Matthew under the arm 33
This morning, Columba and I passed a memorial to those who were massacred in a village for their beliefs. The list on the stonework seemed to be endless. Tears came to his eyes as he looked around him. It was as if he was imagining the appalling end of an almost forgotten people. I began to ask him about what he was thinking. He merely put his hand up as if to silence me. We walked on for the rest of that day in that silence. Over supper, I insisted that he told me what he had been thinking about. 'Christ went with them into their hell. Maybe these good people like the swine were carrying our destructiveness for us', he replied. 'I was journeying with Christ as I prayed for them.' I asked him what the prayer was for. 'For?', he replied rather tetchily.... 'When you and I go through another village tomorrow, on our pilgrimage, we must be alive to the roots of destruction. The Gadarene swine with Christ carry that destructiveness that is even in us.' 'In you?', I asked Columba. 'Yes. In me!'
Matthew 8:28-34….
The details of this healing are disturbing and may seem offensive. The two men recognise Jesus – and in the mythology of the 1st century, he is the one at the end of time who commits them to hell. Here is Jesus before the time expected. Instead they ask that they be sent into a herd of swine. The story is about a ‘descent into hell’. The presence of swine indicates that this was a non-Jewish region. Think of the significance of swine for the people of the Middle East now. So there is a double alienation – and Christ enters both with his presence. There is no darkness, no torment, no alienation that he has not already entered. This is also might be seen as a batpismal story, anticipating Christ's deah and resurrection. The swine career down into the water and are lost.... Christ is the one who regains beyond our comprehension.
In the rejected and alienated, find Me and serve Me.
Emptiness of belief and absence of God often afflict those who pray. The God of love is paradoxically present then. There is no experience, no place, not even hell itself that he has not already been. Allow the detail of this Gospel narrative to become part of you – even to the point of allowing yourself to charge down into the sea with the swine. Then using the sentence you can in the depths (literally!) of prayer come close in your imagination to those who are alienated – excluded for whatever reason from communities.
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles
Matthew 8:28-34….
The details of this healing are disturbing and may seem offensive. The two men recognise Jesus – and in the mythology of the 1st century, he is the one at the end of time who commits them to hell. Here is Jesus before the time expected. Instead they ask that they be sent into a herd of swine. The story is about a ‘descent into hell’. The presence of swine indicates that this was a non-Jewish region. Think of the significance of swine for the people of the Middle East now. So there is a double alienation – and Christ enters both with his presence. There is no darkness, no torment, no alienation that he has not already entered. This is also might be seen as a batpismal story, anticipating Christ's deah and resurrection. The swine career down into the water and are lost.... Christ is the one who regains beyond our comprehension.
In the rejected and alienated, find Me and serve Me.
Emptiness of belief and absence of God often afflict those who pray. The God of love is paradoxically present then. There is no experience, no place, not even hell itself that he has not already been. Allow the detail of this Gospel narrative to become part of you – even to the point of allowing yourself to charge down into the sea with the swine. Then using the sentence you can in the depths (literally!) of prayer come close in your imagination to those who are alienated – excluded for whatever reason from communities.
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles
posted by Martin at 2:02 pm
2 Comments:
The presence of the swine shows how far these people had slipped from following God Law. Our church is like this with one trainee leader saying "It doesn't matter what you believe all paths lead to God". I have worked amonst Muslims, spiritually they are as full of fear of death as the person mentioned above. Mankind needs the certaintity of a life in Heaven which is the Gospel (the Good News). Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and His death to pay for our sins brings hope, certainty of eternal life.
In a pastoral encounter I was once asked if I believed in the calvinist doctrine of final perseverance. Witlessly I launched into the C of E official line as expressed in the prayer at the graveside 'Suffer us not in our last hour for any pain of death to fall away from Thee'and the need to avoid the sin of presumption, topped off with a definition of mortal sin grave matter, wilful intention etc. The man's eyes filled with tears and he said , 'but when I am in that darkness ( of depression) I am capable of anything. All that holds me together is the thought that I can never fall out of His hands.' May God have mercy on me.
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