Manchester's Last Paragraphs

William Manchester's The Death of a President came out in 1967, the product of one man's research of the Kennedy assassination. It is more personal and emotional than, say, the Report of the Warren Commission. The last two paragraphs of the book have come back to my memory time and again over the years. At the risk of being terribly maudlin, I place them here for anybody who remembers, and for those who don't.

"Unknown to her, the clothes Mrs. Kennedy wore into the bright midday glare of Dallas lie in an attic not far from 3017 N. Street. In Bethesda that night those closest to her had vowed that from the moment she shed them she should never see them again. She hasn't. Yet they are still there, in one of two long brown paper cartons thrust between roof rafters. The first is marked 'September 12, 1953,' the date of her marriage; it contains her wedding gown. The block-printed label on the other is 'Worn by Jackie, November 22, 1963." Inside, neatly arranged, are the pink wool suit, the black shift, the low-heeled shoes, and wrapped in a white towel, the stockings. Were the box to be opened by an intruder from some land so remote that the name, the date, and photographs of the ensemble had not been published and republished until they had been graven upon his memory, he might conclude that these were merely stylish garments which had passed out of fashion and which, because they had been associated with some pleasant occasion, had not been discarded.

"If the trespasser looked closer, however he would be momentarily baffled. The momento of a happy time would be cleaned before storing. Obviously this costume has not been. There are ugly splotches along the front and hem of the skirt. The handbag's leather and the inside of each shoe are caked dark red. And the stockings are quite odd. Once the same substance streaked them in mad scribbly patterns, but time and the sheerness of the fabric have altered it. The rusty clots have flaked off; they lie tiny brittle grains on the nap of the towel. Examining them closely, the intruder would see his error. This clothing, he would perceive, had not been kept out of sentiment. He would realize that it had been worn by a slender young woman who had met with some dreadful accident. He might ponder whether she had survived. He might even wonder who had been to blame."

The S Word (3)

(Continued series from devotional at work)

"Judge not, that ye be not judged...." -Matthew 7:1

"I ain't taking no man's bleeding charity." -CS Lewis

Before closing out this study of the S Word, let’s look at some common objections raised when people are told they are sinners:

First: “You’re judging me.” Unfortunately, this is too often true, and people who respond this way are in good company. Nothing made Jesus more angry than the judgmental attitude of the Pharisees toward the poor and dispossessed. Judging says more about the judger’s knowledge of the gospel that the judgee’s. The judger is assuming that he has superior knowledge, and stands on a higher ground than the judgee, both of which are contrary to the gospel. True believers are such because they have an overwhelming sense of their own fallenness, and a humble thanks for the work God has done to free them. Paul, who understood grace better than most of us, called himself “the chief of sinners.” He was not being super-pious. He really believed that. The more light he had, the more he saw his own darkness. Therefore when a Christian talks about human sin, he is talking “up,” not “down,” because he perceives himself in worse shape than his hearer. He is more like a sick man telling another victim where to find a cure. Of course, there are a lot of folks who resent being told they are sick at all, which leads us to:

Second, "Well, I ain't no axe murderer!" I don't know why axe murderers get such bad press, but they're right up there with Adolf Hitler. Anyway, the idea here is that compared to a lot of unsavory folks, I'm not so bad. God supposedly has a moral scale, and I always stay just under the "wrath" meter. I am not comparing myself to God, but to others. And therein is the problem. God's standard of judgment is His own pure and holy character, and that standard is revealed in the Law, particularly the Ten Commandments. There's not time here, but there's no way I can look at any of the Commandments and claim innocence. And just in case I could, Jesus comes along and says that sin is not just a matter of action, but of attitude. One conclusion: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Third, “It can’t be that bad, because Jesus loves everybody.” This is known in theological circles as the Gooey Galilean theory. It forgets the horrifying images of Christ in the book of Revelation and Jesus’ prophecies of the fall of Jerusalem. But more than that, it misses a central tenet of Western jurisprudence which is based on Hebrew law: “the punishment must fit the crime.” If Jesus died in my place, in fact, became my Substitute, then I deserved what He bore. And He bore unspeakable pain, rejection, loneliness, and ultimately severance from the Presence of God Himself. The more we look at the Atonement, the more we see the horror of human rebellion against God and our own real standing with Him.

In conclusion, consider that our antagonism to the doctrine of sin is itself an evidence of our sinful nature. God calls us to quit arguing and agree that He is right. Interestingly, the word “confess” means just that: it is a combination of the Latin word for “with” and the word for “say.” Its Greek counterpart is “homo-logeo,” literally, “to say the same thing.” To confess means to say about ourselves what God already says about us.

Next: Christ’s Active Obedience for us.

The S Word (2)

"Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth." -Revelation 5: 9;10

"'Safe,' said Mr. Beaver; '...who said anything about safe? Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.'" -CS Lewis

Why is the way we look at our own sin important? It obviously affects the way we look at our own need, and an understanding of it has eternal consequences. But there is another result of the way we consider our own sin that is seldom realized: it conditions the way we think about Jesus, and the way we think about Jesus conditions the way we live. Let me illustrate:

During the First Great Awakening (1730's and 40's), evangelists and pastors preached sin with the intention that their hearers would be desperate for a Savior. Their meetings were often protracted for weeks, and they did not rush people into a decision at the "altar." Their goal was for their hearers to see their own depravity to such an extent that they cried out to God/Christ to come to them, regenerate them, and lift the burden of guilt off their shoulders. The important thing to note is that they believed in an ACTIVE Christ who came to the repentant sinner with love and release.

The preachers of the day, in fact, taught the impossibility of salvation through any human effort--that salvation was totally a work of God, and that man had to assume the position of a humble supplicant, begging for help. In fact, I read that Whitefield once preached a sermon in a field, telling people it was impossible for them to be converted, but that God could do the impossible! People began to cry out, and some fainted, and God moved in power on individuals, as if He had taken Whitefield's dare.

The fruit of this strong emphasis on human depravity and the power of God to save ACTIVELY brought forth Christians who were strong in faith, more centered on the ability of Christ than on their own. They weathered adversity because they believed that God was sovereignly in control of their lives, and because of their initial experience, clung to Christ as their only hope. So many people were converted during that Awakening that American culture was changed for decades.

The Second Great Awakening (@1790 through 1840) began with a similar approach, but went through a radical shift about half way through. The total inability to come to God was downplayed, and conversion became more a matter of choice or rational decision. Instead of being active, Christ became increasingly PASSIVE. Christ had done all He do to save men, and now He waited helplessly for man to decide to receive Him. In a subtle way He became a pitiful figure, knocking at the door of the human heart and hoping that His sacrifice would be accepted--out in the cold and unappreciated (is that the King of Glory?!). Sermons became weepy instead of terrifying. Because conversion was a matter of choice, immediate decisions were demanded, and people assured that because they had made such a choice, they were truly converted. The time that earlier preachers allowed for the Holy Spirit to work conviction in individuals was telescoped into a few minutes.

This does not mean that true conversions did not take place. But the method led to a new set of consequences. The greatest was the question, "If my conversion depended on my action, and my faith, and my decision, how do I know I believed enough, acted enough, chose strongly enough?" That question did not trouble earlier converts who believed in an active Christ, because the work was all His, not the convert's.

Another consequence was one's attitude to suffering, temptation, and struggle. The believers of the First Awakening knew that the victorious Christ was working through them to change them, and that His plan for change was perfect. They also knew that He was ruthless. They were not as tempted to let faith waiver. The tendency in the second case was to view those things as proofs of God's displeasure--or as I heard one Christian quoted lately, "I know God loves me, but I don't think He likes me a whole lot." That is so contrary to the all-sufficiency of God's love that is revealed in the ACTIVE gospel!

And that's why taking sin seriously conditions how we view Christ. An extreme view of sin creates an extreme view of Christ! Next time: some objections to the doctrine of sin...

The S Word (1)

(This is part of a series of devotionals I'm sharing where I work)

"...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." -Romans 3:23

"I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet, And the sea rises higher." -GK Chesterton

Last time we began to speak of God's plan to save man in Christ. But before describing the good news, it is necessary to consider the bad news: human sin.

Genesis tells us that man was originally placed in the garden without moral prohibitions. That is because man was a being without sin, in perfect fellowship with God, and in that fellowship, was obedient. That does not mean that man was perfect in his understanding and relationships, but that there was no assertion yet of himself against God and his order.

God gave man a test of obedience, one negative law, one "you shall not." Man failed this test. In the process he declared himself independent of God as the source of life, and set himself up as a self-contained god apart from the relationship that would keep him alive. I think of the old sponge divers who wore heavy suits and helmets attached by a hose to an air pump on the surface. The fall of man is as if a diver decided to be independent, cut his hose, and wander off on his own.

There were consequences of this disobedience. First, there was banishment from the presence of God, and resentment and distrust of God by man. After all, the fall occurred because Satan questioned God's goodness and motives for creating man to begin with. Second, the whole of Adam's descendents fell into rebellion with him. Theologians call this "federalism"--the idea that the leader of a group represents it, and his destiny is its destiny. We don't like this theory because we value independence far more than God does. Remember that federalism works in a positive way too: Christ represents a new race, and that race is declared righteous because their Head is.

The third consequence is what I call "primary" sin. That is the innate selfishness and rebellion against outside authority (especially God's) that is in all of us. Theologians call it "original sin." It is the opposite of love for God, it does not desire to see His beauty, and does not hold obedience as a joy, but a burden. It desires the small dark places of the heart rather than the light of perfect love and truth.

The Fourth is "secondary" sin--all the fruits of selfishness, hatred, bitterness, abuse, and perversion that leads to war, destruction of innocence, prisons, laws, and probation offices. It also includes religious sins: pride, self-righteousness, the inability to see another point of view, sectarianism, judgmental arrogance, and a critical spirit.

As much as we like to think of God as a tolerant grandfather who winks at sin, God's response to sin is anger (Psalm 7:11). It is important to understand that God never waivers in His justice. If He ignored His own laws the universe would fall apart. Every sin deserves retribution. Expecting God to "grade on a curve" is fruitless. Our only hope is that God finds a way to meet the demands of His own justice. More on why it is important how we view sin next time....

The Story Behind the Story (2)

"Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said. . . 'Behold, I have come to do your will, O God.'" -Hebrews 10: 5, 7.

"Theologians speak of another kind of covenant that is not between God and man, but is among the members of the Trinity. This covenant they call the 'covenant of redemption.' It is a covenant among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in which the Son agreed to become a man, be our representative, obey the demands of the covenant of works on our behalf, and pay the penalty for sin which we deserved." -Wayne Grudem

In the first segment of The Story Behind the Story, we ended with a look at Satan's motives and looked ahead to the fall of man.

God's response to man's rebellion against His will and purposes is anger--what the Bible calls wrath. We tend to equate wrath with outburst of anger or rage, but the wrath of God is an ongoing attitude towards those who will not recognize His sovereignty over them. The fact that we don't like this attribute of God is a pretty good evidence of the rebellion of our own hearts. When you think about it, God certainly has a right to set down the laws of His creation and enforce them if necessary.

But the wrath of God is the result of something deeper than just a challenge to His authority. Consider where God's love is principally centered: in the Person of His Son. If Satan could not attack the Son's majesty, he could twist and distort the image. When God looks at fallen man, he sees the most beautiful image in the universe broken, marred, and perverted. Satan's successful attack on man struck not just at the sovereignty of God, but at His very heart. Satan's temptation pulled man down to a level that deserved God's wrath; and yet the image remained, though marred. God had originally intended this creature to be part of a drama to be enacted before the whole creation. So what is God to do? Justice demands a penalty; love demands a solution that will not circumvent justice.

Somewhere in pre-history, or to be more accurate, somewhere outside time and space, the Trinity held a conference and agreed upon what theologians call the covenant of redemption. The Father made a plan, the Son agreed to carry it out, and the Holy Spirit agreed to apply it both in the Son and in believers. The Son agreed to become a second Adam. As Adam stood for all his descendants when he succumbed to rebellion, so the Son would become representative man, and do for them what they could not do for themselves: live a perfect life and bear the penalty of God's justice. The Trinity basically planned an invasion.

This plan was so unforeseen, so unbelievable, so audacious, so opposite to human thought, that even the most religious men of Jesus' day couldn't see it--though a calloused Roman soldier was moved by it on the spot. The plan was simply backwards. That's why when men hear of it, they are called to "repent," a word that does not mean to feel sorry or be remorseful, but to "change your mind"--flip your mind around to accept what is the foolhardy daring of God.

Next: The S-word.

The Story Behind the Story (I)

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.", -John 1:1

"Galadriel! Galadriel! Clear is the water of your well; White is the star in your white hand; Unmarred, unstained is leaf and land In Dwimordene, in Lorien More fair than thoughts of mortal men." -JRR Tolkien

I shared this obscure poem from Lord of the Rings because Tolkien peppers his trilogy with references to an older, brighter, and higher world that lies behind the trials of Middle Earth. In fact, he later wrote a book called The Silmarillion, to tell the story behind the story.

The Bible does the same thing. Throughout its long story of redemption, there are glimpses of a reality that transcends history. Its first words, "In the beginning...", implies that there was something there before there was a beginning. There was, simply, God: infinite in glory, beauty, otherness, purity, justice, and above all things, love. Such love begets loveliness, or an object of love, a beloved, the eternal Son. Because the Father has always loved, there has always been the Son. Both God the Father and God the Son are mutually committed to one another, and the fulfillment of each is to see the other exalted. The love between the two is so intense that (according to St Augustine) love itself takes on personhood, and proceeds from both as the Holy Spirit. This is a transcendent mystery and can only be expressed symbolically.

Notice that God has never existed alone. He has always been a community. That means he did not create man or the universe out of need, but out of joy and exuberance. It also means that God intended man to live in community ("it is not good for the man to be alone..."). God hates heresy in the fallen world because it breaks the community of the church. He hates adultery because it breaks the community of marriage. He hates selfishness because it breaks the communities of men, and even breaks a man's unity with himself.

The Bible states that man was made in the image of God. There's much theological debate over what the image means: the capacity to reason, to feel emotion, to imagine, to be spiritual. I lean towards Paul's statement in Colossians that Jesus is the image of God (1:15). In other words, Jesus was the model that God used for man when he created him. Men and women were meant to be little reflections of the Son; through their gifts, through their creativity, through their service and sharing with their Elder Brother, the Son was to be shown off to the universe. And likewise, as they turned with the Son to the Father, His glory would be increased.

As the story behind the story progresses, the Tempter enters. There is some indication that Satan hated the Son, and wanted His role as King of heaven. Since he could not dethrone Him, he turned all his energy and malice on destroying the created image. Satan succeeded in convincing man that God had a hidden agenda and couldn't be trusted. As a result, man chose autonomy, set himself up as his own god, exalted disobedience as a noble thing, and in turning away from life, fell into the cycle of selfishness and death.

Next time, the beginning of the solution.

Why Did the Hebrews Speak Hebrew?

"An object is an act outside its time element." -Eugen Rosenstock-Huessey

Two experiences led to this question:

1) I studied biblical Hebrew in the 1960's under Ludwig Dewitz, a German Jew who converted to Christianity between the world wars, and escaped from the Nazis with nothing but the shirt on his back. He was a scholar of ancient Middle Eastern languages, and a man of God. He taught like an old European school master: he made us stand at our desks and parse Hebrew verbs--if we faltered he would mutter something in Yiddish and would throw erasers at us. It was terribly humiliating, especially since we considered ourselves graduate students, and beyond such behavior. I learned through sheer terror. But I loved the man, and I can still wake up in the night going qatal,qatalah,qataltah, qatalt, etc. I can't say that I mastered the language, but I can at least find my way around with a lexicon and a word study book.

2) I recently re-read Rosenstock's The Origin of Speech, a book which I read about 5 years ago, and which was so far outside the box of western rationalism that it deserved another look. In summary, Rosenstock believed that language, not thought, was the key to understanding man and his cultures. He also believed that our western emphasis on the indicative mood, the mood of reason and reflection, did not accurately describe the reality of human life. Instead, he began with the imperative, followed by the subjunctive, followed by the narrative, and finally, by the indicative.

To put this more simply: we are all born with immediate imperatives that determine our lives ("eat your cereal," "go to bed," "avenge your father," "renounce the devil and all his works," etc.). Most of our lives are lived in the subjunctive of possibility--will we fulfill our imperatives, or fail? After we achieve our imperatives, we "tell the tale," we relive our success and failures and write the story. Finally, as old men, we analyze the whole experience, and only at the end of our lives, enter the indicative. When life begins in the indicative, all of life is cold and abstract, because the indicative freezes it into something motionless; hence, "an object is an act outside its time element."

All story follows this pattern. But story is closer to reality than abstract analysis. Reality is story! I've used this before, but consider the Lord of the Rings: The Ring must be destroyed (imperative). The bulk of the trilogy is a quest--some fail, some succeed, but the quest reaches its end (subjunctive). The men write poems and histories, and the elves sing songs. The main characters pass into the West (narrative). Sam finishes the manuscript and writes a conclusion (indicative). Isn't this a description of all our lives?

Rosenstock also describes our stories lived out in "cups of time." An imperative gives us meaning and forces us into the future. Its fulfillment ends that cup of time. "Honey, take out the garbage," only is completed with "the garbage has been taken out." Otherwise the cup is not closed, and tension remains. When cups are not closed, an unfulfilled moment is created, and it must be relived til sealed. When Lee's command, "Get those people off that hill," was met later with "Sir, I have no division!" a cup of time was created that is still literally reenacted at Gettysburg every year. We never rest til cups are sealed.

So, back to my original question. Why did the Hebrews speak Hebrew? Every language explains the way its speakers perceive reality. Consider the almost non-existent use of the subjunctive in English (as compared to ancient Latin and Greek, which both had complete subjunctive conjugations). We only see it in the phrase, "if I were you...." All other instances of the subjunctive are expressed by helping words: "if," "maybe," "perhaps," "except." But the fact that we no longer have a mood to express probability in our language reveals how much we revere abstraction, and life itself becomes a "happening" or an "event," robbed of time. The present is an abstraction in the indicative; it is a force moving into the future in the subjunctive.

Biblical Hebrew was outside the western box. It contained seven binyanim, roughly what we would call moods. Six of these were either active or passive voices. To use English equivalents: an indicative, active and passive; an intensive, active and passive; a causative, active and passive; and a reflexive, which by nature can have only one voice. If the reflexive is placed in the middle, three actives on the left, and three passives on the right, an outline of Hebrew moods resembles a menorah, which modern Hebrew teachers use as a visual aid to understand the structure of the language.

Old Covenant Hebrew thought grew out of their language, and their language affected ideation, and if we believe in Biblical inspiration, their view of God and His world, and God’s view of reality should “leak out” through the structure of the Old Covenant language. The amazing thing is how difficult it is to find any discussion of this fact. I dug out my old Hebrew grammar book and read the introduction. It told me about the author, and why he chose to use his very systematic approach to learning the grammar, and how it had helped countless students to meander the binyanim conjugations, but not once did he tell me why the Hebrews spoke Hebrew--a perfect example of the tyranny of the indicative, a lot of hows and whats and no whys.

Let me illustrate with something I think I understand. Hebrew has no subjunctive mood. At least, it had no conjugation that required the long vowel sounds of the Greek and Latin subjunctives. I say, “no subjunctive,” until one considers the Hebrew tense system. There is no present tense in biblical Hebrew. That function is taken by the participle, and sometimes by the infinitive, when necessary. (I read somewhere that modern Hebrew uses the participle with helping pronouns to express the present.)

Biblical Hebrew had two tenses: complete, and incomplete. An action was either finished, or was on the way to completion. The only way that can be expressed in English is with the past or the future tenses. Complete, incomplete. Done, or not done, or partially done. We rest in a finished work, or strive to complete it. I said in the last paragraph that Hebrew had no subjunctive; but here it is, hidden in the cup of time created by the beginning of an action and its fulfillment. The whole tense system creates a subjunctive mood. And because it is subjunctive, it is also eschatological. The whole language sucks us into the future towards a fulfillment. “And it shall be in that day” draws us towards “and it came to pass.” I find this an incredibly beautiful expression of struggle and life lived with a hoped-for goal in mind, so different from our present tense indicative obsessed with scientific definition (“the human being is made up of 70% water”). Why didn’t the text book author tell me this? Because he is western scholar whose job it is to turn a living language into a frozen object.

Now I want to look at a couple of other binyanim, with much less certainty about their meaning. I must admit at this point that I know nothing about modern Hebrew, or about parallel thought forms in other Middle Eastern languages. For all I know, Arabic, Urdu, and Farsi manifest the same concepts of time. That would draw us into a study of the Islamic mind, and, wow, do I digress.

Biblical Hebrew possessed what we called the piel/pual conjugation, or, in English, the intensive form. It basically shortened vowel sounds, which connects it indirectly to the imperative, which is the shortest form of the verb in most languages. That's because the imperative is both command and warning. The intensive forms are translated in English with "very," "exceedingly," "continually." In some cases they simply intensify a verb: "break" put into the intensive form became "smash." In other cases time is involved: "weep" put into the intensive form did not mean to "weep loudly;" it meant rather to "weep continually."

That's all interesting, but the question still remains: why would a culture find a need to create a whole complex conjugation around a concept that we simply express with "very?" I've read that the Hebrews were realists, earthy, and not given to abstract meditation or reflection. I'm not sure about that. The author of Ecclesiastes wore himself out with reflection, and concluded that man should eat and drink and enjoy his labor--a carpe diem theme. It wasn't so much that the Hebrews didn't reflect; they reflected intensely, almost violently ("whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might"). In fact, "live to the hilt" describes the mood of much of the narratives in the Old Testament. The intensity of their lives grew out of faith in an intense God. They, at least the godly ones, would be far too intense, pushy, physical, and emotionally raw to get along in our church culture, which says a lot about how frivolous our western approach to God can be.

Lastly, Hebrew also possessed the hiphil/hophal conjugation. It was causative. Normally translated "he/she caused thus and thus to happen," it also could form a new concept. For instance, the causative of the verb to "go" meant "send:" to cause to go was of course to send. Combined with its person and gender and an accusative pronominal suffix, an English phrase like "she caused him to fall" could be condensed into one word--quite a feat of grammatical acrobatics to English speakers. At any rate, why did the Old Covenant people find it necessary to form an entire verb system around the idea of causation?

The first use of the causative is in Gen. 1:4: “And God divided the light from the darkness.” The verb in the indicative is “separated,” and in the causative becomes “and God caused the light to be separated from the darkness,” or simply, “divided.” I don’t want to make too much of the fact God is the subject in the first use of the causative; I suppose it could have been Adam, or Eve, or the devil. Nevertheless, there is a hint that all causation goes back to God as the Creator. Could it be that the Hebrew language manifests a belief in final purpose, an eschaton growing out of God’s predestination and providential care of history? Hence, a conjugation based on causation.

All this is pure speculation, and poor at that, because I’m out here on my own. I am back again to the question, “Why did the Hebrews speak Hebrew?” It amazes me that I suffered erasers and Yiddish deprecations of my mental ability, strange lists of sounds, many years of struggling with large lexicons and word books because I felt I owed my congregations the honesty of sound exegesis (and remember, I did all this backwards), and no one has ever told me WHY the Hebrews used the patterns of word and thought that I simply memorized. It brought me no closer to the interior mind of the Old Testament saints, and consequently, the heart of God. Is there anybody out there that has come across a book, a website, an insight, etc, or am I stuck with the tyranny of the indicative?