....faith and life....life and faces

God with us

The love of God

The faithful have tried in many variations to describe the love of God in a multitude of pictures and to bear witness to it from generation to generation. They saw God as a shepherd, king, judge, tireless and passionate lover, faithful husband, loving father and mother ... but still: did they understand this God? When "He came to His own home, His own people received Him not." (John 1,11)

Israel's experience and knowledge of God in the Old Testament are a "testament" for us. We have inherited them. They are part of our faith. Christ was a Jew. His faith in God, His life and His message cannot be understood without the Old Testament. Today we talk of a God who became man,  a God of Grace;  we talk of  Holy Spirit and Trinity. For many people,  including Christians, these are incomprehensible statements. But against the  background  of  the Old Testament image of God you may  be able to better understand these dogmas.

God with us - Jesus Christ

In spite of Israel's deep and intense experience of the closeness of God and in spite of the bold pictures describing their experience, God Himself surpassed the highest hopes and expectations: He became a human being. Jesus ("God is salvation") is the "Emmanuel" (God is with us). In Him, the Old Testament name of God is fulfilled in a special way (Exodus 3,14) In Him God Himself has become visible, can be heard and touched. He shows us how God is. This is why His disciples could say: " ... we testify to it, and proclaim to you  the  eternal  life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us; that  which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you ...(1 John 1,3).

God Yahweh  came  so close to us human beings in Jesus Christ that we were able to kill Him. In the person of Jesus Christ, in His actions and words, God Himself overcame all distance to man. "He is not far from each one of us" (Acts 17, 28). Even a sinner can now be sure of God's closeness.  But has God become more comprehensible to  us men through this "touchable closeness"? It does not make it easier for us to believe. Had this Jesus of Nazareth not existed, it would be absurd to even think of God becoming man!

Jesus Christ is the "self-representation" of God in history. John experiences this Jesus and comes to the conclusion that "God is love" (1 John 4,8). The essence of this love is to seek closeness to man, to follow him, to lift and set him up, to console and heal him to give hope and confidence. Like a good shepherd, God looks for the lost sheep and carries the weak lamb on His shoulders. Like a pelican who feeds his young with the blood of his own heart, He gives His life. He dies like a grain of wheat so that new life can come from it. He becomes bread, allows Himself to be broken and distributed, pressed like grapes. These experiences, images, symbols are all signs of one reality: God loves us. 

                                                                                God with us

The fear of God

Repeatedly, in their history  the  Israelites discovered that closeness to God brings deliverance and salvation but too much closeness can be unbearable. Only  if  God  is  imagined  as small and manageable, can closeness to Him be desirable rather than overwhelming and frightful. Most appropriate is the grievous lament (1 Samuel 6,20): "Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God? And to whom shall He go up - away from us? This fear of God is no fright and terror! It is a most profound reverence, resulting in admiration, obedience, devotion and enthusiasm.

All  of  this clearly shows that the distance between us and God is  not a cold  and abstract distance. God is not a bloodless concept, an introvert, a self-sufficing power,  insensitive and indifferent to our suffering.  He is not apathetic (as with the Greeks), but a God full of empathy. Therefore, the God who is "distant" in biblical terms is rather a God who is "fundamentally different". We experience this especially where He is close to us.

God is close to us 

Philosophy uses the term "transcendency" for the "fundamentally different" God. Bible and theology call it the "holiness of God".  This holy - different - God is a living and passionate God. He is inexhaustible joy, vitality and creativity,  pulsating in every fiber of creation. His reality is reflected in the strict logic of the laws of nature, as well as in the colorful multitude of everything that lives. The structure of crystals bears His traits. The Scriptures call God's creative, vital power "the spirit of God". He is able to leap over to us, to seize, inspire, and change us.

This closeness to God is the second main experience of the Israelites with the God, Yahweh, and in no other religion do we find such emotionally moving statements about the closeness of God to man as in the Old Testament.

God's closeness to us is the closeness of passionate love and cannot be explained rationally. This love for us is not "inhumanely human", so passionate and jealous that it becomes unbearable for  our feeling about our faith.

On  the  other hand,  can  God's  love  be shown in a more dramatic way?  Have any philosophic thoughts ever led to a God who, in His disappointed and hurt love can say: "So I will be to them like a lion, like a leopard I will lurk beside the way. I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs, ... (Hosea 13,7)

This God can be angry with man and can punish out of love. Israel  experienced this, as well as the enemies of Israel who blocked the ways of God. God is love, which does not mean: Yahweh is a dear God. Israel had to learn this the hard way, in pain, often unwillingly, as a consequence of errors, misunderstandings and evasion.

God with us

The name of God

For  Orientals, a person's name also designates his true being and character.  Having a person's name means  knowing  the  person. The Scriptures mention the name Yahweh 6628 times, but only once is it interpreted, when it is explained through Moses: "I am who I am" (who is for you and will always be there for you). This is God's name and reveals His being. For the Israelites one thing was clear: all historical events could not be explained through luck, coincidence or ability. Whatever they had, whatever they were, they owed to Yahweh. Yahweh was alive, God was with them. His name did not disappoint them. He was really always there for them. Without Him there would be no Israel, no deliverance from slavery, no salvation.

The  faraway  God  -   God in heaven

Children ask:  "Where does God live?", and parents say "in heaven". And we suppose, unthinkingly, that this heaven is above us. We know that this does not mean the blue sky. But it is very difficult to somehow not think of a specific location when we pray: "Our Father, who art in heaven." Our intellect must always correct this impression. Heaven does not mean a specific location outside of the earth. In the language of the Bible it means the intangible, infinite, ...transcendency. At the time of Jesus "heaven" was even used to circumscribe God. God just cannot be located in a specific spot in our  space-time- system. This is what the Bible means when it says: "God in the heavens". And as if it was afraid that even this could still be misunderstood it says: "behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain Thee;" (1 Kings 8,27). God breaks open all the earthly dimensions and human ideas of space and time.

The image of the cloud

God cannot be experienced if He does not want to be experienced. God gives Himself to man as a gift. But never will man be able to chase God and catch up with Him. This is what one of the biblical images makes clear: the cloud (Ex 13,21). From a distance, the contours of the cloud are clearly defined. But coming closer, it changes into a menacing wall of impenetrable gray fog that surrounds us and still cannot be touched.

The image of fire

God withdraws Himself not because of maliciousness and arrogance but for man's sake. Man cannot bear excessive proximity. This is indicated by the other biblical image: the fire. From a distance, only a glowing point of light can be seen in the darkness and it may be a lifesaving orientation for someone who is lost. Coming closer, the beam gets stronger, the flare livelier, it becomes "fire". Getting closer still, it can give warmth and hope, and along with the darkness, drive away all fear. But a person who comes too close to the fire, burns. The distance of reverence  and  awe  between God and man is vital. A plant needs light to live, but withers in the hot sun.