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CURRENT TOPICS: Notes for Presentation on Mary + God Is Beautiful + Hosea, The Unwanted Prophet+
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Easter Sunday – John 20:1-9
Mary Magdalene, Peter, John
Jesus himself never appears in our passage from John. The time is early and it is still dark, which means for John that Christ who is the light of the world is absent. Three disciples react to this absence.
–Mary Magdalene is the first; we read only the first half of her story, but we notice how her faith is at an early stage. Her devotion brought her to the tomb, but the missing body can only mean for her that someone has taken it away. Jesus himself will have to search her out to bring her to full belief.
-The second is Peter. At the end of the discourse on the Bread of Life, he makes an impressive personal commitment to Jesus but later denied three times that he even knew him. So wounded was he spiritually by these denials that even though he saw the grave clothes lying there, he could not conclude to the truth.
-The third disciple is not named, but he has already appeared at the side of Jesus at the supper and was present at the foot of the cross. He enjoyed this intimacy with Jesus because he already had the right relationship with him, that of mutual love. For this reason, he could run faster than Peter and he drew the correct conclusion from the grave clothes which he saw in the tomb. He himself a model believer, he became not only the authority for his community for the material contained in this gospel, but an example to them. They were to believe as he believed: their relationship to Jesus was to be that of friends, not servants.
The question of his identity is still debated, but this is of small importance compared with his significance. Usually, he is identified with John. He represents all faithful disciples of Jesus through all ages of the church. Their loving intimacy with Jesus ensures that though they do not see Jesus physically, they believe without seeing.
Who moved the stone? The women could not have moved it. It took many strong men to move it. Neither the Jews nor the romans would have moved it, because they both wanted Jesus to stay very, very dead. It was guarded by armed Roman soldiers, so the disciples could not have done it. And if they did, then they deliberately lied about the Resurrection; so, if they knew it was a lie, why would they all let themselves be arrested and imprisoned and tortured and martyred for this lie? Martyrdom doesn’t prove truth, but it certainly proves sincerity.
What Peter and John see is not just an empty tomb but the grave clothes, both the shroud that wrapped the body and the face cloth, neatly folded away. Jesus forgets no detail, one commentator offered. Remember, he was the one who had to remind the family of the little girl he brought back from the dead to give her something to eat.
We have both of these linen cloths today: the Shroud at Turin, and the sudarium, the face cloth, at Manoppello in Italy; they have both withstood sober, secular, scientific analysis. They are genuine.
John saw and believed. Thomas believed, even though he had to see first. Like Peter and John and Thomas, we understand only after we believe. Faith is an understanding, a spiritual seeing. It is not a leap in the dark. It is a leap in the light.
GOD IS BEAUTY – BEAUTY IS GOD
PART FOUR: Practicing Beauty
At this point, I would like to go a little deeper into this sense of beauty that could include all forms besides art, with the connection to God’s attributes as hinted at in the last section. The reason for making this connection is that when we participate in beauty, an attribute of God, we also participate in who God is. That is what God’s attributes mean. For example, John’s gospel tells us that God is Love, another of his attributes. When we participate in love, we also participate in who God is. Since beautiful can be attributed to art, music, architecture, dance, and so forth, participation in any or even several of these, we participate in God. It is almost like dancing with God through the attribute of beauty, or love, or Justice and Goodness. When we participate in our faith, we call that ‘praxes,’ or action, as when we put our faith in action in the corporal works of mercy.
There are levels of praxis or action, for example, when we visit an art museum, attend a concert, or visit a building famous for its architecture. We participate in beauty through these visits or concerts, even though we did not produce the art or compose the music or design the building. Our participation is vicarious action or vicarious creation. In a sense, that is what aesthetics is about, our vicarious participation in beauty. Plato talks about this in his dialogue of the ‘Cave’ where he believed that on earth we see dimly as shadows in his Cave analogy.
Whether we participate in beauty vicariously or creatively we still experience that sense of awe. We talked about that in the last section, “The Desire for Perfect Beauty.” In this section I want to focus more on beauty in our connection with God, using more specifically an apparition of Mary to Juan Diego at Guadalupe.
In his chapter, Practicing Beauty, Roberto S Goizueta, points out that the Lady uses beauty in her apparition. “(Juan Diego) was compelled to enter into the relationship by the beauty of the birds’ singing, which originally signaled the Virgin’s presence, the beauty of the flowers that the Lady offered as the sign of her love for him, and the beauty of the Lady herself,” (INVITATION TO PRACTIAL THEOLOGY, ed. C. E. Wolfeite, 2014). Goizueta even specifically says so, “…(she) approaches him in the form of beauty, that of music, flowers and the Lady (herself),” and points out that it is “…privileged mediators of the sacred,” flor y canto (“flower and song”). And he surprisingly states that, “…it sought, compelled, and seduced him.” This is the language of Saint John of the Cross and of the Prophet Jeremiah, “You seduced me, Lord!”
He continues, “It is no coincidence, therefore, that such a relationship is mediated, above all, by beauty; the subject’s interaction with beauty is always fundamentally one in which he or she is not in control…Beauty compels, attracts, and seduces unexpectedly.” He says that we are caught-up in something greater than and beyond our selves, something divine, mystical, numinous. The fact that we can not control this experience, as Juan Diego, it is still ultimately energizing, inspiring, and empowering that has attracted the Saints over the ages.
And this is what was mentioned in the previous PART THREE: The Nature of Beauty and the Desire for Perfect Beauty, “Ontological Status of the Beautiful.”
“…the Requiem is performed within a magnificent church with magnificent art, and the music, art and architecture are unified as a whole, one feels drawn into a perfection bigger than all the forms combined,” (p161).
Eventually, this is where we are heading, but not yet. Sometimes we participate in this beauty simply by listening and looking at times to someone else’ beauty in their music or art. We participate with God, now, in this life in many ways that are really part of God’s attributes by being just and fair to others and loving them.
“Juan Diego never dreamed that he could possibly order or command the bishop to do anything; such a goal was, for the indigenous man, literally inconceivable. Only as he is gradually drawn into the relationship with the Virgin does he eventually discover…that he is able to confront the bishop and, indeed, to compel the bishop’s own obedience.” Notice that the military power of God is not used “…as claimed by the missioners, but the attractive power of beauty, respect, and compassion,” (p161).
Goizueta points our that it is our “…participation in a relationship with another subject, whose own self-expression compels that participation.” God seduces us into interacting with him through the beauty of the world around us and by his other attributes. Again, Goizueta point out that “…the ground of all rational or instrumental knowledge…is participatory or aesthetic praxis,” (p162).
In other words: “The word of God is thus much more than information about God; it is the inconceivable invitation to participate in God’s own praxis, God’s own ongoing self-disclosure in history,” (p163).
In the next part we will look at the article by Dr. Kenneth Craycraft, No Atheists in Art Galleries.
“Go Back To Where You Came From!”
Amos, The Unwanted Prophet: Part One
Our picture of Amos must be enlarged a bit. He may have been a sheep-breeder, but he also lived in a strategically located fortified walled village that had strong ties to Jerusalem administratively and defensively. The archaeological remains of Tekoa lie some twelve miles southeast of Jerusalem, on a high hill right at the point where the cultivated lands end and the uncultivated land begin that slope down to the Dead Sea.
The sycamore groves referred to previously would likely have been some distance from where Amos lived, for to grow properly they required the warmer climate of the Jordan valley where he would have taken his flocks for pasturing when the hills of Tekoa were barren.
Theologically, it seems, the sheep-breeders of Tekoa were unique. Like others elsewhere in Israel, they were of course devout Yahwists and believed themselves to be a part of Yahweh’s peculiarly known and loved people. But there is no evidence that Amos thought, as did the Yahwists of Jerusalem, that Yahweh was somehow especially present at Zion or with the Davidic dynasty. Nor, strangely enough, does he ever mention the covenant Yahweh made at Sinai, as other prophets do.
In fact, Amos seems to view the sacrificing of animals going on there as a senseless novelty without precedent. “Did you bring me sacrifices and oblations those forty years in the desert, House of Israel?” he asks, implying, “No, you did not!”
“How did your rest, Amos?” Miriam asked, looking at the view below. Her husband seemed quiet and pensive. She knew her husband too well and also knew that he was looking at the view but was distracted.
“I had another dream,” Amos said slowly and somewhat quietly. “The Lord God Yahweh repeated the vision about the locust plague but also added a drought upon Jacob to destroy him.”
“Amos,” Miriam responded almost desperately, “I was right! You need to go quickly. Your vision frightens me. You need to travel soon before it is too late!”
“I pleaded with Yahweh to spare our brothers, to spare the House of Isaac,” Amos said. “I first pleaded for them, pleading for forgiveness, as part of my plan that I mentioned last night. That is when Yahweh seemed to relent,” Amos told her, taking hold of her hand. “But the Lord God repeated the first vision of locust added the second vision of drought. I pleaded all the more.” Then Amos stopped and was quiet.
“Yes, Amos,” Miriam encouraged him. “What was his response?”
Then Amos looked into Miriam’s face and smiled, “Yahweh, the Lord God, said for my sake, ‘It will not happen.’”
“Even though I feel our Northern brothers and sisters under King Jeroboam are prosperous and strong,” Miriam admitted, “I feel their wealth is at the expense of the less fortunate.”
“You are right, Miriam,” Amos quickly said with growing anger. “The problem with our Northern brothers and sisters is that there is no mishpat, justice.” Amos almost spit it out. “There is no Tsedakah, uprightness in the land.”
“If there was justice for the less fortunate,” Miriam said, “where the weak and poor could be heard, the Lord God Yahweh would not have to punish our Northern neighbors.”
“The rich along with the poor,” Amos added. “If it were not for the weak and poor I would almost want Yahweh to punish the rich and powerful, but it is exactly the weak and poor who would pay in the end.”
“I know you too well, Amos,” Miriam looks at him tenderly. “I know that your vision had touched you so much that even now you have prayed to Yahweh to relent in his anger.”
“Miriam,” Amos admitted, “I just don’t know what to do? Imagine me traveling to the north to deliver this vision. They would never listen to me. If I don’t warn them, the Lord God may carry out something even worse.” Amos reluctantly added, “On the other hand, if I do deliver Yahweh’s message, then the Lord God will be even more reluctant to forgive and relent in his punishment of our Northern Kingdom.”
“I know that you will think of something,” she said. “Besides, Yahweh has picked you.”
“I will have to prepare,” Amos reminded her, “since there are things to do here first. I know that you can handle things when I am gone.”
“It would be better to prepare yourself first,” she said in his support, and added, “by the time you are ready to leave, may the Lord God bless you with a clearer vision on how to proceed.”
“In the meantime, I will try to get more information on what is really happening in the north,” Amos decided. “I am certain there will be more visions, since Yahweh has told me so.”
“Oh?” Miriam looked at him in surprise.
“Since we don’t get many visitors, especially from the north,” Amos said while looking at the view of the world below them, “I plan to visit Jerusalem to find out more information before I head North. Hopefully by then things will be a little more clearer.”
Miriam was also distracted by the view below, such a vast panorama of many of their neighboring countries. “Maybe the Lord God will send a vision on what to bring to our northern brother and sisters.”
“I don’t expect much sympathy from Jerusalem. If it is wisdom I am looking for, I would be better off visiting our Edomite brothers. Maybe some will pass this way, since they are about due for a visit,” Amos reflected as he looked east where his view took him.
Go Back To Where You Came From pt 1 Go Back To Where You Came From pt 1