"CHRISTIAN SEA CUCUMBERS"
"And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." (Revelation 5:13)
What are we to make of this? What are we to deduce?
Even after my declaration of my Cincinnatian Catholicism in my letter to M___, this is just TOO GOOD! Less than a week ago I'm making an argument for spiritual egalitarianism I can't avoid; knowing deep and fully there's no such thing as an indivisible taxon -- and now tonight by providence I chance a verse with what appears to me to hold the same argument with no mention of taxonomy at all! Really? A horseshoe crab? An eel? A starfish? Confessing in unison the glory of the Lamb in language Saint John the Divine can hear and understand? In my catholic declaration I provided the examples of a leopard and an orang-utan, and the beaver as an architect; and added a gila monster in a follow-up comment. Those were the examples I used to argue for equal culture and character. But "all that are in the sea"? Speaking? We are talking here about constituents on the tree of life that are supremely primitive -- do you understand that? As asserted in the declaration: a single grain of sand with a soul; yes, indeed, certainly!
Revelation 5:13 makes probably countless other verses in the New Testament redundant if we are to deduce from it with faith and sincerity. Mark 5:30 is one example: "Who touched my clothes?" would indicate Jesus' virtue to be extracorporeal, and his force and love besides. Could any member of "Homo sapiens" evangelize a brainless, legless sea cucumber? I imagine John the Divine would say no, but that Jesus can, and always did, and always will. Ha! Is there really a "modern generation" of sea cucumbers? I've never researched how they reproduce, but regardless of my ignorance concerning that matter, I roughly appraise their entire natural history to be one continuous intenstine; the cucumber of 2013 is the same ghost of his forefathers incarnate. Thus, Jesus' self-description "I am the Alpha and Omega" (Revelation 1:11) finds itself recapitulated in 5:13 -- Christ's force is extracorporeal and extratemporal.
Frankly I am tempted to wonder if God's Son was ever born at all or ever died at all. If even a twinkle in God's eye when God said "Let there be light," (Genesis 1:3) Jesus was still there nevertheless.
What other "extras" are there in the Son's nature? Is he extrahistorical? The written history of the Jesus cult and the Church of Rome matter a great deal to scholars and evangelists, but is this vanity? Does empiricist scrutiny by either believers such as historian Paul Johnson or nonbelievers really have any bearing on faith -- or is this approach like some awkward adolescent phase? If "actuality" matters to a religious moderate in this universe, does that mean he's waiting to be reborn in a universe with a distinctly different set of physics laws? As in: "No, the conquest of Jericho in this universe would have, and did, absolutely require a battering ram or something to do the job, but if I jumped through a black hole and emerged on the other side, I could have blown the walls over with a feather and God's help." (cf. Joshua 6:20)
I still believe that Jesus self-actualized gradually. (cf. "Christ and Historicity", Smoke and Bounce, 8:28 am EST, Thursday, February 21, 2013) But after tonight, I will have to reexamine as best I can: To what degree?
No comments:
Post a Comment