Jesus is our pioneer brother in every way.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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