Hello my name is Chris and I'm an agnostic. I've looked at the proofs for and against the existence of God and I am under whelmed. Sure, if you have committed to one side or the other they can make you feel good about your decision but the reason loads of people are not flocking to one side or the other is that they are just not that compelling.
In the second temple period (Jesus time) Jews and Christians might have argued about where you could find God. For the Jewish people opposed to Jesus the one place God was guaranteed to be was in the heart of the temple, behind a huge curtain. For Christians (all Jewish) the place God was, was with Jesus. Yet, at the end of Mark's gospel the curtain in the temple is ripped in two and there is nothing behind the curtain. Jesus is on the cross, at his greatest point of greatest need, and after calling out "my God my God why have you forsaken me" there is no response and no reply. They are simply Jesus very last words in the gospel.
All Jewish people wanted their suffering at the hands of the Romans to end. The Pharisees hoped that compliance (and compromise) with Rome would end the suffering. The revolutionaries hoped that there might be some kind of Maccabean style uprising to end the suffering. Jesus followers, I'm guessing, were hoping for an expansion of Jesus healings and miracles that would somehow result in a takeover of Roman power and an end of suffering. None of these occur. Instead Jesus resolutely embraces an ultimate suffering in his death and he no longer believes God is with him. Despite feeling called to the cross he is now abandoned, swamped in doubt.
Having witnessed all this, despite having initially run away the disciples are inspired to emulate Jesus, give away all their money, give up their security and for most suffer execution. Sure the empty tomb helped them change their minds but, for many of the most confident Christians today (myself most included) our response to Jesus death and the empty tomb is to squirrel ourselves away in suburbia, put on a few Christians CDs and wait till we grow old and die hoping we get in to heaven. Hoping that even though the sinners prayer appears nowhere in scripture that praying this as a teenager was all that the call to follow Jesus could amount to. What if to follow Jesus, to pick up our crosses and follow means to follow Jesus in to both doubt and suffering?
Like Job and many of the prophets before him, for Jesus to be faithful to his call meant that he would go into a pit of suffering, despair and doubt. As they let go of all they thought God was they moved into suffering into confusion and into doubt. It is only when their actions trump their beliefs that they meet God face to face. I suspect this was true for Mother Teresa who faced dark nights of the soul, doubted the existence of God but carried on with her call, pushed through the suffering through the doubt and despair and again found God. Chuck Palahniuk writes in Fight Club, "you have to give up", "it's only after we've have lost everything that we are free to do anything".
I cannot help think that at the moment Martin Luther King declared he had a dream, but that he may not get there (aware very powerful people wanted him dead) he would of experienced doubt. A "God why have you forsaken me" moment. Oscar Romero when he declared "they can kill a bishop“ would have experienced the same. But above their belief in God they had a call, a call about what it means to be human, to live life to the full, what it means to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and they followed this.
To follow Jesus is to embrace love which which will lead to suffering, which will lead doubt. When we have given up all the comforts all the riches all the soft options that life has to offer and all that we have left is suffering born out of love that is when we will cry "My God my God why have you forsaken me" and in that moment, that is where, having followed Jesus, we will meet God.
My name is Chris I am an agnostic but I have a call, a call about what it means to be human, to really live, to experience life at its richest. That call is to follow Jesus. My hope and my faith is that one day by loving as Jesus did I will no longer be agnostic.
In the second temple period (Jesus time) Jews and Christians might have argued about where you could find God. For the Jewish people opposed to Jesus the one place God was guaranteed to be was in the heart of the temple, behind a huge curtain. For Christians (all Jewish) the place God was, was with Jesus. Yet, at the end of Mark's gospel the curtain in the temple is ripped in two and there is nothing behind the curtain. Jesus is on the cross, at his greatest point of greatest need, and after calling out "my God my God why have you forsaken me" there is no response and no reply. They are simply Jesus very last words in the gospel.
All Jewish people wanted their suffering at the hands of the Romans to end. The Pharisees hoped that compliance (and compromise) with Rome would end the suffering. The revolutionaries hoped that there might be some kind of Maccabean style uprising to end the suffering. Jesus followers, I'm guessing, were hoping for an expansion of Jesus healings and miracles that would somehow result in a takeover of Roman power and an end of suffering. None of these occur. Instead Jesus resolutely embraces an ultimate suffering in his death and he no longer believes God is with him. Despite feeling called to the cross he is now abandoned, swamped in doubt.
Having witnessed all this, despite having initially run away the disciples are inspired to emulate Jesus, give away all their money, give up their security and for most suffer execution. Sure the empty tomb helped them change their minds but, for many of the most confident Christians today (myself most included) our response to Jesus death and the empty tomb is to squirrel ourselves away in suburbia, put on a few Christians CDs and wait till we grow old and die hoping we get in to heaven. Hoping that even though the sinners prayer appears nowhere in scripture that praying this as a teenager was all that the call to follow Jesus could amount to. What if to follow Jesus, to pick up our crosses and follow means to follow Jesus in to both doubt and suffering?
Like Job and many of the prophets before him, for Jesus to be faithful to his call meant that he would go into a pit of suffering, despair and doubt. As they let go of all they thought God was they moved into suffering into confusion and into doubt. It is only when their actions trump their beliefs that they meet God face to face. I suspect this was true for Mother Teresa who faced dark nights of the soul, doubted the existence of God but carried on with her call, pushed through the suffering through the doubt and despair and again found God. Chuck Palahniuk writes in Fight Club, "you have to give up", "it's only after we've have lost everything that we are free to do anything".
I cannot help think that at the moment Martin Luther King declared he had a dream, but that he may not get there (aware very powerful people wanted him dead) he would of experienced doubt. A "God why have you forsaken me" moment. Oscar Romero when he declared "they can kill a bishop“ would have experienced the same. But above their belief in God they had a call, a call about what it means to be human, to live life to the full, what it means to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and they followed this.
To follow Jesus is to embrace love which which will lead to suffering, which will lead doubt. When we have given up all the comforts all the riches all the soft options that life has to offer and all that we have left is suffering born out of love that is when we will cry "My God my God why have you forsaken me" and in that moment, that is where, having followed Jesus, we will meet God.
My name is Chris I am an agnostic but I have a call, a call about what it means to be human, to really live, to experience life at its richest. That call is to follow Jesus. My hope and my faith is that one day by loving as Jesus did I will no longer be agnostic.
3 comments:
Wow. Not quite sure what to say, but what a post. It deserves a better response than I can give you.
Thanks for your honesty (once again, it's incredibly refreshing, and almost brutal!)
My hope and prayer are that this honesty in your search, and your focus on Jesus, will be rewarded in ways you cannot imagine just now.
Hi Chris. It's my first time reading your blog and this is the first post I've read. I am compelled to respond, first in reaching out a caring hand to a person who is clearly suffering. Then to add a few words that may be of some consolation.
My own sense of Christ's utterance of the words "why have you foresaken me?" is that these words are a revelation of His bearing perfectly this aspect of the human condition, namely forelornness (sp.?), and bringing this with all other human maladies we suffer to the cross to be crucified in His Person, to be put to death, to be destroyed in dying with Him. By assuming these afflictions, by taking them upon Himself and into His human flesh, He sanctifies these very sufferings by His divinity, thus forever changing the "nature" of our sufferings, turning them into something that can sanctify us in bearing these afflictions in like manner to Him... that is, with patience and total trust in the love of the Father. (I am speaking of Christian mysticism a little bit here.)
Knowing that the utterance of His being foresaken is the last word before His dying in Mark, you are surely also aware that in Luke the last word before Christ's dying is, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." And in John, "It is finished." Meaning, all that the Old Testament had predicted about the life and death of the Messiah had been fulfilled.
I say this, only to remind you that He does not leave off on the note of doubt, but that doubt is transcended by trust in the Father. He gets beyond that moment, there on the cross. Even as He is still suffering, He trusts. This is the example He is teaching us, among others, but the one primarily relevant in this discussion.
I have hope for you that your wish, your prayer, will be answered... that you will not always be agnostic and surely not if you follow Christ beyond that moment and as His disciple take up the practice of trust... I am saying trust and not faith, because faith itself is a gift of grace... we cannot have it without the grace being bestowed upon us to do so, but we can determine to trust of our own capacities. We can will to trust and practice trust. So, my advice, and I know you didn't ask for it, but my advice would be to crack open the Scriptures and start studying in the context of trust. Where and when is trust exemplified and taught? In the case of Christ, I'd begin with Mary and Joseph. Total trust in the Father...
Peace be with you, Chris. Blessings and peace...
Hello Anonymous,
Thanks for the kind heartfelt comment. I should say I am not suffering as much as it may have come across. A little existential angst yes but suffering no.
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