Residual power
This week is on Luke 6:17-19:
These verses are on a phenomenon I've seen a couple times in the Bible and don't fully understand. I guess that's the definition of 'wonderful.' Sometimes the essence of God's power seems to dwell on a person or an object, and that power becomes some kind of passive reservoir. There are stories of saints' bodies healing people of sickness, of rooms being filled with power, of handkerchiefs or garments being used to perform miracles. It's beyond explanation.
I'm sure people have written lengthy theological explanations on why it works like that, and how God has to work in order for it to happen as described, but it's not the same. You're replacing biology with taxidermy when you do that. I lost my love of astronomy and physics for years because of the drive to turn everything into heavy math. Part of the joy of God's universe is the wisdom to know when to just stop and wonder at what's there. You don't have to explain everything. You shouldn't. Why not just stop at being amazed?
It's such a curse of our modern mind to want to vivisect every miracle we come across. We want to put a pin through the middle of the butterfly and give it a fancy Latin name so we will never look at it again. There's something separate beyond the science of things that gives them value. We read so many books on God, and listen to so many dry sermons on what we should or shouldn't do, or how God must do this, or cannot do that. It's easy to lose your sense of wonder in the process.
So anyway, there's this miracle of God's indwelling power. It's not permanent. If it was, we wouldn't need to encounter God on our own. We could just make a trip to the closest holy artifact or spirit-filled room and get our needs taken care of there. We can't just enter a building and be filled with the Holy Spirit by sitting there. We can't just keep a scarf in a box and dig it out every time we need something. That's idolatry. But still, there's this fascinating thing where God's power does inhabit things. Imagine, being healed by the shadow of a fellow Christian passing over you while you're sitting down to eat a sandwich! Imagine your friend's baseball cap healing your son's brain tumor! Imagine being delivered of demons by putting your arm around the guy preaching on the street corner! It's almost vulgar to try to explain stuff like that.
It's also easy to say "Well, that's not God. It's not one of the miracles detailed in Paul's Epistles." or "Well, I don't think God could do that, because it's not scriptural." Wrong! The first rule of making rules about God is that you can't make rules about God! The Bible isn't some kind of definitive taxonomy of miracles to be found in the world, or a kind of Sears catalog of things we can choose for God to do. They're a tiny slice of what God has to offer. It's a bunch of almost prehistoric stories that say "This is what we've seen so far, and it blows our minds." So much more can happen. You have no idea.
There's so much emphasis on laying on hands for imparting healing and performing miracles. There's a ton of it in the Bible, but this story shows that there's something more. God loves to have us participate in the administration of his kingdom by doing things like preaching and laying on hands, but he also likes to show up and administer things directly. Is that what he's doing by imbuing various objects with his power? I have no idea. But I do know that it's pretty amazing, and that you'd totally miss the boat if you were only ever waiting for some suited evangelical powerhouse to walk up and shove the miracle into you, like some kind of holy nail gun. Sometimes that happens, and sometimes you just pick it up elsewhere.
Keep your sense of what the ancients used to call "holy mystery." Understand that there are things you may never understand, but that doesn't make them any less cool. Be open to what God wants to do and how he wants to do it. He's amazing and can come up with ideas quicker than any of us can catalog them.
He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.
These verses are on a phenomenon I've seen a couple times in the Bible and don't fully understand. I guess that's the definition of 'wonderful.' Sometimes the essence of God's power seems to dwell on a person or an object, and that power becomes some kind of passive reservoir. There are stories of saints' bodies healing people of sickness, of rooms being filled with power, of handkerchiefs or garments being used to perform miracles. It's beyond explanation.
I'm sure people have written lengthy theological explanations on why it works like that, and how God has to work in order for it to happen as described, but it's not the same. You're replacing biology with taxidermy when you do that. I lost my love of astronomy and physics for years because of the drive to turn everything into heavy math. Part of the joy of God's universe is the wisdom to know when to just stop and wonder at what's there. You don't have to explain everything. You shouldn't. Why not just stop at being amazed?
It's such a curse of our modern mind to want to vivisect every miracle we come across. We want to put a pin through the middle of the butterfly and give it a fancy Latin name so we will never look at it again. There's something separate beyond the science of things that gives them value. We read so many books on God, and listen to so many dry sermons on what we should or shouldn't do, or how God must do this, or cannot do that. It's easy to lose your sense of wonder in the process.
So anyway, there's this miracle of God's indwelling power. It's not permanent. If it was, we wouldn't need to encounter God on our own. We could just make a trip to the closest holy artifact or spirit-filled room and get our needs taken care of there. We can't just enter a building and be filled with the Holy Spirit by sitting there. We can't just keep a scarf in a box and dig it out every time we need something. That's idolatry. But still, there's this fascinating thing where God's power does inhabit things. Imagine, being healed by the shadow of a fellow Christian passing over you while you're sitting down to eat a sandwich! Imagine your friend's baseball cap healing your son's brain tumor! Imagine being delivered of demons by putting your arm around the guy preaching on the street corner! It's almost vulgar to try to explain stuff like that.
It's also easy to say "Well, that's not God. It's not one of the miracles detailed in Paul's Epistles." or "Well, I don't think God could do that, because it's not scriptural." Wrong! The first rule of making rules about God is that you can't make rules about God! The Bible isn't some kind of definitive taxonomy of miracles to be found in the world, or a kind of Sears catalog of things we can choose for God to do. They're a tiny slice of what God has to offer. It's a bunch of almost prehistoric stories that say "This is what we've seen so far, and it blows our minds." So much more can happen. You have no idea.
There's so much emphasis on laying on hands for imparting healing and performing miracles. There's a ton of it in the Bible, but this story shows that there's something more. God loves to have us participate in the administration of his kingdom by doing things like preaching and laying on hands, but he also likes to show up and administer things directly. Is that what he's doing by imbuing various objects with his power? I have no idea. But I do know that it's pretty amazing, and that you'd totally miss the boat if you were only ever waiting for some suited evangelical powerhouse to walk up and shove the miracle into you, like some kind of holy nail gun. Sometimes that happens, and sometimes you just pick it up elsewhere.
Keep your sense of what the ancients used to call "holy mystery." Understand that there are things you may never understand, but that doesn't make them any less cool. Be open to what God wants to do and how he wants to do it. He's amazing and can come up with ideas quicker than any of us can catalog them.
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