Hearing Music Between the Notes

Spirituality Column #207
October 26, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Hearing Music between the Notes
By Bob Walters

“Be still, and know that I am God.” – Psalm 46:10

There was a 30-year period of my life from my mid-teens to my mid-40s that I didn’t go to church and was utterly without conviction about God.

God was quiet and I wasn’t listening anyway.

College and career and home and family filled life’s gaps. The idea of “going to church” or “being a Christian” seemed a grim, limiting, monochromatic, spirit-shrinking, intellect-killing enterprise.

My experience since coming to Christ has been the opposite of that. Any Christian who strides humbly but confidently in his or her walk with the Lord can relate to the joy, wonder, color, freedom and thought of Christian life.

I’ve been reading A Place for Truth, a thought-inspiring new book which recounts various “Truth” discussions at leading U.S. college campuses sponsored by the Christian Veritas Forum. Jeremy Begbie’s dissertation on music revealed to me new and surprising dimension and depth of the faith experience:

Christians must learn “to hear between the notes.”

Begbie is a theology professor at Duke Divinity School, an Anglican priest and also a classically trained musician. In his 2007 presentation at Cal-Berkley, he talked about musical tonalities and meter; about tension and resolution. There is a “beat” in music, Begbie noted, the same way there is a “beat” in our lives, and a meter in mankind’s relationship with God.

Exhibit A is the Bible. God’s interaction, silence, and surprises are easily compared to the movements of a classical symphony where properly placed pause or a tension-filled passage leaves us gasping for resolution.

Spiritual “silence” is not uncommon in our lives. There are, quoting Begbie, “in-between times … when it seems God is on vacation … when grace doesn’t seem very amazing anymore.” That’s when it’s time to listen “between the notes.”

Recount the Old Testament’s trials and truths; then consider God’s silence before the appearance of Christ, signaling the salvation of mankind.

Jesus Christ, Begbie teases, “is the Big Downbeat” providing humanity with the expectation, hope, and discipline for the symphony yet to come. God’s silence should be for us a time of prayer and trust in God’s resolution, not despair.

Once I only paid attention to the simple melodies and dissonant noise of life, with no clue how to appreciate the divine music between the notes.
Now I know that God is talking then, too, and it is joyful to listen.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) has great appreciation for great music, but no musical talent.

Safe Place to Tell the Truth

Spirituality Column #206
October 19, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Safe Place to Tell the Truth
By Bob Walters

We respect and trust people who tell the truth.

So how is it we’ve slipped into a vast public place where it is not politically correct – often, even illegal – to claim that capital-T Truth actually exists?

Certainly, this isn’t a sudden development. Humanity has been slipping in that direction for a long time … maybe for 2,000 years since Jesus said “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.” (John 14:6).

In this country, the Truth has been seriously slipping from public view since Knowledge and Truth became an academic dichotomy after the American Civil War. Whether in the public square, a city council, a courthouse (that dispenses justice), a great university or a humble local school system, Truth today is out of vogue.

Our institutions instead clamor for facts and research, not the Truth. They want answers. They often want to do the right thing … overlooking, of course, the utterly inconvenient logic that absent Truth, right and wrong don’t exist. Neither does freedom. Neither does justice. Neither do ethics.

Instead, public institutions abide by a socially acceptable and tautologically nonsensical truth, which is that one can claim any truth one wants, and it will be accepted in the loftiest Ivory Towers of the Academy … but call it Science. Call it Progressive. Call it Green. Call it Social Justice.

Just – please – don’t claim a Truth from the author of Truth, the only person in the history of mankind or in any religion to claim to be the Truth: Jesus Christ. Leave Him out of it; lest you offend someone. Christ as Truth is an unwanted opinion.

The, um, truth, of course, is that the Truth of Jesus Christ has pretty much always been, for competing doctrines or most governments, an unwanted opinion. Exhibits A and B are the Pharisees and Pontius Pilate.

America was supposed to be different because our founders believed:
1. It was unwise to codify religion in our Constitution, and
2. Only God’s free Truth residing in the free hearts of ethical citizens would prosper and congeal a free society.
3. Truth was cherished by the people

Dallas Willard’s just-released book, “A Place for Truth,” published by The Veritas Forum, contains a series of on-campus presentations on Truth by many of the world’s greatest thinkers: Christians, philosophers, scientists, atheists.

The book is encouraging, fascinating, challenging and … has a lot of truth.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) warns the faint hearted, the book is an open academic discussion. Thankfully, the good guys win.

Dig Deeper for Church Foundation

Spirituality Column #205
October 12, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Dig Deeper for Church Foundation
By Bob Walters

My friend, mentor, and our Hamilton County neighbor George – I’ve written about him before – is a renowned scholar on the Eastern Church, on general church history including the Fathers (“Patristics”), and is a multi-lingual Bible translator.

He has worked at the Vatican, been a missionary in sub-Saharan Africa, served as a medic with the International Red Cross, was mentored at the ancient monastery of St. Macarius in northern Egypt, and for a time was a Coptic cleric in his native Cairo.

George retired from the divinity faculty at Cambridge University, England, in 2004 and since then has been living, writing, and teaching here in central Indiana. We have his lovely wife May, with her American career in computer systems management, to thank for that.

Though “retired” George teaches seminars throughout America and England, has taught select classes at several area churches and colleges, and recently began his seventh year teaching Wednesday nights at Castleton’s East 91st St. Christian Church.

George can write maddeningly meticulous class notes dissecting linguistic and spiritual subtleties of Hebrew, Greek and Latin Biblical pronouns (of Christ, in the Spirit, unto the Lord, etc.). But he can also simplify obvious but stupefying theological questions into three or four understandable points.

His current E91 series is “Bible Themes.” During the “Temples” class, George noted that Jews built temples where God appeared (theophany) or commanded. God dwelled, or tabernacled, in these Holy Places.

Later in that lesson, George asked, “Why do Christians go to church?” The public class draws a diverse, church-savvy crowd, but the room fell silent. After all, Jesus said nothing about “keeping the Sabbath,” only loving God and each other. Plus, “Christ dwells in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:17), not in temples.

So … why church? Typical George, “Three points …

“One, Jesus promised that when ‘two or three’ believers gather, He will be there.

“Two, to share the Lord’s Supper, the gift of the body and blood of Christ; that many may become one. This is highly symbolic, and also very, very real.

“Three, we are the ‘called,’ – the ecclesia. We are called to community, to worship Christ so He may give us strength and we will experience the love and commitment of our faith.”

Good answer. If you’re there for the music or so you can feel good about yourself … George would suggest you dig deeper and feel good about Christ.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), at George’s request, left out his last name. But the class is fascinating.

Sin and the World's Shortest Book

Spirituality Column #204
October 5, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Sin and the World’s Shortest Book
By Bob Walters

What is the world’s shortest book?

It’s not “Different Ways to Spell ‘Bob,’” “The Engineer’s Guide to Fashion” or “Al Gore, The Wild Years.”

And no, it’s not 3 John, the Bible’s shortest book.

The world’s shortest book is “Sins for Which Jesus Christ Did Not Die.”

Jesus, you see, died for them all (2 Corinthians 5:15, 1 Peter 3:18).

The human race is a motley lot. We seek Godly heights yet often stumble into the lowest of pits due to either our own sin or the fallenness of the world around us.

"We are,” to quote my worship minister friend Shockley Flick, “sinful, rebellious, willful, demanding, slow to learn, resistant to change, egocentric and sometimes just not very pleasant to be around.

“Yet,” he continues, “Jesus Christ, through His grace and love, reached out and lifted us up from our squalor to walk with Him.”

As Christians we are taught that we must deal with our sin, but sometimes forget that Jesus Christ has already dealt with our sin … all of it.

Every sinful thing we’ve done, are doing and will do is why Jesus died on the Cross. For the sake of our eternal salvation, our sin was forgiven, taken away, removed and erased.

The “debt” was cancelled on the Cross.

Despite this Biblical truth, non-believers scoff at Christ and salvation. Even some Christians cling to their own sin, wallow in their guilt, and speak somberly of their – or accusingly of someone else’s – “unresolved sin.” But that makes me want to ask, “What sins could anyone possibly have that Christ didn’t die for?”

In God’s eyes, Jesus Christ already resolved our sin by His sacrifice on the Cross. That forgiveness, that grace, is a gift for which humanity did not ask, but is a gift freely given to anyone who in faith believes and declares that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God and trusts Him as Lord and Savior.

Faith is the key. Trying to resolve one’s own sin, with effort or works, is a fool’s errand, a canard, an oxymoron, an impossibility.
We can’t resolve sin. Jesus can, and did.

Sin is death in each of our lives until we declare our faith in Jesus Christ, confess our sin, and live our life dedicated to His Glory rather than our effort, happiness and comfort.

That’s the long and short of it.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) figured out years ago you can’t hide anything from Jesus. Confess, repent, worship, try to do better. Above all, have faith.