Rain from the dark cloud

  

July 19, 2018

I’ve been reading Merton’s journals, and have come to the realization that I feel that life has meaning and purpose because of the faith I was raised in—the Jesus story. That is the well spring of meaning for me. So, if I am to speak about ‘meaning,’ I have to tell the story that gave it to me. I must affirm the Jesus Story.

 

Lately I have been obsessed with the question of Jesu as myth vs. Jesus as historical reality. In addition: if the Incarnation is metaphor, how does the person of Jesus effect an affirmation of my life? Of course the Incarnation dogma only appears in John, the mystical gospel. (Some would say that Paul intimates the Incarnation, but only John writes of the Logos, and the Logos becoming flesh.) Since John is a mystical writing, Logos become flesh is not a literal statement, but a mystical one.

 

But what does it mean to say that a Story gave me a sense of meaning if the Story is not objectively true? Kierkegaard wrote about ‘subjective truth,’ or ‘truth as subjectivity’ (I can’t remember the precise wording). Which might mean that the truth conveyed by the Jesus Story is a revelation from God whether or not it is objectively or historically accurate. After all, Jesus told invented stories in order to convey/reveal the Kingdom.

 

But here is a brute fact: The stories about Jesus of Nazareth around two thousand years ago is the well-spring of a continuing movement in the twenty-first century. The Church is a fact. The Church continues to exist and act because it has there is an existential life-giving power in its message and sacramental life. Which brings me back to where I began: My sense of meaning and purpose has been given to me through the gospel—the Jesus Story.

 

To put it simply: the gospel has redemptive power. The holy mystery is wrapped up in Jesus the Christ. God is wrapped in the garment of a dark cloud. And the Resurrection is to me a dark cloud. But out of the dark cloud has rained down hope.

 

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