Lenten Musings - 19

Today I got to talk to a couple of old friends on the phone. I miss having old friends around. I have new friends here. People I am getting to know. But that process always takes a bit of energy. Old friends always leave you feeling refreshed.

John 3

One thing I notice is the continuity between what Mark was communicating and what John is saying. John is always seen as being different. Some people over-emphasize the differences. But both Mark and John, at their core, are calling us to believe. Mark's message was that we need to believe in Jesus. Here, in John 3:15, 18, John says the same thing.

John 3:13 illustrates something that I've thought about before. There's much debate about whether God exists, or whether there is a spiritual realm, etc. "Science" is loathe to consider the idea often because the "spiritual" exists outside of the "material". By definition, science is limited to what is material, as those are the only areas it has access to. My thought is that there would necessarily need to be something that bridges that gap in order for us to know what is in that other realm. God is the one who bridges that gap for us. Jesus is the one who has descended from heaven and has the knowledge of both the material and the spiritual. All knowledge that we have about God has been given to us by Him. I often think of it in terms of our senses. Say none of us could see, would that mean that colours would not exist? They still would, we just would have no way of knowing it with our other senses. What we would need is someone to fill that gap. Someone who can see the colours and them communicate them to us in a way we can understand and sense (it would be no good for that person to write it down, we couldn't read it). So imagine, if you will, that the spiritual realm could be sensed, much like icy glade, sarah's garden or burnt sienna, or like the taste of my wife's excellent baking. Then someone who could sense that realm would have to communicate it to us in a way we could understand and sense. Of course, we'd never really fully understand it, just as a blind (from birth) person will never truly grasp colour. But we could get a sense of it, like telling that blind person that red is like the heat from a fire, and blue is like the sensation of holding an ice cube. Anyway, that was a bit of a ramble, but hopefully you get my drift.