People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. Carl Jung
One of the most harmful and yet least examined impulses of human nature is that of judgement. In silent milliseconds, we can observe a fellow human being and decide if he is worthy or unworthy, right or wrong, good or bad.
And with that judgement, just as quietly but more deadly, we condemn. We From our judge’s chair while draped in our robes of black, we pass one of the many sentences available to us in our play book.
Rather than turn the other cheek, we turn our back. Rather than go the extra mile, we force them to. We hurl insults. We raise our hands in obscene gestures. We steal back what is supposedly ours. We open the floodgates of rage into our hearts and with our minds we justify the mental, verbal, emotional, and physical abuse that we heap on our accused.
And as we pass judgement and condemnation on the other, we silently and often unknowingly hold up our get-out-of-jail-free card – the one we earned by being right, righteous, good, better. We choose to be our own judge, and we always find ourselves innocent.
At stake here is not who is right and who is wrong. What is at stake is you – your state of being. The desire to set the world right is a God-given desire implanted in us. It is etched in the imago dei of our souls.
But the fulfillment of that holy desire does not and cannot come from judgement. Judgement arises from egoistic pride, arrogance, entitlement, and a withering connection to the sacred.
It is time to bring the oft-overlooked act of judgement into the light and let it be judged for what it is. It is time to acknowledge and take the beam out of our own eye. The good news is that we have a Judge who is willing to both forgive us and to teach us his way of forgiveness – freeing us to walk this earth in peace and love.
To err is human, to forgive divine.
Source Scripture
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
I no longer believe that we can change anything in the world until we first change ourselves. And that seems to me the only lesson to be learned. Etty Hillesum
Etty Hillesum, like Anne Frank, was arrested by the Nazis and transported to camp Westerbork. And, like Anne Frank, she wrote diaries of her experiences before her arrest. Etty continued to write at Westerbork, documenting not just the atrocities taking place around her, but the inward transformation taking place within her.
Though surrounded by evil, she chose to immerse herself in the good she believed permeated even her increasing darkness. At Westerbork she wrote, “The sky is full of birds, the purple lupins stand up so regally and peacefully, two little old women have sat down for a chat, the sun is shining on my face – and right before our eyes, mass murder….
“Those two months behind barbed wire have been the two richest and most intense months of my life, in which my highest values were so deeply confirmed. I have learnt to love Westerbork.”
Etty Hillesum wrote these words not long before she was ushered aboard a train to Auschwitz. There, in the crowded boxcar, she wrote her last known words on a postcard that she then tossed out of the train. It read, “We left the camp singing…”
When evil and suffering surround us, it is easy to let the darkness take hold of us and become part of us. We know no other response than to fight back in rage or attempt to escape the pain with unhealthy distractions or curl up in the fetal position on the floor and weep.
Those will be our responses if we immerse ourselves in the shadows we face. But where there is shadow, there is light.
It is not easy to overcome the darkness. We need help. The good news is we have it. We have been invited to immerse ourselves in a new way of thinking and living. We are designed to walk in this light.
But in order to let go of our current way of thinking and living, we must first immerse ourselves over a period of time fully in the light until it begins to penetrate the darkness within us.
Source Scripture
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist
(Apple I Spotify)
Resources to Explore the Life of Etty Hillesum
Book: An Interrupted Life
Book: A Life Transformed
But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God’s love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his own illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God. Thomas Merton
The Ark of the Covenant. It is the subject of much of the Old Testament Scriptures. It is the central object of desire for Indiana Jones and Adolph Hitler in the Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is the ultimate boon for many treasure hunters who still seek it.
The Old Testament Scriptures tell us that God spoke to Moses from between the two cherubim – or angels – that rose above the lid of the ark. Inside the ark were the two tablets of stone on which God etched the Ten Commandments with his finger. The ark was so holy it was never to be touched, but instead covered with cloth and carried with staves that allowed the men moving it to maintain adequate distance.
The Ark made its way from its birth at Mount Sinai through 40 years of wandering in the desert, and then to the Jordan River where it split the waters and allowed the Israelites to cross into the Promised Land on dry ground.
It eventually made its way to its final home – the Jewish temple built by King Solomon in Jerusalem. It was placed in a room of the temple called the Holy of Holies, where only the great high priest could enter once per year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, to seek forgiveness for the people of Israel.
The Ark of the Covenant, the most holy object of all time, resting in the Holy of Holies, had itself a most holy place – the lid atop it that covered the Ten Commandments. The place where the great high priest would sprinkle the blood of sacrifice once per year.
It is here, between the two angels atop the lid, that God said his presence permeated this world from the heavens beyond. And this lid was known as the mercy seat.
Of all of the ways that God could choose to present himself and make himself known. It was not through the tablets of law that were hidden inside the ark, which represented the requirements of the people to remain in good favor with God. It was not through the magnificent structure of the temple that encased it. It was not through the gleaming gold that covered every inch of it. It was not through the blood sacrifices that occurred just feet way outside in the inner court of the temple and got most of the attention.
No, the portal between heaven and earth where the divine God of the Universe presented himself to mankind was on the mercy seat.
Mercy. This is God’s posture toward us. This is his intent with us. And this – this unfathomable mercy of God – is the subject of today’s episode.
Source Scripture
Party Time: Matthew 9:9-13; Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras