A reminder

 

When does God enter through our door? Kenosis

For the heart to be spacious enough to hold God, it must be emptied of self. Only real love is fully self-emptying (Greek kenōsis, κένωσις). Love is the full pouring out of the self for the other. When the self is poured out fully, then there is space for God. When the door of the heart is open, so that love may go out, then Love Himself may also enter through that door, and God comes and makes His place with us. But until love may go out, it cannot come in.

An open heart receives many gifts, and gives much from its own plentiness. But a closed heart receives none.

Love is the pouring out of the self for the other. It is self-denial and self-emptying. Consider the word and example of Christ and the Cross:

"If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." (Matthew 16:24)

[Christ] emptied (ekenōsen, ἐκένωσεν) himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a Cross. (Philippians 2:7-8)

 "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends." (John 15:13)

Christ poured Himself out for His friends even unto death, and we are invited to follow Him—each to be like a servant to others, and even to lay down our lives if needed. This is true self-denial, the kind that is able to truly love.

The heart's desire to do good works—works of love and mercy—is its capacity to receive the Good, who is God, and who "is love" (1 John 4:8). The more the heart pours itself out to others, the more it receives. And the open heart always gains more than it gives, for God is gracious.

A cup must be emptied before it may be filled with the good wine. Again, the self must be denied and poured out to others in order to make space for God.

The problem of violence in scripture (part 1)

Often, concerned Christians and non-believers alike bring up the point that God in the Old Testament seems quite violent; they claim this is contrary to the statement in the New Testament that "God is love" (1 John 4:8) and contrary to the loving character of Christ, who is God.

The ancient Gnostics took this a step further and even said that the God of the Old Testament was different than the God of the New. This, however, is not the Christian understanding.

If we think what God does in the Old Testament is bad, what should we think about what He says will happen to sinners in the New Testament? In the Old Testament, He ordains a Flood, or the raining down fire and brimstone on cities like Sodom, or orders a people to be put to the sword. Yet according to the New Testament, at the end of the age, unrepentant sinners are thrown in an eternal lake of fire. That is a far greater scandal.

Orthodox Christians understand these things in terms of God's love and mercy, since "God is love" (1 John 4:8). But it takes great patience to understand this radical perspective.

One must understand that God's justice is nothing other than His healing of the creation—His restoration of the proper Edenic order to creation. Corruption cannot persist in such an order. Justice is nothing but the restoration of order. When God's justice encounters what is corrupt, what is corrupt is removed. God does sometimes painful surgery on His creation, but as the Surgeon, He is aimed at healing it.

God is a Physician; He is aimed only at healing, not at vindictively punishing. Punishment, in the Eastern Christian view, is not what justice means for God.  And what may seem like punishment is in fact meant for our correction. A physician and a judge are one and the same; just as the judge is one who seeks to restore order, a physician is one who seeks to restore order to the body. 

In the case of the Amalekites, they were violent, attacking strangers in the wilderness. In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, they lacked hospitality to strangers, and were full of sexual violence. In the case of the Canaanites, they worshipped demons and sacrificed children to these demons. God's action toward them was then a mercy to the oppressed.

When God's restorative energies encounter such corruption, they must necessarily burn it away, in order for creation to be restored to its proper order. This happens both in this life, and fully at the end of the age (hence the image of the lake of fire).

I do not expect such an answer to satisfy the reader who is truly troubled by such violence, however. The Eastern Orthodox Christian perspective on these things is much richer and deeper than I've presented here. 

For example, how do we reconcile God's goodness with His command to the Israelites to put infants to the sword? Weren't innocent infants also drowned in the Flood, or killed when fire fell from the sky upon Sodom and Gomorrah? Scripture offers answers:

The righteous perish, / And no man takes it to heart; / Merciful men are taken away, / While no one considers / That the righteous are taken away from evil. (Isaiah 57:1)

There were some who pleased God and were loved by Him, / and while living among sinners were taken up. / They were caught up so that evil might not change their understanding or guile deceive their souls. (Wisdom 4:10-11)

This world is not worthy of the innocent who die. And the innocent are taken to be spared from evil—even before evil can corrupt their souls and endanger their eternal salvation.

A harder question is why is anyone thrown into an eternal lake of fire? Is that not cruel? For now I will say this:

Many are scandalized by the Old Testament violence because we lack the sort of eternal perspective that God has. There has been placed a limit on our time in this fallen world. That limit is called "death"—but perhaps not rightly so, since the promise of the Cross is that we do not truly die. If we were to linger too long here, we would all become corrupted beyond saving. God cares about our eternal salvation, not merely about our earthly lives. In some cases, our earthly lives may be cut short before we have time to condemn ourselves further. Moreover, death may even bring about a last-minute cry of repentance within us. We are looking to the now; God is looking to the hereafter. 

This life is but a day, and these present sufferings are but a moment. This life is passing like a single breath, and then we will all awake from the dust to eternity. This is the promise of the Cross and the Resurrection. This is what God sees but what we fail to see.