Tuesday 15 April 2008

The Empty Vessel

"The Vacuum left results in an explosion of mystics on the one side and sceptics on the other...
what is lost is the truth of the revelation of God in Christ".
Jacques Ellul - The Subversion of Christianity.


Everyday, I watch it fly around and buzz past - the pink bus.
It hurries through my estate to keep it's schedule, rushing hither and yon, passing the rest of us who are about our daily affairs, as you might expect a bus should,
but there is something wrong with this picture.

Around eight out of every ten times that I see this sight, the bus is totally empty -
a bus without passengers!
Doesn't that defeat the entire object?

Now I'm sure that my observations here are invalid (the bus service couldn't afford to run if they were!), but what would it be like to be traveling on a bus which you understood was taking you to a particular destination, but in reality wasn't going anywhere near where you thought?

There is a very popular excursion doing the routes of our world today that tempts many folks aboard. It's advertises itself as 'truth', but the reality is diabolical. The small print on the 'enlightenment' ticket assumes all manner of unwarranted presuppositions - the physical universe is meaningless, progress can only be made by an evolution of mind (spirit) from the 'superstition' of the divine being something above or beyond ourselves, that we must not tolerate the 'ignorance' of a view which makes us more than a highly developed combination of energy.

Once aboard, the magical tour truly begins, with lectures and books and inter-active events which lay out just why 'God' is unnecessary, why 'Jesus' should be viewed through gnostic and not Christian beliefs, why all that really matters is you becoming... you. Occasionally through the window, you are invited to take in the spectacle of a big top tent, where many who 'do' church are giving out a very similar message -
the teaching of the Bible isn't literally true - there was no Adam, no fall, no tie to this world... just do good and the 'god' inside you will do the rest.
The 'buzz' and the 'vibe' is oh so good - rationalism, enlightenment, progress, that most of the passengers fail to note that the radio is playing a very different song ..... "This is the road to Hell".

It's not popular today to de-construct such a nightmare, but a sound understanding of History, Science and Biblical scholarship requires nothing less. This lie is so often viewed as totally compelling, but in reality it is totally miss placed, and merely diverts us from taking a far more important journey...

"It was a wonderful vehicle, blazing with golden light... The greyness outside the windows turned from mud-colour to mother of pearl, then faintest blue, to a brightness that stung the eyes...
I rolled down the window - delicious freshness came in".

C.S.Lewis - The Great Divorce.

1 comment:

Steve said...

The highways and byways are filled with "pink buses".

The scriptures are right. "...no one seeks for God." (Romans 3:11)

I was talking to a nurse yesterday who told me that her husband always says,"when you're dead, you're dead, nothing more...that's the end."
I told her that for himself, he is probably right. That will be the end. No eternity with a loving God. (the realities of hell set aside)

Those who look out the windows at make believe gods get a taste of fantasy that they might enjoy for whatever few years they have left.

As Jesus himself says, "It's all they're going to get."

Let's proclaim the One who lived, loved, and died, so that we might never have to ride around and around on the "pink bus".

Another great one, Howard! Thank you!

- Steve