God is violent, God is gentle.

Hello out there,

Things are still good here. I feel like slowly but surely, the roommates and I are building a friendship. They saved 2 muffins for me when they baked yesterday. So nice of them!  I also am excited to get to know some people from my class better. (Shoutout to Aze and Niina!! Cześć!) And I also had fun on Thursday night getting to know a couple of women from my church better. Please pray for all those relationships to continue to grow.  :-)

This morning I have had some wonderful, relaxed time to talk to God, journal, think.  I was a little down last night, and not really able to put my finger on exactly why.  Theresa and I met up in the afternoon for a trip to the Archdiocese Museum, and it was interesting.  They have some beautiful artifacts and art from centuries of the Poznań area church. I felt unaffected by it at first. Like I was looking at any museum, at any works of ancient art.  I felt a little disconnected from it. But I was struck by a few things. So many of the images, if they depict Christ at all, show Him suffering.  It seems like in the medieval church there was an emphasis on death and suffering.

Fast forward a couple hours: Theresa and I decided to go to my first movie in Poznań! Big excitement! We went to RED, because who doesn't like a mindless, action flick every now and then? Well... we weren't really impressed with this one. In fact, we were laughing about how badly done it was. It was like they thought, "Hey- people like a clever, ensemble, action movie in manner of Ocean's 11- let's get some big stars to phone one of those in!"  And it worked! We paid to see it.  No more than rentable, people.

Anyway, maybe because I'm in a new place, in a new role (and that's making me examine everything more closely), or maybe because I haven't seen a new action movie in a while, for whatever reason, the violence seemed intense to me.  It bothered me, more than I expected, to see people callously bombing, shooting, killing, hanging each other. It made me think in modern, western society, in general, we are quite removed from death. We don't face it like people did in the Middle Ages. Thankfully, half our children don't die before adulthood. Modern weapons mean that to kill another person, one doesn't have to physically touch them.  Illnesses like the flu almost never mean death like they did even 100 years ago.  But somehow, that means that we're okay watching it?  We want a good fight scene, a novel killing/shooting up all the bad guys scene? Somehow, our disassociation with the real thing allows us to increase in our appetite for the fake? And somehow, the 20th century was the bloodiest century in history.

So, how does this relate to the museum?  When I think about violence in relation to Jesus, the church, the bible... as a modern person, living in a "sanitized" world, I don't really understand the blood, the body, the sacrifice.

Our Lord, Jesus, did not shy away from offering Himself as a sacrifice, to a violent end.  I remember reading something online not too long ago from a forum of people, most of whom had grown up in some form of church, and are now emphatic atheists. They posted Christian song lyrics that talk about Christ's sacrifice, the blood, the death inherent in that. They talked about it being incredibly disturbing, especially that we indoctrinate our children, to believe that our religion is based on what the often referred to as "human sacrifice." To believe that we sing about Christ's death being beautiful. About his blood being beautiful.  And if I'm honest, am I not disturbed by Genesis 22, where God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac?  Isn't that a picture (or the beginning of a picture) of what God the Father did to save us? He sacrificed his willing, trusting Son.

Our God, who does not change, commanded violence from Israel at times, and used violence at times. In my mind when God strikes someone dead, he's using violence. For example, Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, as well as several examples in the Old Testament. (Although, sidenote, why is that violent? Now I'm questioning myself- Doesn't God control the times and manners of all our deaths? And so striking someone dead unexpectedly, apparently painlessly is no more violent than a 95-year grandmother dying peacefully on her bed....?)

Maybe part of the lesson is that there are worse things than physical death.  That "life and death" matters are a big deal, certainly, but death will come for us all.  The manner, the time... maybe isn't as important as we make it. The spiritual life is so much longer-lasting, so much more real than the physical.  Our eyes, our senses, Satan, deceive us into believing this is more real.

And in the midst of all this pondering of whether God is violent, thinking about His sovereignty, considering His authority, I feel His gentleness. I remember the desire He gave my friend at the beginning of this year. As she was praying, the desire popped into her mind, "I want to be engaged by the end of the year!" And the Lord, according to His love and abundance, has granted her the very desire He gave her. Not only is she engaged... this very day, in a few hours, Amy will be married with an abundance of love, joy, and blessing!  Congratulations Amy and Will, I love you and I wish I could be there!  I am praying this day that from the very beginning, God will build strong foundations in your marriage.

And this morning, He used that to gently remind me that the desires He has given me, He will be faithful to grant. Like the desire to be a part of building His Kingdom. The desire to be a part of seeing people given hope and peace, through His sacrifice, through His blood. What a privilege.

What are your thoughts? How do you understand the violence of the Old Testament? What issues of God's absolute authority have you had to deal with? And how is God gently changing you, speaking to you now?

May we keep our eyes above!
Steph