Our need for tangible symbols of God offers false comfort that frustrates our ability to overcome..
Mohandas Ghandi said, “To a poor child in Calcutta, a piece of bread is God”. To the children of Israel, “A golden calf was God”. To modern believers, very often money or a provider or a pastor, is God. Church has been an incarnation of God for many and there has been a strong historic dogma for turning the Church into the centre of our faith. Others turn to symbols like a crucifix or even try to evoke life out of dead bread. All of these behaviors stem from a desperate need to have and hold God on human terms. The invisibility of God frustrates us, but it need not be that way.
When Jesus met the woman at the well (John 6), she said “some say that we ought to worship God in Jerusalem, others say in Samaria, what do you say?” Jesus replied, “It’s not about time or place, for God seeks us to worship Him in Spirit and Truth.”
Israel got into deep trouble when they depicted their concept of God as a golden calf. Their idea had some credence, for Ezekiel 1 depicts one of the faces of the four living creatures around the throne of God, as an ox, symbolizing the strength of God. Although the image used by Israel was drawn from Egyptian pagan practices, I am fairly sure that most of the people naïvely sought a symbol or replica of God or their concept of God. I am also fairly sure that depicting God as a calf was no less an issue as the idea of depicting Him as a building, an iconic leader, a crucifix or a statue.
The Samaritans got into different trouble when they allowed themselves to become alienated from the rest of Jewry, because they perceived that the well of Jacob at Shechem had a greater sense of God or God's presence, than did Jerusalem. How many religious groups have tried to sentimentalize places to evoke the presence of God or out of a misguided sense of service that does nothing to fill our empty wells. Muslims go to Mecca, Christians and Jews flock to Jerusalem and all come away with an experience yet without a lasting reality of God.
All of this may sound a bit gobbly-gooky, but sadly it is exactly what happens to our faith when we displace an intimate relationship with symbols for that reality. God is very real, but His voice is still, small and almost imperceptible, whilst the way He works in our lives is subtle, almost invisible. We can enjoy a very deep, very real relationship with Him if we connect with Him at a spiritual level, but we get into all kinds of problems when we try to reinterpret the invisible God in physical terms.
One of the sad consequences of this is an oppressive relationship with church through a form of service that comes close to guilt-induced slavery - the kind of thing that should only happen in the corporate world.
Mohandas Ghandi said, “To a poor child in Calcutta, a piece of bread is God”. To the children of Israel, “A golden calf was God”. To modern believers, very often money or a provider or a pastor, is God. Church has been an incarnation of God for many and there has been a strong historic dogma for turning the Church into the centre of our faith. Others turn to symbols like a crucifix or even try to evoke life out of dead bread. All of these behaviors stem from a desperate need to have and hold God on human terms. The invisibility of God frustrates us, but it need not be that way.
When Jesus met the woman at the well (John 6), she said “some say that we ought to worship God in Jerusalem, others say in Samaria, what do you say?” Jesus replied, “It’s not about time or place, for God seeks us to worship Him in Spirit and Truth.”
Israel got into deep trouble when they depicted their concept of God as a golden calf. Their idea had some credence, for Ezekiel 1 depicts one of the faces of the four living creatures around the throne of God, as an ox, symbolizing the strength of God. Although the image used by Israel was drawn from Egyptian pagan practices, I am fairly sure that most of the people naïvely sought a symbol or replica of God or their concept of God. I am also fairly sure that depicting God as a calf was no less an issue as the idea of depicting Him as a building, an iconic leader, a crucifix or a statue.
The Samaritans got into different trouble when they allowed themselves to become alienated from the rest of Jewry, because they perceived that the well of Jacob at Shechem had a greater sense of God or God's presence, than did Jerusalem. How many religious groups have tried to sentimentalize places to evoke the presence of God or out of a misguided sense of service that does nothing to fill our empty wells. Muslims go to Mecca, Christians and Jews flock to Jerusalem and all come away with an experience yet without a lasting reality of God.
All of this may sound a bit gobbly-gooky, but sadly it is exactly what happens to our faith when we displace an intimate relationship with symbols for that reality. God is very real, but His voice is still, small and almost imperceptible, whilst the way He works in our lives is subtle, almost invisible. We can enjoy a very deep, very real relationship with Him if we connect with Him at a spiritual level, but we get into all kinds of problems when we try to reinterpret the invisible God in physical terms.
One of the sad consequences of this is an oppressive relationship with church through a form of service that comes close to guilt-induced slavery - the kind of thing that should only happen in the corporate world.
Such activity may be rooted in theology, but it still amounts to a relationship with objects and a dependence on others for approval. That is where we get lost, but we get lost, according to Romans 8, because we are made subject to vanity. Our vanity cries for approval through our deeds and associations, rather than through our divine position in God’s eternal purposes.
The tragedy of a symbolic faith is that it neutralizes our power to overcome sin or the world. Jesus said, “The devils believe and tremble”, but He referred to a fear for a living, regal God. When we trust symbols of that reality, we end up with a form of Godliness that denies the power thereof (2 Timothy 3:1-5) and become the laughing stock of the enemy. We become like lions without teeth, going through interesting rituals of service and applied clichés, whilst achieving squat in our war against evil.
We must restore spiritual connectedness and fellowship with God to overcome and extend that relationship into a vital expression that makes us the church, not church goers. We must have His life in us so our cups can overflow and make a vital difference to the world around us. We must win our fight in the air, not beat the air using physical symbols of God to war against flesh and blood fronts for the unseen darkness.
© Peter Eleazar at www.bethelstone.com
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