The Chief Question of the Evangelical Catechism, by Johann Georg Hamann

“Reason Is Language, Logos.”–Johann Georg Hamann (1730-1788). From the series Great Ideas.
1966 Herbert Bayer Born: Haag, Austria 1900 Died: Montecito, California 1985 acrylic on prepared fiberboard 30 x 30 in. (76.2 x 76.2 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Container Corporation of America 1984.124.16 (Not currently on view)

“The Limits of my language means the Limits of my World.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 1922
1966-1979 Herbert Bayer Born: Haag, Austria 1900 Died: Montecito, California 1985 acrylic on fiberboard 29 7/8 x 29 7/8 in. (75.9 x 75.9 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Container Corporation of America 1984.124.17  (Not currently on view)http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=1534

The Chief Question of the Evangelical Catechism

by Johann Georg Hamann[1]

Matthew 22:42, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”
What do you think of Christ?

I. General Considerations for the Clarification of Doctrine Contained in this Significant Test Question:

1. Man is a thinking creature.
2. The Fall has killed him, his brain[2], his spiritual brain.
3. All thoughts about Christ or of God are hidden from us, (contrary) repugnant to us.
4. In order to think correctly about the Christ, a supernatural change of senses[3], as well as blessed illumination is indispensable.
5. The thoughts[4] of man are under God’s jurisdiction.
6. We human beings[5] must be prepared to be questioned by God, and to be investigated through thoughts, as well as actions – principally we must examine and verify our thoughts about Christ because according to these thoughts God will judge us.

II. The Content of this Question: What do you think about the Christ?

1. Objective — regarding the topic, Christ.
a. What do you think of His glory?
b. What do you think of His origins? Whose Son is He?
c. What do you think of His person?
d. What do you think of His anointing?
(1) Of Him who anointed Him, the Father
(2) Of His office for which He was anointed
(3) Of the Spirit by which He was anointed
(4) Of the measure of His anointing
(5) Of its thickly rich spices[6] and sweet aroma
(6) Of the beauty and delightfulness
(7) Of the worth and exquisiteness
(8) Of the virtue and the power of your anointed Redeemer to soften and move your heart and heal your wounds[7]
2. Actualizer of reality, of existence – Regarding the act of thinking
a. What do you know
b. What do you believe
c. What do you love
d. What value do you reckon[8] the Christ. What value do you reckon your reason, your will, your inclinations, your memory?[9]
3. Formality – Regarding the state of your thinking. What? What do you think of the Christ for a possession, for splendor, for use[10], for a value or price should you buy or sell Him?[11]
4. Subjective – – You – Jews – Pharisees – Sadducees – Disciples

III. Reasons why this is a chief question and premise of the Evangelical catechism

1. Without just thoughts about the Christ it is impossible to really think about God.
2. Without just thoughts about the Christ, religion[12] cannot take place, consequently no blessedness.
3. This question is the guiding principle of self-examination [13].
4. This question comprehends in itself all remaining questions about religion and is the key to unlocking the entire law because Christ is the end of the law.
5. This question stops the mouth from speaking all insolence and asking after useless curiosity.
6. This question is the standard and banner of all our thoughts.
7. This question casts aside all prejudices and errors, both in considering Jesus Himself and in all other things.
8. At the same time, this question explains Christ’s thinking toward us. How we think about Him, so He thinks about us; and we become to His way of thinking about us because His thoughts are creations, mysteries and wonder working.
9. This question is the richest source of thought and all sentiment[14].

IV. Application

1. For instruction.
a. The sum total of Chapter Eleven. Insight[15] is the name of Christ.
b. The best subject matter for contemplation and the best rule for self examination.
c. Christ is the best judge of the human condition because He alone knows our heart and thoughts and will be the future judge of these things.
d. The end purpose of Evangelical ministry is to teach Christ.
2. For the conviction of all ignorant, erroneous, unpleasant and offensive ideas. The basis for these ideas is ignorance, disbelief, pride, reason of the flesh, discord, the external façade of the church and the heart’s interior.
3. For examination and testing. –
a. The state of our ideas. Right ideas about Christ are effusive[16], rapturous[17], spiritual, practical, genuine, proliferate, humble without fear, and the sanctified and revived of our whole nature.
b. The object of our ideas, the subject matter of our thoughts.  The exalted middle class, travels and labors, immeasurable treasures, ideas, words, works, the Gospel and the conditions thereof, service and wage, garb, love and the motive for it.
4. For admonition and instruction[18]. Prove, show, put on, display your deep respect and high esteem.
a. through the degrees, levels, ranks or grades of the same
b. through the effects — desire this deference to accompany all activities, avoiding all rivalry, letting your joy, sadness, and celebration sympathize with recollections of Him. Seek to propagate your ideas of Christ in others through godly conversations and by means of pious change. Amen.

Notes (An Annotated Exhortation):

[1] Johann Georg Hamann, “Die Hauptfrage des Evangelischen Catechismus,” “Aus der Mappe des Philologen, um 1760,” IV Band, Sämtliche Werke, Kleine Schriften, 1750-1788, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe ed. by Josef Nadler (Wien: Thomas-Morus-Presse im Verlag Herder, 1949), pp. 249-250. A render’s offending translation by mcduffee, alone responsible for excesses, losses and errors mine as winnings from playing manifest lotteries of misunderstanding. The prizes have never been clearly identified nor entirely inventoried but, I believe them to be composed from various amounts of sense data and wild ideas accrued and stored as trained ignorance trafficked through a checkered education administered by a system of language I heard spoken without realizing I learned to speak by listening, grounded in the organon sin while subject to multiple movements of the stars, tides, calendars and traditions, all of which, nevertheless, churn in one, I trust, who has been healed by precious blood shed unto the reckoned condition of alien righteousness imputed justly by its Owner, and thus is the One whom I follow along at the heels of like a parabiotic dog does his apologue Master (and yes, made more the man for doing so than those who speak all manner of harsh things against Him). If I use words without being convicted in spite of my standing before God, or fail to break into a doxology because He allows me to stand before Him, then what happens to me for speaking at all?
[2] das Gehirn. “Originally, that soft, white substance in the cavity of the skull, which is comprised of two masses, the larger of the two in a strict sense the brain [cerebrum], the smaller referred to as the cerebellum [das Gehirnlein oder Hirnlein]…many hold that the brain is the seat and the center of operation [die Werkstätte] for the soul. Translation of entry found in Johann Cristoph Adelung, Dietrich Wilhelm Soltau, and Franz Xaver Schönberger, Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart (Wien: Bauer Verlag, 1811), Digitale Bibliothek, Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum, Bayerische StaatsBibliothek, read from http://lexika.digitale-sammlungen.de/adelung/lemma/bsb00009132_2_0_862
[3] eine übernatürl. Sinnesänderung: The senses primarily, but in the wake of their transformation a change of tastes, tendencies and understanding of the meaning of everything. As Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy will later say in his visionary works, Out of Revolution and Fruit of Lips, a change of style demonstrably proves a change in life, which can end and begin divinely endowed revolutionary change in history.   
[4] der Gedanken, the ideas. Our word idea comes from the Latin tapped into Greek, it means the form or appearance of a thing as opposed to its reality (Latin, videre, to see). An idea is whatever exists in my universe of conscious reflection upon earlier listening, what I might think, know or imagine as concept, image or notion pieced together or taken apart.
[5] Not an abstract classification or species of life, but men, women, children, families, communities and generations living in history.
[6] Exodus 25:6; 30:23fl.; 1 Kngs 10:2; Matt 2:1-12; Jn 19:40: der Specerey.  http://de.academic.ru/dic.nsf/grammatisch/44303/Specerey
[7] The pedagogic strategy played out as style, the examining of something the reader is led to realize is unexpectedly essential only after having read about it, i.e., response predestined — a reply required that generates uncertainty and intrigue. Should I continue to read or not? Is Hamann mad? Is he putting me on? Should I dismiss him, or realize with the train of readings he releases he also points out an illuminated pathway for me to follow. Back to II. 1. a. subsumed under I. 6!                                                                                                   [8] schätzen, to guess, like at the carnival, when for a dollar you try to guess the weight of a single Mom scantily clad to be undressed a MILF, for money to feed her habit, and maybe her child, if there’s any left over and she remembers. Guess within the pound and you’ll win a stuffed teddy bear made by slave laborers overseas somewhere putting in twelve-hour days for the hope of getting free, their exploitation rippling out rings of profit, ending at the shoreline of our lust, with that kiss we want when giving the little cuddly nothing to our sweetheart. Come on, take a guess, how high should we hold this in esteem, tell me, just what is the worth of Christ’s glory?  Where am I to do the math, who in me reckons the bottom line, who am I standing before the Lord, do I muster as one among the last ones, the hollow ones or as one of their modern-day docetic children?  Paint me, dress me, squeeze me, I want to feel alive. However we see ourselves, believing, now back we go and finish reading II. 2. d.
[9] Did I hear the trap snap?  My wit, my common sense, my intellect; my understanding writhes beneath the steel bar of God’s word that holds me tight, caught before the Lord.  An unjust scale is an abomination to the Lord, now what do I really esteem higher, the Lord’s glory or my estimation of it? careful now mcduffee, this process operates under conditions stipulated by I. 6.
[10] der Gebrauch, longstanding, ongoing use, application, or practice as custom. Application strikes at the pragmatic obsession, choking the life out of North American evangelical homiletics. Are we really in one another’s company for this kind of conversation about the glory of Christ? Its application? Its exploitation?  What do we have that we have not received?  What have we received that God in Christ has not lifted up, taken and held for us?
[11] Whether aware of it or not, now I am trapped, shall I barter His glory, put it up for sale, or for auction? Who will give me the first bid? No! Of course not, well will I invest in it, accrue wealth from it or spend it on something worthwhile, worth having, of what worth? No!  Well then will I just keep it to look at, to handle at will or maybe use it to get some work out of it or make sense of it? I flip and twist but I’m caught; my rodent spine is snapped for my being lured and enticed by my own desire, going after the bait I set out so that I could catch another. If not deceived, what a fool I am; and if deceived, where are my beloved brothers and sisters to slap me sober?
[12] Exodus 20:1-17; John 5:19-47; Acts 20:18:35; James 1:19-27.  It is the Lord who judges us.  Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.  Then each of us will receive his commendation from God.  To our benefit then, let us learn not to go beyond what is written, for what do we have that we did not receive?
[13] One quadrant of the full circle of speech, together being sound doctrine (1 Timothy 1:10), effective prayer (James 5:16), honest self-examination (2 Corinthians 13:5) and vital speech (Ephesians 5:25).
[14] die Empfindungen, perceptions, sentiments, feelings.  The hope of holiness purifies.  We trust that He loves us that much, we trust that He is that powerful!  Who knows better than me how wretched I am, and yet, how little I know!  I love Him, I have not seen Him, yet with you, I believe in Him and rejoice with His joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, believing that the outcome of our faith is the salvation of our souls.  He who is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, who upholds the universe by the word of His power, He wants us with Him, and He will have us holy! 
[15] die Erkenntnis, die Einsicht – inspection, understanding; judiciousness, perception; realization; decision, sentence, finding. The discovery of a universe.  The recognition of oneself.  The finding of a court, a just decision with a mixing of agnoscere with cognoscere.  I don’t know to what chapter eleven Hamann refers.  The fourth section of Luther’s Small Catechim was added in 1551. The section is titled, “Christian Questions with Their Answers.”  Designating Luther as their author, the questions are prepared for those who intend to go to the sacrament of the altar.  The seventh of twenty questions asks, “Who is Christ?”  The response answers, ”The Son of God, true God and man.”     
[16] überschwenglich – pouring out or forth, overflowing; expressing excessive emotion in an unrestrained manner, remembering nevertheless, that living the life in Christ is doing the impossible without knowing it except by faith in the power of the Spirit, in accordance with the authority of God’s word; thus in this case remembering, we speak to edify and not to confuse others into thinking we are mad; we speak to convict, to call to account, that others who are without gift or faith may have the secrets of their hearts disclosed, so they might fall on their faces to worship the God they have come to be convinced is in our midst. Let all things be done for edification. The spirits of prophets are subject to prophets; for God is not confused or a God of confusion, He is not the God of the envying or makers of strife or the evil workers of the agitation and tumult of war. Therefore by faith we trust our effusive thoughts about Christ shall be contemplated properly and in an orderly manner; as Christ gives the Spirit without measure the Spirit in turn teaches us the mind of Christ so that all the thoughts we receive through the study of God’s word shall be taken captive to the obedience to Christ.  The light of His glory is diffused throughout creation, confused in the world, and fused with our spirit through the gospel.    
[17] entzückt, delightful, enchanting, but so much more so than Rococo charm. Each right thought of Christ taken captive by Christ is the equivalent in our soul of the event that is to come when we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with the dead in Christ to gather with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. These effusive, rapturous thoughts of Christ given full reign over our soul are tempered only by the timing of the Lord while we live lives of self-control born in us as a fruit of the Spirit.
[18] die Anweisung, assignment, direction. Not just information for me to follow that I may know how to do something, but a command for me to do something I am ordered to obey as an assignment unto a particular end by way of a specific course of action. For we are His workmanship in Christ created onto good works that He has preordained that we should walk in the. God help me (and He does), dissipated saint that I am, as a son of Eli I have stumbled over His commandment for years. Nevertheless, I continue studying the right way about how to do things, learning to listen, striving to see, stepping into the life He has given for the days He has numbered, growing into His faith as He has allotted unto that Day.

The Days of Noah

Where is the research or monograph? What is the name of the cultural anthropologist, historicist, or magus of the imagination who exercises his or her capacity for philology like the anti-Christ [#52]? Who plies the art for reading well, — of being able to read off a fact without falsifying it by interpretation, without losing caution, with patience and subtlety, in the desire for understanding? Who will tell me of ordinary, daily things as a philologist – as one who understands philology as undecisiveness in interpretation? Who will tell of how men and women in the days of Noah ate and drank, married and were given in marriage? Do not tell me of the Scriptures, or about the power of God or of angels. Stand up straight; speak of that which is unmistakably evident, about the erotic and the occult, about the things for which you are willing to live.  Why fear us?  Speak Zarathustra!  Speak from out of the hot coals that consume you, teach us about the days of Noah, make us blush like Bernini’s Teresa of Avila, read to us about what makes you burn, about how you would even stoop so low as to steal a woman’s prayer just to hear those whom you despise say, “We can do nothing in public that is of any use to you, nor dare we speak of some of the truths over which we weep in secret, lest you refuse our petition.”   Why hide behind your hatred? Why fear the weak? Speak! Tell us of the waterless places, of the evil in which you revel, speak of your fantasy, of your caprice, speak of your broken-winged victory, of how we grieved His heart, about how we rebelled and how He turned Himself to become our enemy.  Speak word-maker, or do you bear your sword of diamond in vain?   Speak spendthrift lover of literature, or did you waste your words in vain?  Speak stillborn librarian ready to rule, or has infertility struck you dumb?  Tell us oh great scientist, censurer of the Spirit, the Flood and the Cross; tell us you wood cutter, fairy feller, splitter of the soul and spirit, who carves both joints and marrow into zodiacal figures, we have been waiting for millennia, tell us about the days of Noah.

Matthew 24:36-39

***************************************************

A Request with Commentary

Please promise to placate the pleader.  To be read by another to me aloud once confirmed too old to read for myself in silence.  How long ago Lord, how long has it been?  From whence?  The sense of smell activates memory after the way the Spirit uses the Scriptures to awaken agencies of stimuli in our lives.  Smell the pleasing aroma of Christ among us Father, by your Spirit make us mindful of your mercy.  Advancing forgetfulness, a nip of fear, and residual politeness passed as a lie conspire to keep me from the sources exclusively at my disposal, though only as a thrice partial list (never total, always biased and indelibly fond of infantile humor); nonetheless, the above for example, approached me while watching the film 300, which led me to break into Nietzsche’s study to rifle his papers, of course — that is, as expected, however, without knowing why.  Shane?  Mark Twain?  High Noon?  Vonnegut? Pynchon?  Irving? Old Yeller, The Yearling, The Wizard of Oz? etc. etc., literally a number ad infinitum of various threads parts of me weave as patterns of marketed dialogues, descriptions, characters and icons.  This cursory inventory fails to mention the other items caravans of meat and circus have delivered to me from comic books, TV shows and popular music. Every day I swim harder to escape being sucked down the drain of this maelstrom of impressions, while deeper still, I tell myself, I must be desperately racing to outrun the unconscious avalanche of meanings that threatens to engulf and bury my soul.   The mountains are falling.  The seas rage.  But couldn’t that be just another movie?  Remembering God desires truth in the innermost being, if not chosen to be honest, how honest do I choose to be? Remembering mercy triumphs over judgment, if I am not chosen to be merciful, how merciful will I be?  Remember?  Our children have become bibleless souls in whom decadence – the superfluity of fungible vocalities  — like  cigarettes do their lungs, serves as a carcinogenic agent that first overwhelms and then consumes humble memory.  They are without anchor, disconnected and incoherent, obsessed with their hang ups and hook ups.  Never before have we collected so many simulacrums to dump on our children:  our friendships with benefits, our opinions, our feelings, our looks, our speculations and fixations, our niches, our specialties, our parties and ideologies, our agendas, our likes and dislikes, our issues and alliances, our compromises, our camps, our campaigns, our wanting to be benefactors and champions, whistleblowers and heroes, our vendettas, our manifestos and initiatives, our awards and expertise, our publications, our theories and our data.  Who teaches them to be elders for church and community, for one another and neighbor?  What standard of probity have we not torn down before their eyes?  What sexual proclivity have we not probed before they will?  Our every inclination is evil, together we have become corrupt.  And Christians?  Away with your rubber hoses, litigations and media blitzes!  Who will instruct us, rebuke us, correct and train us to pray as righteous men and women, free in spirit and possessed of sound doctrine, as God intended?  

“Righteousness belongs to Thee, O Lord, but to us open shame, as it is this day because of our unfaithful deeds which we have committed against Thee.  Open shame belongs to us, O Lord, to our leaders, our politicians and our fathers, because we have sinned against Thee.  To the Lord our God belongs compassion and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against Him; nor have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His teachings which He set before us through His servants the prophets in many portions and in many ways, and in these last days through His Son.” 

Pretenders ply conspiracies,

Their alchemy advances on all sides,

Their armed minions answer,

Rising against my Lord within me. 

Oh, praise God, for He alone loves us!

Praise the Father for His word that sanctifies.

Praise the Son, whose grace sets us free.

Praise the Holy Spirit for His power to hold us,

Together, in the bond of peace!

Now I see them,

Sitting in groups by hundreds and fifties,

Occupying the green grass

Eating

The five loaves and the two fish

We thought

We found among us

But coming from above and behind,

His hands nearing us.

His stooping sovereignty turns

us to see Him,

His eyes, His eyes,

giving, giving, giving.

Holy!  Holy!  Holy!

Quietly they listen.

He teaches us, “Little children,

Keep yourselves from idols.” 

I used as my jimmy to break into his study the Penguin Classics 1968 version of The Anti-Christ, translated by R. J. Hollingdale.  He rendered himself fluently conversant in reading well (aus Verdienst und Würdigkeit), which had little to do with the kind of free will given me to wonder about by my chatting with students learning about existentialism from a colleague.  Nietzsche’s scattered Fragments conjured Bernini’s Theresa, put to mind and made combustible by a history of art class I am taking at a community college.  Not knowing how to spell her name forced me to fail at trying to find how using a dictionary, which released me to learn her name by turning to That Gentle Strength, Historical Perspectives on Women in Christianity, ed. with an intro. by Lynda L. Coon, Katherine J. Haldane, and Elisabeth W. Sommer (Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1990).  I left our meeting conceding the “h” serves the speaker.  However, there too I read a prayer created by the real Theresa of Avila (1515-82).  I pretended to stretch myself out to be like her and like those of whom she spoke, a woman among women in a patriarchal age.  I alleged myself such as an excuse to steal, distort and misdirect her prayer for transposing Nietzsche’s desire, rendering it into her language and transferring it to her time.  Tell me Nietzsche, tell me in whom Nietzsche breathes, if you could dominate the world beyond the world of art, if you could beyond mere staging of such ecstasy evoke it immediately via one’s simple contemplation of you, would you, as if coming to your own, withhold the gift or scold the one who receives it?   What practice do you condemn, and what judgment do you practice?  Theresa recorded the prayer originally in her work, The Way of Perfection (c. 1566).  Respect for both the living and the dead compel me to point out that her work is available here:  http://www.ccel.org/ccel/teresa/way.titlepage.html.  Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (1645-1652) may be seen in the Cornaro Chapel, which is the left transept of the Church of S. Maria della Vittoria in Rome.  Here is an image of the work as an anonymous 18th century painting on display at the Museum at Schwerin, Germany http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/arthum2/item.cgi?id=609&template=defaultPop&table=items:

Earlier accidents and conditioning have their way with how I interpret these various conversations, the images and connections they make and their intersections.  Looking to style as scientific evidence for the Spirit’s speaking prophetically in history, I confess by faith I learned from Rosenstock-Huessy.  Embracing God’s grace through life in Christ as gerund and goad – faithing- (being-) livingstyle – came from hearing Hamann teach.  The two taught me first, of what Rosenstock-Huessy called symblysma, the unity of the Spirit between entire epochs that gives life to history, and second, of  how each of us within learns life by swimming the archipelago God gives us as our soul.  Most of us wade in shallow waters short distances between many islands, receiving and giving our invitations and entering many salon conversations, impatiently waiting for one another to listen but none of us saying very much.  A rare few must swim beyond their death and the death of their generation before meeting their one companion, who, since the foundation of the world, had been appointed to listen.  God oversees and joins together the spheres of life we call biography, history and providence.  He does so for correction, for creation and for lovingkindness because it pleases Him to fulfill the promises He has made before the angels to Israel, the church and to the world. 

The prodding of these dead shepherds led me to an island where they explained growing in godliness as incremental repetition, like lyrics in a ballad, as dying to propaganda and slogans.  Ever since, life has taken on new meaning.  i’ve no idea how many times i’ve failed to catch myself going out caught up in Ensor-like designed get ups.  If successful, i scrape, like he did color to canvas (with both ends of his brush!), worldly costumes, clown’s makeup and death masks from my brain and senses.  Removal of each layer of  disguise draws me closer with ever more focused clarity to the progressively embarrassing truth that the seed of the church is not the the blood of the martyrs but rather, bad manners, that is, the word of God spoken as given in Christ, the Holy Spirit incarnate: the disobedience of the saints (Romans 12:2; 1 Peter 1:14, 4:1-2).  Away with the socialist state and the doctrinaire fanfare that always wins!  Away with the deceptions of language that have stained and distorted the words i will choose for future exchanging!  Away with what in me arouses and beguiles and keeps me in prison! 

 

James Ensor, Christ’s Entry into Brussels (1888), The Getty Center Los Angeles, http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=932

These things together converge from below the radar of reflection and beyond any strategy of retrieval to be spoken into the voice of self-awareness upon splashing my face with the Scriptures, all the while, like opening a Russian nesting doll, being affected by the following outpourings, each appearing more glorious than the one before:

Digesting the rubble and the storm, 

Walking the biblical landscape of life,

Waiting for the end of the age,

Looking for the sign of our Lord’s coming. 

Surely, He is coming soon. 

Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus!

Titus 2:11-15

Beyond Gratitude and Guilt

Question 86:  We have been delivered from our misery by God’s grace alone through Christ and not because we have earned it: why then must we still do good?

Answer:  To be sure, Christ has redeemed us by His blood.  But we do good because Christ by His Spirit is also renewing us to be like Himself…  Heidelberg Catechism (1563).

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before Him. And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head and put a reed in His right hand. And kneeling before Him, they mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit on Him and took the reed and struck Him on the head. And when they had mocked Him, they stripped Him of the robe and put His own clothes on Him and led Him away to crucify Him. Matthew 27:31.

Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit.  For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.  2 Corinthians 3:5-6.

Now you are the Body of Christ and individually members of it.  1 Corinthians 12:27.

Regardless of how pale the image or faint the echo, the experience of mocking the Man of Sorrows while propping Him up for our own good pleasure remains today as exhilarating as it did then. We bite, devour and consume one another, making much of one another but for no good purpose; our compulsion drives us to seek shameful gain and to domineer others so they might make much of us.  We desire, we do not have, we murder.  We covet, we cannot obtain: we fight and quarrel.  We ask, we do not receive, because we ask wrongly.  The polite among us, those appreciative of the benefits they have received from God, those who have been trained to fear the Lord from a constructive sense of guilt, recoil to demur, “We never do that.” Yet should the gay waiter (or ex-gay), working at the restaurant sit down to table with us to join our conversation, what would we think? Alternatively, if what we ordered upon his serving it to us stood up, would we tolerate “the roast-beef and the fish to talk”? — (Rosenstock-Huessy, The Fruit of Lips).

What would change should we transpose voices, speaking to one another as children and to children as if to one another? It would not matter. There is but one Victim who speaks in the voice of our victims and in our voice as theirs. We devote ourselves to the Word who became flesh, the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! Nevertheless, however we might worship Him, the spirit of the antichrist would have that too manufactured for advancing human interests among good company. But no matter, what have we to do with judging outsiders?

Why, O Lord, do you stand afar off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
How long will we cry for help,
and You will not hear?
Why do you make us see iniquity,
and why do You idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before us;
strife and contention arise.
The law is paralyzed,
and justice never goes forth.
The wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted.
In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor.
They follow the course of this world.
They follow him who works in them,
the Prince of the Power of the Air,
for whom we all once
lived in the passions of our flesh,
carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind,
by nature children of wrath.
All of us together turned aside,
except for Him
with Whom the Father is well pleased;
together,
except for Him,
Who is in the bosom of the Father,
we have become worthless,
refusing to love the truth,
taking pleasure in unrighteousness.
Without Him
in Whom alone we see the Father,
severed from Him,
Who has always declared the Father,
none of us can do good,
not even one,
for apart from Him,
Who reveals the Father, the Lord of glory,
we can do nothing.
Nothing good dwells in us, in our flesh.
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God
no matter how enlightened,
no matter what has been tasted or shared,
or prophesy spoken,
no matter the number of demons cast
out in His name,
or works of power performed, saying to Him,
“Lord, Lord.”
The god of this world blinds the perishing,
there is no fear of God before their eyes,
for apart from Him,
Who is Himself our peace,
the way of peace they have not known.
On the appointed day of their visitation
He will declare to them,
“I never knew you, depart from Me,
you who practice lawlessness and do iniquity,
into the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his angels,
for I have heard My children weeping,
I have heard their supplications, for although
the whole world lies in the power of the evil one,
I receive the prayers of My saints.”
For as many as may be the promises of God,
in the Son of God, Christ Jesus, in Him they are yes;
through Him we utter our Amen to God for His glory.
In the pride of burning anger the wicked say,
“God will not call to account.”
They boast of their souls’ desires,
All their thoughts are,
“There is no God,” or
“Everyone who does evil
is good in the sight of the Lord,” or
“Where is the God of justice?” or
“Where is the promise of His coming?”

They deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the Word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same Word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. 2 Peter 3:5-7

How truly strange we are! Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself. When Christ who is our life appears, then we also will appear with Him in glory.  Through the Holy Spirit, by faith in Christ, we live and move beyond any sense of gratitude we might manufacture or mark by ourselves. We love the Word of God although we have not seen Him. We press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus, denying ourselves, taking up our cross daily to follow Him, serving one another in our right minds, unrestrained and free before God, joyful yet ever sorrowful whether home or away, making it our aim to be fully pleasing to the Lord, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.   Through the Holy Spirit, our faith in Christ frees us of the manipulative and crippling fear which guilt still produces within us.  Walking by the Spirit, we resist submitting again to a yoke of slavery, refusing to enslave ourselves to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whereby we would confuse psychological advantage for love, jealousy for godliness and selfish ambition in our hearts with sanctification.   Led by the Spirit, we cry out, “Our Lord, come; come, Lord Jesus,” although we know we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.   Living by the Spirit, we weave into our prayers our hope realizing that each of us will give an account of himself to God, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.  We know our work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work we have done.  ”O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?” 

Given the gift of the Holy Spirit, we trust to His filling so we may be qualified and equipped for the good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.  Walking in the Spirit, we abide in Christ, so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink from Him in shame at His coming.  Indwelled, sealed and filled with the Spirit, enjoying the peace He provides us and exercising the gifts He has given us, we live eternal life beyond our gratitude’s vanity and free of our guilt’s festering fear. Oh, what glorious vision God gives each of His children by name, a vision we see now but dimly!  Momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.  We dwell and continue in Christ, our standing, our home, our timing, and our character, being all together in Him a new creation. By this is love perfected with us, through the Holy Spirit, given by the Father, received by the Son and poured out in us, so that we may have confidence for the Day of Judgment. As God is, so also are we in this world. Today, even now, through the Spirit, by faith in Christ, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness, for in Christ nothing counts for anything, but only the measure of faith that God has assigned us working through His love. What mystery revealed this miracle of His doing, the life we now live no longer ours, but Christ who lives in us!  Our gratitude for what God has done for us through Christ, apart from the renewing power of the Holy Spirit, is of no more worth than are our feelings of guilt that make us dull in hearing what God through Christ has done for us sinners and for our salvation. We live in His light so that it may be clearly seen that our deeds have been carried out in God. Here, neither our gratitude counts for anything, nor our guilt, but a new creation.   And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.