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Meeting Christ in my father’s death

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Dad-3

My Dad’s birthday party (2007)

Today’s article is one which I’ve wanted to write for some time. You see, 2015 has been a very eventful year for me, but unfortunately much of it has been less-than-pleasant. In fact, I think I can say without exaggeration that this year has featured some of the most painful experiences of my life. Not least of these events was the death of my father in July. Up until now I haven’t said much about this publicly, but I would like to share a little bit about it today…

I had spent Independence Day with friends on Whidbey Island. It’s a truly delightful part of the world and I had a wonderful time there. We spent the day at the pool and had an evening of fine food and board games, followed by fireworks at the beach. The following morning, for some inexplicable reason, virtually everyone in the house rose early and went for a three-mile run. Since it was early on the day after a national holiday, we pretty much had the island to ourselves and in the crisp, early morning air, we passed several deer as we made our tour of the island. It was beautiful.

It was after breakfast that I received a message from my family back in England, asking me to call. A knot formed in my stomach; I had a suspicion as to the reason for this message. I excused myself and went out to my car, where I called my Mum. She confirmed what I had feared: my Dad was dying.

You see, my father had been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma several years before. After several rounds of chemotherapy, his health seemed to be under control, but in recent months things hadn’t been looking so good. Infections had become increasingly common, necessitating numerous speedy trips to the hospital. My Mum said that Dad had suffered yet another infection, but unlike the previous ones, this one was certain to kill him. She told me that the hospital staff said that there was nothing more they could do and that it was unlikely he’d last another twenty-four hours. After hanging up the phone, I composed myself and went back into the house, said my goodbyes and was soon on my way back to Seattle.

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Symbolism: Simon’s Grapes

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So a couple of weeks ago at Matins, I looked up into the dome of our church and saw the icon of Simon the Zealot. In the icon, you can see that he’s holding some grapes. Why is this symbol associated with this Apostle?
2015-09-03 08.49.25

Fortunately, I recently spent some time with an iconographer and I asked him about their significance. He pointed out that Simon “the Zealot” is also known as Simon “the Canaanite” and that there is a tradition in the East that this Simon was the groom at the wedding in Cana towards the beginning of John’s Gospel. The grapes are a reference to the miracle the Lord performed there, turning water into wine.

With more probability, Baronius, following Nicephorus (Hist. l. 8. c. 30), thinks that the bridegroom at this marriage was the Apostle Simon, who was surnamed the Cananite from Cana.

– Cornelius La pide

The commentator Cornelius then goes on to make a very interesting comment which I think has some interesting implications:

As soon as Simon had seen this miracle of Christ at his wedding, he bade farewell to his bride and the world, and followed Him, and was chosen to be one of His twelve Apostles. This was the reason why Christ came to this wedding; and by coming, indeed, honoured marriage; but by calling him to Himself, He showed that celibacy and the apostolate were better than marriage.

– Cornelius La pide

Quitting the Mormon Church

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I recently saw a post shared on Facebook concerning the subject of Mormonism. Several years ago, a local newspaper in Utah had been publishing a series of apologetic articles encouraging people to leave the Mormonism, the Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). This drew a response from an LDS member named Thomas Clark, who penned a letter entitled “Quitting the Mormon Church”. In his response, Mr. Clark explained the conditions under which he’d leave the Mormon Church and go elsewhere.

Temple

Since the Mr. Clark’s letter is rather long, I’ve provided an abridged version of it below, with the entire text at the bottom of this post for those who are interested. After the abridged version I will share a few thoughts concerning Mr Clark’s response and why, in my opinion, Mr Clark should in fact quit the LDS and join the Catholic Church…

Quitting the Mormon Church (Abridged)

I have been thinking of quitting the Mormon Church. Yes, if I can, I am going to get even with that church. As soon as I can find another church that teaches about the Gathering of the House of Israel; the return of the Ten Tribes and their mission; the return of the Jews to Palestine and why, and how they are going to build the temple; the building of temples and what to do with them; …the origin of the American Indian; …

Yes sir, as soon as I can find another church that teaches all that, or even half as much, I will say good-bye to this Mormon Church… It must be able to call, on a frosty day, some 5 or 6 thousand professors, students, lawyers, doctors, judges, policemen, businessmen, housewives and children to go and pick apples at 6 am…

Mr. Editor, could you help me find a church that teaches all that and more than hundreds of other doctrines and principles, which I have no room to mention here…

So, I repeat, if any one of the kind readers of this imperfect letter knows about another church that teaches and does as much for mankind as the Mormon Church, please let me know. And please do it soon, because my turn to go to the cannery is coming up… Do you think you can help me to find another church?

Thomas D. Clark

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Remembering the Jewish Feasts

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WeirdSometimes I forget I’m a bit weird…

Do you have habits which have been part of you for years? Do you have personal traditions which you’ve been following for so long that you forget that they’re not universally shared by the rest of the world?

Well, last month I was chatting with a friend online and he highlighted for me one of my personal eccentricities. Our discussion prompted me to write this post so as to share my weirdness with the world, and in the faint hope of discovering others out there who have similar quirks…

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Speaking of suffering

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Yesterday I shared a quotation on the subject of suffering from a book I recently finished, Jesus Among Other gods by Ravi Zacharias.

In that post, we saw that even to talk about good and evil we need an objective moral law, something which is rather difficult to explain while denying the existence of an eternal, transcendent God.

Today I’d like to offer a few more quotations from Zacharias’ book. For those of us who are involved in apologetics (which is, of course, every Christian!), he reminds us of a truth which we must keep forever at the front of our mind when speaking about the very difficult subject of pain and suffering.

How does a good God allow so much suffering? Immediately we enter into a very serious dilemma. How do you respond to the intellectual side of the question without losing the existential side of it? How do you answer…[those who are suffering] without drowning it all in philosophy?

– Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other gods

Suffering is not simply a theoretical idea or only a subject for clever philosophical arguments, it is a very real reality with which people must live and it is a topic which is deeply emotionally charged.

Those who feel the pain… often shudder at how theoretical philosophical answers are. We do not like to work through the intellectual side of the question because we do not see where logic and philosophy fit into the problem of pain. If you have just buried a son or a daughter, or have witnessed brutality firsthand, this portion of the argument may bring more anger than comfort. Who wants logic when the heart is broken? Who wants a physiological treatise on the calcium component of the bone when the shoulder has come out of its socket? At such a time we are looking for comfort. We want a painkiller.

– Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other gods

The solution to this problem is to balance delicately the intellectual and the emotional, speaking to both and neglecting neither:

We must not allow the anguish of the heart to bypass the reason of the mind. The explanation [of pain] must meet both the intellectual and the emotion demands of the question. Answering the questions of the mind while ignoring shredded emotions seems heartless. Binding the emotional wounds while ignoring the struggle of the intellect seems mindless. 

– Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other gods

When my Dad died earlier this year, I didn’t want a dry philosophy lesson. I wanted people to grieve with me, but who were ready to talk when the time came to grapple intellectually and spiritually with what had happened.

The Problem of pain

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One of the books I read on my sabbatical was Jesus Among Other gods by Ravi Zacharias. The part of the book which I found most engaging was the chapter in which he addresses the problem of evil and suffering. Over the next week or so, I’ll be posting a few short extracts from the book from this section, together with a comment or two.

The “Problem of pain” is an understandably common reason given by Agnostics and Atheists for doubting or even denying the existence of God. However, as Zacharias points out, one can only really talk about the problem of pain if there is a moral law:

…[some] protest that God cannot exist because there is too much evil evident in life… [The Atheist says that] evil exists; therefore the Creator does not…

But here, Christianity provides a counterchallenge… If evil exists, then one must assume that good exists in order to know the difference. If good exists, one must assume that a moral law exists by which to measure good and evil.

– Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other gods

Okay, so to talk about “good” and “evil”, a moral law must exist. So what? How does that point to theism?

But if a moral law exists, must not one posit an ultimate source of moral law, or at least an objective basis for a moral law? By an objective basis, I mean something that is transcendently true at all times, regardless of whether I believe it or not. 

– Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other gods

What could possibly be the objective basis of this law? The Theist answers “God”.

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