Pentecostly and Paradoxa

Image by Larry Patten, www.larrypatten.com

Pentecostly and Paradoxa

Pentecost and paradox are two things that really mess up tidy systematic theology. How much of our theologizing is really just trying to explain (and control) God. We want a mastery over divinity. We want to figure Him out, know what we can expect, understand the principles, and tell God when He is playing by the rules, and when He needs to get in line. Books of confessions and canon law and covenant handbooks and manuals get co-opted to serve as a truce with God. These documents that once helped us describe life with God can become a substitute for living with a living God. Our relationship with God can become like an old couple that doesn't have to talk anymore. They know they are going to have tacos on Tuesday and watch last week's "Dancing with the Stars" on TIVO. The last thing they want to do is dance.

But, Pentecost is God's way of asking us to dance. We don't need to sit and watch other people (current or historical) relate to God. We get to relate to Him. He isn't just the historically verified God who speaks Hebrew or Greek. He speaks mother tongue--my mother tongue. He doesn't just have cosmic corporate designs, He's got his target set on me. "We hear him telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God" (Acts 2.11). "God in three persons, blessed Trinity" is more than lyrical doctrine. The person of the Holy Spirit is God getting personal. Jerusalem Temples and the Hebrew language and priests and festivals are good, but God has something personal to say to people in Antioch, Crete, Ephesus, and Everywhere else. Everywhere. Everyday. Everyone. To those who think they have God, own God, figured out God, divinity mastered, Pentecost is costly. Think if you had the monopoly on meeting places with God. Talk about location, location, location. Meet Him here, and only here. And only through the ministrations of the priesthood, and especially on special days of the year. Imagine how costly is Pentecost! God leaving the building, speaking every language, even through the laity. You don't visit Him in one building in one city. He is on the loose renewing the face of the earth. You don't talk to Him second-hand. He talks to you in a primary manner, "I baptize you...I forgive you...given and shed for you"

I am jealous of other people's theology sometimes. They can promise that God will always heal, or let everyone speak in tongues. Others can promise that the gifts have ceased, that no one speaks in tongues anymore. It would be easier to believe one of these poles. Other systems have salvation-ordered, another the future-scenarioed, another tithing-tested. I know how He works. I have God.

"Israel" means wrestles or strives with God, and was given to Jacob in Genesis 32 after he wrestled with God all night, and won? Omnipotence just got a little less tidy. What a fitting description this would be for the sons and daughters of Jacob/Israel for all of their days. I can't help but think of the pleadings of patriarchs and the mourning of matriarchs, the intercessions of the priests, the comprehensive affections of the psalmist, the turmoil of the prophets all wrestling with God. The Father wasn't doing a short parenting course on the mount of Transfiguration. He was being a Father. Jesus was not putting on a show or demonstrating proper prayer when he wrestled with his Father in Gethsemane. He was being a Son. I see so little sovereign fatalism in the sons of Israel or even in the Son of God. I see very little, "I have God." I see a lot of "...but, God has me." Mastered by Divinity. Sovereign majesty and mercy. The Holy God over the heavens is conceived into the womb of a virgin, tucked into toddlerhood, the challenges of adolescence, and the burdens of adulthood. I don't understand everything about God. But, He understands everything about me!

Psalm 131 has become my favorite. I could pray this at the end of a wrestling session with the "Almighty and most-merciful God" (the para-doxological language my mom and dad used to bless me with every night before bed).

Imagine translating and extrapolating verse 131.3, "O striving wrestler with God (Israel), you think you "have" him, but he "has" you! Hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore."

1 O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. 

2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. 

3 O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore.  - Psalms 131