Amazing Grace

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, 
And grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.

John Newton, 1725-1807

 
The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
and mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.

The author of these words, John Newton, was a former slave ship captain. After surviving a fierce storm at sea, Newton became an Anglican priest and abolitionist.

The mystery of Christ: a book written in our heart

Scholar Elaine Pagels writes in Why Religion? “When the author of the Gospel of Truth sets out to reveal Paul’s secret teaching, he begins by asking, What happened before the beginning of time? In answer, the author offers a primordial drama of creation, telling how, when ‘all beings’ began to search for the One from whom they came forth, they couldn’t find him. Feeling abandoned, not knowing where they came from, they suffered anguish and terror, like children wandering in the dark, searching in vain for their lost parents. 

"As this gospel tells it, what separates all beings, including ourselves, from God is not sin. Instead, what frustrates our longing to know our source is its transcendence, and our own limited capacity for understanding. Yet when these beings—or when we—realize that we can’t find our way home, don’t know where we came from, or how we got here, we feel utterly lost. Overwhelmed by grief and fear, we may rush into paths that lead nowhere, more lost than ever, imagining that there’s nothing beyond the confusion we see in the world around us.

“At this point, the Gospel of Truth turns toward a drama of cosmic redemption. When the Father sees his children terrified and suffering, ensnared by negative energies, he sends his Son, ‘the hidden mystery, Jesus the Christ,’ to show them a path and bring them back ‘into the Father, into the Mother, Jesus of the infinite sweetness.’ And although, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians, ignorant and violent ‘rulers of this world’ tortured and crucified Jesus, the Father overturned their conspiracy, transforming even their hideous crime into a means of grace.

“To show this, the Gospel of Truth reframes the vision of the cross from an instrument of torture into a new tree of knowledge. Here Jesus’s battered body, ‘nailed to a tree,’ is seen as fruit on a tree of ‘knowing the Father,’ which unlike that tree in Paradise, doesn’t bring death, but life, to those who eat from it. Thus, the author suggests that those who participate in the Eucharist, eating the bread and drinking the wine that, symbolically speaking, are Jesus’s flesh and blood, ‘discover him in themselves’ while he ‘discovers themselves in him.’

“After years of contending with familiar Jewish and Christian sources, I found here a vision that goes beyond what Paul calls ‘the message of the cross.’ Instead of seeing suffering as punishment, this gospel suggests that, seen through the eyes of wisdom, suffering can show how we’re connected with each other, and with God; what Paul’s letter to the Colossians calls ‘the mystery of Christ in you, the hope of glory. No wonder, then, that Christians called their sacred meal a mystery (mysterion), a Greek term later translated as ‘sacrament’ (from Latin sacramentum).”

“The author of the Gospel of Truth rejects images of God as a harsh, divine judge who sent Jesus into the world ‘to die for our sins.’ Instead, he suggests, the loving and compassionate Rather sent Jesus to find those who were lost, and to bring them back home. So rather than see the writing on the cross as any death sentence—whether Pilate’s or God’s—this author suggests instead that Jesus published there ‘the living book of the living,’ a book ‘written in our heart’ that teaches us who we really are, since it includes the names of everyone who belongs to God’s family.”

 

Pagels, Elaine. Why Religion? (pp. 200-201). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

 

The Christmas story in Matthew 1-2

The story begins with a genealogy that places Jesus in the line of descent from Abraham and David. An angel in a dream tells Joseph in this birth story that Mary's surprising pregnancy is the work of the LORD. Joseph accepts this as the will of God and takes Mary into his home. Jesus is born, and then the gospel relates the story of the wise men. After the wise men slip out of Judea, King Herod sends soldiers to kill all the children of Bethlehem under two years old. But Joseph is warned in another dream and so he escapes with Mary and Jesus to Egypt. He only returns to Judea after the death of Herod the Great.

If we listen closely to the story in the gospel of Matthew, we will hear that events are taking place according to prophecy. Mary's pregnancy, the birth in Bethlehem, the flight into Egypt, the slaying of the children — all these events, the narrator of the story tells us, were foretold by the prophets. This theme is repeated throughout the gospel of Matthew. Jesus is the fulfillment of the hope of the people of Israel, as expressed through the prophets, who were speaking for God. Jesus is thus the fulfillment of the covenant of God with the people of the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings, reflecting the earlier covenant between the LORD God and Moses on behalf of the twelve tribes of Israel.

The gospel of Matthew was written for a Jewish Christian community. In Matthew's gospel Jesus gives the famous Sermon on the Mount, in which he says he has come to fulfill the Law of Moses not to abolish it. This gospel was a powerful argument in the hands of Jewish Christians who were resisting the growing influence of the Gentile churches.

Yet, the author of the gospel of Matthew extends the hope of Israel beyond any narrow interpretation of ancient prophecy by masterfully telling the story of the three wise men. They represent the non-Jewish world of wisdom, which in the birth story of this gospel recognizes the sovereignty of Jesus and comes to pay him homage.

Luke's birth story is about women and shepherds, and Matthew's birth story is about men and kings. (Later in the life of the church the wise men are called "kings" because of a verse in Psalm 72 that refers to kings bringing gifts to the king of the Israelites.) The three wise men come looking for the one born to be king of the Jews. They come to the ruler of Judea, bringing gifts fit for a king. And this ruler massacres the young boys of Bethlehem in an effort to kill the child he perceives to be a threat. In contrast to the birth story in the gospel of Luke, the story in the gospel of Matthew is not about poverty and receiving the Holy Spirit. It is about the birth of a new king of the Jews whose life is threatened by a Roman appointed Jewish leader.

What might the birth story in Matthew's gospel mean for us today? I suggest, first, that its focus is God. If the story in Luke stresses the humanity of Jesus, the story of the three wise men reminds us of the sovereignty of God. Jesus is God incarnate, and in this story he will rise to rule in heaven. The story in this gospel tells us that God's mysterious plan is being worked out through history.

Second, this story reminds us that human rulers are subject to God. The star created by God summons the three wise men. Herod is foiled in his attempt to destroy Jesus, who will be king. Furthermore, Matthew's gospel relates the story of the ministry of Jesus, his death as the king of the Jews, his resurrection as the king of kings, and his commissioning of the disciples for a ministry to the whole world.

Third, the birth story in the gospel of Matthew tells us that the promises of God will be fulfilled. The story calls us to faith by affirming that God is faithful. The covenant that God established with Israel is being renewed through Jesus. If we have faith in him and follow his commandments, God will keep faith with us. Prophecy and promise will be fulfilled. 

Robert Traer

The Christmas story in Luke 1-2

The anonymous gospel attributed to Luke, a missionary colleague of Paul, begins with the story of the birth of John the Baptist. Elizabeth and Zechariah are elderly and without a child. Yet Elizabeth conceives and an angel tells Zechariah that the child's name will be John. Six months later the angel Gabriel comes to Mary to explain that she will give birth to a child with the help of the Holy Spirit and to tell her that Elizabeth is also pregnant. When Mary visits Elizabeth, the older woman feels her babe leap in her womb. Elizabeth says to Mary, "Blessed are you among women . . .." Then Mary sings praises to God, in words that have come to be known as the Magnificat — words that bring to mind (for those who know the Bible well) Hannah's song of praise after her prayers for a son have been answered with Samuel's birth. (1 Samuel 2:1-10).

The story of the birth of Jesus follows. We hear of Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem, finding no room in the inn, and taking shelter in a stable. During the night Jesus is born, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, and then shepherds are directed by angels to come and adore him.

The Christmas story in the gospel of Luke gives a prominent role to women, in contrast to most of the narratives in the Bible. The story also emphasizes the humble birth of Jesus in a stable, attended only by his mother and father, and then by shepherds. At the very beginning of Luke's gospel we read the author is writing his account for Theophilus, a Greek-speaking Christian. If we know our Bible well, we also know that Acts of the Apostles is a companion volume written by the same author. Thus the story of Elizabeth and Mary, and their children born in Judea, is the beginning of a story that includes not only accounts of the ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus, but also of the conversion of Saul (who becomes the apostle Paul) and of Paul's missionary work until his imprisonment in Rome.

What meanings might this birth story have had for Theophilus and the other Greek-speaking Christians of his largely Gentile church? The birth story in the gospel of Luke sets the birth of Jesus within the Roman Empire at the time of a census decreed by Caesar Augustus. When the author of the gospel of Luke and Acts concludes his narrative with Paul in Rome proclaiming new life in Christ to Jews and Gentiles, we see clearly that the “good news” of this story is directed far beyond Galilee and Jerusalem to a much larger and more diverse Greek-speaking, Jewish and Gentile community throughout the Roman Empire.

In the second century some Christians began to claim that Jesus was a divine being who merely appeared to be human. Luke's gospel became a defense against this "Gnostic" heresy, because the birth story emphasizes Mary's pregnancy and the human birth of Jesus. Yet we don't hear of a Christmas celebration in the life of the church until the fourth century, when it is listed in an almanac as the Feast of the Nativity. Most likely this feast began in churches dominated by Gentiles during the reign of Constantine, after he was converted to Christianity in 312. In the Julian calendar of that period the Feast of the Nativity was celebrated on December 25th, which was the winter solstice. As the birth story in the gospel of Luke does not mention any date, the winter solstice was undoubtedly chosen to coincide with the pagan celebration of the rebirth of the sun. Thus, Jesus was proclaimed in the Roman Empire as the "true sun."

Probably Christians in Rome were unaware that shepherds in Palestine did not tend sheep in the fields during the winter. When Christian scholars in the Middle Ages were confronted with this factual inconsistency, they concluded the shepherds had stayed in the fields because of the winter solstice. European Christians adapted the story in other ways. The manger was represented in paintings and crèche scenes as a wooden rack or "crib." In Palestine, however, it would have been a stone ledge, trough, or a niche in the wall of a stable, in which fodder was placed. In Middle English the Feast of the Nativity was called "Christes masse," that is, the mass of Christ. This eventually was shortened to "Christmas."

It is interesting to recall that after the Protestant Reformation, Christmas was rejected by most Protestant denominations because it emphasized the baby Jesus rather than the risen Christ. In 1659 the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony made the observance of Christmas a punishable offense, and Protestant opposition to celebrating Christmas continued in some denominations well into the 19th century.

The flood of immigrants to the United States turned the tide. Germans brought their Christmas tree. Irish put lights in their windows. Catholic immigrants from Eastern Europe sang their native carols and protested having to work on Christmas Day! It was the Roman Catholic Church that kept the "Christ mass" tradition alive until the holiday became acceptable to all Christians and to many others as well.

Eventually, a surge of enthusiasm swept away all resistance. Neither the moral authority of the church, nor the power of the state could prevent the celebration of Christmas. It is almost as if the spirit of Christmas has a life of its own ― undisciplined, chaotic, commercial, fantastic, seemingly irrepressible!

As the Christmas story is told in the gospel of Luke, what meanings might it have for us today? I suggest, first, that as a very human story of mothers becoming pregnant and giving birth it reminds us that life, as we know it, is the medium in which God chooses to dwell. Jesus is born and grows up in a family, before as an adult he challenges religious and political authorities, suffers, is crucified, and then appears after death to his followers. 

Second, the gospel of Luke reminds us that poverty is not a mark of human failure or divine rejection. The origins of the church are humble and poor. The gospel story shows that the kingdom of God is not for those who claim to have earned salvation because of their success in the world, but for those who have faith.

Third, this story of women, a baby in a manger, and shepherds in the fields who come in wonder to the stable, should elicit in us a renewed sense of awe and gratitude for life. Each child is a wondrous creation, and the birth of a child is cause for joy. 

At Christmas, therefore, we celebrate the birth of the true sun, the light that enters the darkness and is not overcome by it, the life we know together in Christ, and the joy we share with one another and with the world.

Robert Traer

 

Dr. Reggie Anderson's experiences of heaven

Dr. Reggie Anderson writes from the perspective of a firm Christian faith. He describes, however, his loss of faith as a young man and how the love he shared with the woman who became his wife—and having what he describes as a very powerful dream—renewed his childhood faith.

Anderson begins his book with his first experience as a resident caring for a dying patient. “Throughout medical school I had taken care of dying patients, but this was the first time that I, as the senior resident, would be the one in charge when a patient died. I didn’t know what to expect.

Dr. Anderson, the elderly woman began, her voice starting to fade. Will you hold my hand? I’m going to see Jesus, and I need an escort.

“That night, I experienced the veil parting—the veil that separates this life from the next. As I held the dying woman’s hands, I felt the warmth of her soul pass by my cheek when it left her body, swept up by an inexplicably cool breeze in an otherwise stagnant room. I smelled the familiar fragrance of lilac and citrus, and I knew the veil was parting to allow her soul to pass through.

“Since that first patient, I’ve walked with countless others to the doorstep of heaven and watched them enter paradise. On many occasions, as I held hands with the dying, God allowed me to peer into heaven’s entryway where I watched each patient slip into the next world.

“Sometimes I’ve even witnessed patients leave this world and come back. As they’ve shared their stories with me, I’ve often remembered the time early in my life when God allowed me to step into heaven’s foyer, even though I no longer believed he was real.

“The one thing these experiences have in common is the intensity of the sights, sounds, fragrances, and feelings that I sensed. Heaven is more real than anything we experience here, and the sense of peace, joy, and overwhelming love is beyond description.”

Reggie Anderson with Jennifer Schuchmann, Appointments with Heaven: The True Story of a Country Doctor’s Healing Encounters with the Hereafter (Tyndale Momentum, 2013), 4-5.

 

Amazing grace will lead us home

The Pharisee Saul was persecuting preachers of the Way of Jesus until he was struck blind as "a light from heaven flashed around him." (Acts 9:3) After a follower of the Way explained the gospel to Saul, his sight was restored and his life transformed.

Writing as an apostle to the followers of the Way in Corinth, Paul explains: "But someone will ask, 'How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" He answers from his own experience: "Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies . . . It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body." (1 Cor. 15: 35-44)

Former slave-trader John Newton in 1772 wrote the words to "Amazing Grace" after he, too, experienced a spiritual "resurrection." The words to the first and third verses recall his personal transformation and affirm his new faith in grace and immortality.

Amazing grace, How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come,
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.

Grace and peace . . . Bob Traer

Going Home

The third verse of the hymn “Amazing Grace” ends with the affirmation that “grace will lead me home.” Home surely refers to heaven, but when I noticed this I thought it was unusual for Christians to think of heaven as home. I discovered, however, that African American spirituals often affirm heaven as home.

The spiritual based on the story of Elijah riding to heaven in a chariot of fire includes the phrase, “Swing low, sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me home.” In the song “O Freedom,” each verse ends with: “And before I’d be a slave, I’d be buried in my grave. And go home to my Lord, and be free.” And the chorus in “Steal Away” includes this phrase: “steal away home, I ain’t got long to stay here.”

Early in the 20th century William Arms Fisher, a student of Antoin Dvorak, wrote a hymn to reflect African American spirituality using the Largo melody from Dvorak’s Symphony #9, known as the New World Symphony. The chorus affirms: “Going home, going home, I am going home.”

Modern hymns rarely refer to heaven as home, but survivors of near-death experiences often note the presence of a brilliant Light, a feeling of overwhelming Love, and that they are “home.” Here are three examples from physician and researcher Jeffrey Long’s 2016 book, God and the Afterlife.

Anna: It was the most real thing that’s ever happened to me. The life I’d been living was an insignificant experiment that I’d volunteered for. The me, the I, wasn’t Anna, the woman who’d just given birth. I was a light being—“light” in every sense. I was made of the same light as the light that shone from the clear pool in front of me. The light sensed and felt everything, thought and understood everything; it knew I was finally back home! The light was God.

Andy: The Light knows me, knows my name! Surrounding this Light form are millions of other Lights welcoming me back home. I know them all and they know me; we are all pieces of the same Light. I tell them, “It’s good to be back home.” I know we’re all home together again.

Sandy: The Light was a sparkling glowing cloud. I heard a voice in my head and knew it was God. We never talked about God at my house, and I never went to church, but I knew it was God. And I knew that this place, with this beautiful light that was God was my real home.

Going Home is about the spiritual reality of life after death, which we can experience before death, as the New Testament promises. And now thousands of those who have survived near-death are witnessing to their loss of fear of death and the Love that awaits each dying person.

With hope in God’s grace . . . Bob Traer

Living with love and hope

You have been raised with Christ, so set your hearts on things above. For you have died and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 2:1-4)

 

Resurrection is not about what happens to a body after it dies. As Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 15, resurrection is a spiritual reality. A final hope, but now a Way of living. As Paul says in his letter to followers of the Way in Colossae, a small city near Ephesus in what is today Turkey, faith is dying to life as an everyday, material existence and being born anew in a life marked by hope and love. This is what Paul means by living "in Christ."

Grace and peace . . . Bob Traer

Living without fear of death

May the God of perseverance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves following the example of Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and one voice you may glorify God. (Romans 15:1-6)

Paul struggles to achieve support for his teachings in Rome and elsewhere. Paul argues that diversity can exist within the body of Christ, but his teaching is also a cause of division. He blames the conflicts on those who oppose him, but Paul's opponents must have blamed Paul. And who are Paul's opponents? The former disciples of Jesus, the apostles in Jerusalem who, we learn in Galatians 2 and in the second half of Acts, are led by James, the brother of Jesus.

The apostles in Jerusalem seem to believe that some if not all of the commandments of Jewish law must be kept by all following the Way of Jesus. As they knew Jesus during his lifetime, it is hard to believe that the historical Jesus set aside the Jewish law as Paul claims the risen Christ does. Paul never knew the historical Jesus, but he acknowledges that both he and the former disciples know the risen Lord. Why then do they differ?

Paul was a Greek-speaking Jew from a Roman city; the disciples of Jesus who were the first apostles were Aramaic-speaking Jews from Galilee. Perhaps their experience of the risen Christ was different, because their lives were so different. Yet, despite conflicting beliefs about Jesus, the first apostles and also Paul were transformed by their experience of the risen Christ.

In our time, thousands of survivors of near-death experiences have been transformed by the love and light that embraced them when they were unconscious and their brains were incapable of constructing perceptions, feelings, or memories. Nonetheless, these witnesses had striking perceptions, feelings, and memories. And now tell us that we all are going home. If you trust in their testimony, you too can live without fear of death.

Grace and peace . . . Bob Traer

 

Extraordinary Experiences: On Our Way Home

I begin my book by relating life-transforming experiences of scientists. After struck by lightning, surgeon Tony Cicoria heard music “from Heaven” and became a pianist to play it. Biophysicist Joyce Hawkes, after her near-death experience, heard a voice calling her to be a healer, studied with indigenous teachers, and became a cell-level healer. No longer agnostic, Cicoria and Hawkes now trust in the Source of life many call God. Some scientists, such as Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs, acknowledge extraordinary intuitive experiences revealing the secrets of nature. Other scientists report life-transforming healings, visions, and dreams. 
 
Stars, water, and life are natural phenomena but remain fundamental mysteries that may generate extraordinary human experiences. I explain why in chapters on Consciousness and Subjectivity, the Origin and Evolution of Life, a Creative Universe, Purpose and Meaning, Ethics and Ecology, and Nature and God.
 
These wondrous experiences offer evidence that we have come from and will return to an eternal dimension of reality, as unbounded by time and space as quantum reality. Some call it Heaven, the Other Side, or Cosmic Consciousness. Knowing this truth makes everyday life on earth extraordinary. And whether we know it or not, we are on our way home.
 
This is why I end the book by recognizing that the first line of the Lord’s Prayer is as compelling now as it was two millennia ago. Abba, may your kingdom come, may your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Abba is the Aramaic word for father that Jesus used, and Paul in his New Testament letters also refers to Abba. Source of all life and forgiving love, may we open our hearts to You during our extraordinary lives on earth. Amen.

 

Available in paperback ($8) and Kindle ($1) editions at https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Experiences-Our-Way-Home/dp/B09JDX8ZLV/.

Heaven is an experience in consciousness

When Jesus tells his disciples that they should be in the world but not of it, his teaching seems unlivable. My physical body anchors me here every moment. But the soul manages to be in this world while remaining firmly outside time and space. Jesus is giving us a clue about the kingdom of heaven within.

 

Many times, Jesus sounds like a rishi in the tradition of Vedanta. Certainly, that’s true about being in the world but not of it. In simple terms, he is telling his closest followers followers to stop thinking of themselves as physical creatures. Jesus becomes more explicit if we look outside the four Gospels to the fragmentary Gospel of Thomas, which was written very early, perhaps within a century after the Crucifixion, but was later excluded from the official canon.

 

Jesus said: “If those who lead you say to you: See, the kingdom is in heaven, then the birds of the sky will go before you; if they say to you: It is in the sea, then the fish will go before you. But the kingdom is within you, and it is outside of you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will know that you are the sons of the living Father.” This passage shows how profound the roots of religion are, and how compatible the great traditions of wisdom would be if dogma didn’t stand in the way. What Jesus says here supports the view that heaven is everywhere, but it goes further by saying that heaven is an inward experience—an experience in consciousness. 

 

Jesus sees the soul everywhere and thus he can see that the essence of people lies outside time and space. Like the rishis, Jesus was comfortable living with eternity. Why, then, aren’t we? Eternity can’t be grasped by the mind in our ordinary waking state. Our waking state is dominated by time while eternity is not. There must be a link. Vedanta says that there is a continuum, in fact. Every quality in yourself is actually a soul quality.

Chopra, Deepak. Life After Death (p. 63-64). Harmony/Rodale. Kindle Edition.

Slave song: Michael row the boat . . . home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Slave Songs of the United States” by Charles Pickard Ware,
Lucy McKim Garrison, and William Francis Allen, 1867.  

 

This version includes the word "home" which is omitted in other recordings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clPEO5ZfxLk

 

This version includes a video with historical slave and artistic angel images.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk0B71bzlMw 

I hope Gabriel's trumpet might blow me home

 

“Slave Songs of the United States” by Charles Pickard Ware, Lucy McKim Garrison,
and William Francis Allen, 1867.

Slave song from the Civil War era

 

Home Alleluia

Audio computer-generated music with vocal by Robert Traer

https://christian-bible.com/songs/contemporary/home-alleluia.html

Abba in heaven and with us on earth. Guiding us every day as from our birth.

We pray for everyone going back home. Alleluia.       Refrain

Mary our mother you show us the way. Being more humble and patient each day.

Holding our hand as we make our way home. Alleluia.       Refrain

Healing our conflicts may help us to see, sharing with others will set us all free.

Forgiving those we fear brings us all home. Alleluia.       Refrain

Dark is the valley but you are our light. Your fire within us burns all thru the night.

Bright stars above showing us the way home. Alleluia.       Refrain   

Sisters and brothers now join in this song. Love one another until we’re all gone.

Amazing grace you are leading us home. Alleluia.       Refrain

Refrain  (Sung twice after each verse)

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

African American spiritual: By and By

We are often tossed and driv’n on the restless sea of time,
somber skies and howling tempest oft succeed a bright sunshine;
in that land of perfect day, when the mists have rolled away,
we will understand it better by and by.

Refrain:
By and by, when the morning comes, when the saints of God are gathered home,
we’ll tell the story, how we’ve overcome, for we’ll understand it better by and by.

We are often destitute of the things that life demands,
want of food and want of shelter, thirsty hills and barren lands;
we are trusting in the Lord, and according to the Word,
we will understand it better by and by. [Refrain]

Temptations, hidden snares, often take us unawares,
and our hearts are made to bleed for any thoughtless word or deed;
and we wonder why the test when we try to do our best,
but we’ll understand it better by and by. [Refrain]

 

An African-American congregation singing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0IJ9aLBkcE

African-American composer, Charles A. Tindley (1851-1933)

This spiritual was written in 1905; the tune is known as By and By

A spiritual composed and sung during slavery

 

                 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got a crown in that kingdom, ain’t a that good news!

I got a crown in that Kingdom, ain’t a that good news!

I’m gonna lay down this world, gonna shoulder my cross.

Gonna take it home to my Jesus, ain’t a that good news!

 

I got a robe in that kingdom, ain’t a that good news!

I got a robe in that Kingdom, ain’t a that good news!

I’m gonna lay down this world, gonna shoulder my cross.        

Gonna take it home to my Jesus, ain’t a that good news!

 

I got a Savior in that kingdom, ain’t a that good news!

I got a Savior in that Kingdom, ain’t a that good news!

I’m gonna lay down this world, gonna shoulder my cross.               

Gonna take it home to my Jesus, ain’t a that good news.

 

Committed Acappella Chorus - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjJsj4Xq1tI

 

A spiritual known as "By and By"

We are often tossed and driv’n on the restless sea of time,
somber skies and howling tempest oft succeed a bright sunshine;
in that land of perfect day, when the mists have rolled away,
we will understand it better by and by.

Refrain:
By and by, when the morning comes, when the saints of God are gathered home,
we’ll tell the story, how we’ve overcome, for we’ll understand it better by and by.

We are often destitute of the things that life demands,
want of food and want of shelter, thirsty hills and barren lands;
we are trusting in the Lord, and according to the Word,
we will understand it better by and by. [Refrain]

Temptations, hidden snares, often take us unawares,
and our hearts are made to bleed for any thoughtless word or deed;
and we wonder why the test when we try to do our best,
but we’ll understand it better by and by. [Refrain]

African-American composer, Charles A. Tindley (1851-1933). This spiritual was written in 1905.

 

An African-American congregation singing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0IJ9aLBkcE

God is in the creative possibility of each moment

“The gospel of John," biologist Charles Birch writes, presents: “a picture of everything being alive with Life from the very beginning. Such is this particular biblical interpretation of the creative process. It was personal from the beginning, but that only becomes fully evident in the light of its manifestation in human persons. Always it was transcendent to the world. Always it was involved with the world, drawing the world to itself, brooding over the face of the earth.”

“This light flickered uncertainly within the church as it wavered from commitment to a view of the total involvement of God in the world to one restricted to humans alone. In the process both humanity and nature lost out, for neither nature, humanity nor God can be understood alone.”

“To love is to be the recipient of love and to return love. Is the God of love an exception to this principle? On the contrary, God’s love must be responsive, or it is not love at all. Indeed, a God whose influence is divorced form responsiveness and sensitivity is irresponsible. Without that aspect of God’s nature nothing is saved after the world comes to its end in a fiery furnace of the sun or in a frozen waste.”

“The divine passion is God’s feeling of the world as the world is created. As every entity ‘feels’ the lure of God and responds to that lure then God becomes concretely real in a way God was not concretely real before. And that new reality makes a difference to God. God is the one who cherishes all: ‘unto whom all hearts are open,’ says the collect. With each creative advance, be it in cosmic evolution or in an individual life, God becomes different. Every individual experience has its consequence in the life of God.”

As the cosmos evolves: “God as divine Eros, transcendent to the universe, becomes immanent within the new creation. This is God’s presence in the world. In addition, the world is present in God as the divine Passion responds to each new creation and each existing one. This is not the image of the world as a contrivance and God as the artificer working from a pre-planned blueprint of the future. It is an image of the world as organically related to God who provides the purposes and values of creation moment by moment yet leaves the creation with its degree of freedom and self-determination. In this sense the future is not determined. It is open-ended. The possibilities of creativity are immense, but not all possibilities are relevant at any particular stage of the evolving cosmos. We are caught in the web of history. Yet our future is still open-ended within the realm of possibilities relevant to that history.”

“In the worlds of the Jewish scholar Abraham J. Heschel, ‘God is waiting for us to redeem the world.’ For us to fail to respond to the forward call of life is not just a personal failure. It is a cosmic tragedy.”

“The whole organizes and even creates the parts. The lower levels of organization are to be interpreted in terms of the higher. This principle is recognized in recent developments in quantum physics. It has validity over the whole spectrum of individuals from protons to people. The basic principle is this: we understand what is not ourselves by analogy with what we know ourselves to be.”

"The heavenly city of the Enlightenment has not arrived. We still have with us ‘children of darkness’ who are evil because they know no law beyond self. Their wisdom is that they understand the power of self-interest. The ‘children of light’ are wise because they believe that self-interest should be brought under the discipline of a higher law."

What is this higher law? It is not the authority of any individual, group or institution. It is not any created good at all. These all tend to become idols. It is the source of all good, the source of all creativity. The moral and spiritual resources for a just, peaceful and sustainable global society are pressing daily upon us, seeking entry into life and blocked only by self-interest. There is a way through. Repentance is still possible.”

 

Charles Birch, The Purpose in Everything: Religion in a Postmodern Worldview (Twenty-Third Publications, 1990).