 |
 |
Devotions Archive
Archive:
1999
|
2000
|
2001
|
2002
|
2003
|
2004
|
2005
|
2006
|
2007
|
2008
|
2009
|
2010
|
2011
|
2012
|
2013
|
2014
|
2015
|
2016
|
2017
|
2018
|
2019
|
2020
|
2021
|
2022
|
2023
|
2024
Twelve drummers drumming (the 12 points of doctrine in the Apostles' Creed - bet you can jot those down without looking, ay?) -- The Twelfth Day of Christmas!Friday, January 5, 2001
John 1:43-51 What we might glimpse occasionally for a moment, Jesus lives. Uninterrupted intercourse between Jesus and his Father sets him apart from other men. This is what allows him to transcend philosophy and language and science to simply say, "I am the truth." He does not point us toward truth, or tell us about truth, or even claim to be the all-knower of truth. He is. Truth. This is as good as it gets. Heaven comes down, and glory fills my soul. All my life I have struggled to understand the relationship between earth and heaven, between body and spirit, between shadow and essence. Philosophy, art, science...all ask the same question. One way to ask that question is, "What comes first, the chicken or the egg?" Or more accurately, "What comes first, our ideas about God...or God?" In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, young James Joyce chooses to forgo the priesthood and become a writer. He loves to create, "forging anew in his workshop, out of the sluggish matter of the earth, a new soaring impalpable imperishable being." He understands the limitations of the priest, "who was but schooled in the discharging of a formal rite," and compares that to the role of the artist, "a priest of the eternal imagination, transmuting the daily bread of experience into the radiant body of everliving life." For Joyce, earth (and the creative urges of its humanity) begets heaven. For Jesus, heaven is the source of all the earth, including our own human creativity. Jesus answers our question about sources with the certainty of divine selfhood, "I am the way, the truth, the life." Many good questions remain, but this one has been answered. It is the birth of this revelation that we celebrate on the eve of Epiphany, on the last day of Christmas, on the Twelfth Night. What makes you our Lord, Lord, is that you are God and we are not. Thank you for showing us that fact so clearly . Open our eyes to your truth and your life. From our knees, we praise you. |
The dove has landed. The Spirit of God flies to Jesus and remains on him. The essence of all that is God fills him.