Pre or Post-moderns Contemplating a Rabbit
While reading a fairly technical book this week on Bible interpretation, I came across a statement that reminded me of the wonder of what God has given us in his Son.
In a world that is struggling with difficult questions about meaning in texts, relationships, and life, a scholar by the name of Zimmerman writes, “The central idea that makes ethical transcendence possible is that in the incarnation, truth is a person rather than a proposition or idea.”
That last statement that truth is a person rather than [just] a proposition or idea reminded me of some of our other discussions about the subjective and objective nature of truth. In those conversations we were working with the idea that the truth of the Bible is about both statements and attitudes that are rooted in and aligned with the reality of God’s existence and nature.
Zimmerman’s statement reminded me again of why it is so important to see how the words, thoughts, and heart of the Bible are fulfilled in– and come alive in– what Jesus said and did– and how in turn– what Jesus said and did in relation to people like us, gives meaning to the unfolding story of our own lives.
Zimmerman also says, “The incarnation provides what postmodern ethical philosophy seeks: it embodies radical transcendence (i.e. the the self-giving otherness of God) in history and time with a human face, and it offers a social subjectivity as persons in relation.”
I take that to mean that, by the thoughts, actions, and affections of Jesus, the Son of God has brought real meaning (timeless and eternal) into our lives by getting into our own human story, and thereby into the deepest parts of our lives– into the darkest parts of our past, and into the surest parts of our future. Without the knowledge of him—it would be so easy to deceive ourselves, and to jump to wrong conclusions about the circumstances, relationships, and direction of what each of us are presently looking at.
This morning, such thoughts, are prompting me to want to keep taking long looks at how the wisdom of the whole Bible is fulfilled in Jesus, and to keep reflecting on how the specific things that he said and did, as “God among/with us” brings alive the reality/truth that our hearts and minds long for.
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