Were we continue in this matter of light’s power, that is as such that both makes manifest and by such power of exposing reveals its utter superiority and power over darkness for its removal and/or expulsion, we might begin to appreciate its wonderful effects in, and upon, the soul. Even the soul found in earth, or earthen vessel(s). How much might be said of this! And God knows of all the how much He already has…said of this. Indeed there is no cause to add (God forbid!) but only cause of attention.
Behold is such a persuasive instruction and command. It is a command to see, and by seeing come to know a certain matter in such a way that only seeing can accomplish. Seeing brings understanding or proof(s) of matters in a way that mere words, or at very least our own mere words fall short of. “A picture” it is often said, “is worth a thousand words”. Yet there is a corollary to this, as bound to it we may find, as warmth and light may not be divided. Even heat…and light. Yes, a picture may be worth a thousand words to the common understanding of “a picture obviates the need for words”…but, just how many words has consideration of La Gioconda inspired?
Words and pictures, pictures and words. Were we to refer back to the matters of our consciousness and its nature, we would find them both at hand in usage. Sometimes we think in words, or words come to us often, and no less, images…pictures of things. Our brother on Patmos saw many images (and, not denying was also told many things), that he sought to put down in words of his beholding(s), and the words have power (by God’s inspiration) to bring us into them, that we too might “get the picture”.
And, of course, Jesus often painted with word(s). We see a picture of a father rushing to receive a prodigal son. (In mine the Father comes rushing from the left to greet a son coming from the right side of the frame as on a road. Why? I don’t know. Is it preference of some sort? Yours? How does yours look?) Suppose we are told to look closer…(dare any tell another?) is the Father laughing or weeping? The son? What is on his face? How close dare we, or are we allowed…to look and behold? Just how far is that “great way off” in your picture that the Father sees the son? How far does an old man run? Words and pictures, pictures and words. Both inspire.
These words are to help us get the picture, are they not? They even start with a “behold” as in “look and see”; and even though it seems heard far more frequently quoted to the last few words (at least in my experience) we might not get, or deliver the whole of the picture as even demonstrated by some proclivity to only recite the last few (words). Simply put: by our very own selectivity, it only shows we are not getting the full picture.
Again, we might ask “why?” Is it only a preference? Do we believe, have we believed(?) they are the “nub” of the matter and so distill them down, or conversely, up to, their true and salient meaning? To such measure as they can be singled out as capturing all that is necessary to paint the full picture? That these few are the truly important words in the “behold”?
Really, I think not.
Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
What do you think?
Oh yes, dying is a very important matter…to us. If again we were to again consider our own consciousness and its oft workings to certain ends…even in avoidance of certain others, we easily see how much is devoted to the consciousness’ will to survive, to stay alive as it were at most any cost. To not perish to itself. Or, do you not know this? How that death markers are set to certain areas as in “don’t go that way”…NOT GOOD!…death is there…and thence move us to “other” roads? O! but you must know this already, right?
Only here can this be understood: There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
All those roads (which are always one and the same) are devoted to…death. And all spring from what “man” thinks is right in his own eyes.
Even though our roads may appear so different as we perceive each other, is not the working the same? We can laugh at the fellow who says “hold my beer and watch this” and (to us) enters into some calamity in reaching for a something (that to him looks better than some death perceived and to be avoided), yes, we do. That poor schlub! Thought he was going to impress, and now look at him, and the bone protruding from his leg. Is he to be pitied? Laughed at?
Oh, but we find out so perfectly personally when we discover the same working in us…what is asked for…and what is sought; and likewise hoped to be avoided when it is our own attempts on display. Laughter is not “funny” then. Why? Because someone uninjured laughing at our own calamity…spells death! And if it be friends? How much more does that speak…of death?
So we seek according to these road markers. Yes…and death in whatever form, at whatever juncture it places a marker “down a road” is so potent to us, even if along the road we find we must change course (the man above may find out “I don’t have real friends, at all, I must choose better company” if, or when laughed at by the uninjured we once sought to impress…”those guys are deadly”) and so death becomes our teacher. Its taste is made so very real to us. It’s odor fills nostrils and minds. Small wonder then how much emphasis is placed upon “the soul that sins, it shall die”! Yes, death (and its avoidance) is extremely important to us.
Men caution each other with it, about it, and from it…and against it. And public executions, once common, surely attest to this. Watch out! Consider what road you heed to take and from “where” you then act! For if wrong enough you will be made a spectacle by your wrong choosing! Folks will even flock to watch you held out to dangle! Loving a good show of death…as long as it is not themselves. Any (or every?) man prepared to be a cautionary tale to another, or others. And it kind of “works”, doesn’t it? It seems to have some effect…but if, and only if the presumption is made that one is dealing with, or among, a company of the already living. Those in position with something to lose, or that can be lost, to death. Or at very least, death as is understood of men.
What is this thing feared to be lost to us, taken from us in whatever form it is? At least by this specter of death man assumes he sees rightly? Precisely because he presumes himself alive. Is it not a soul being (apparently) snuffed out? We may say “person”…self, loved one, dear one, friend…wherever fear of death we may assign ourselves as holding sway. (Did you feel grieved at all this morning by the thousands on the other side of this world who didn’t “make it through” while you slept?) How much smaller is the world that is ours, than the one that is? Yet we each think we know “something of the world”, rarely conceding our own self-centric view of all.
Hey! Does ignorance…smell like death to you? Poverty? Ignominy?
We could turn it of course, if need be…what smells like life? Intelligence? Adequate provision? Some acclaim? Understanding? Wisdom? Some notion of success as each might perceive it? For the rat catcher it might be 50 caught in a day, for the mogul another million found added to the ledger in black. Yes, such ends may look very different from one another to the casual observer…but isn’t the operation in all, the same? “Getting more” and/or not losing what is necessary.
And of course the ultimate reduction in all is, “Are we running from a something or to a something?” Seeking something…or merely fleeing another something? Is it that we “love” togetherness or just hate feeling alone? Oh yeah, isolation is another biggie. What we seek, how we seek, or embrace and what we seek to escape, avoid, refuse to ourselves (or loved ones) as operation of the soul is common in all.
Do I go too far afield? Should these things be beyond consideration? How close dare we “look” to get the picture? Are we allowed? Forbidden? Just be content with fuzzy outlines, gauzy and ethereal perceptions if perchance something will be filled in later? I’d be a fool to argue against contentment. But…is one man’s contentment always the same as another’s? Should we feel, if we feel, a burr under the saddle (or a pea through a hundred mattresses) pretend we do not…and so find even in this consideration the notion of “contentment” is not as plain as it might seem. Is it resignation? Or is it something else entirely like…”be content to be spurred on”? Be content to ever pursue? Or better, “be content to be ever provoked to pursue”?
Are we not, at least while in these tabernacles of clay, still moving? Discovering motion? Even if it seems we are stopped (so to speak) at what we may call some ultimate experience as we might describe of being touched of God through Christ, who hasn’t found some “go” in it? Could it be that is the only real “go” there is? All else has been illusory, even notions of prior progress…of ourselves and even all of mankind? The only true…motivating?
Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
What do we see when we see this? This “thing” commanding look and see in “Behold”? Do we see only (and repeat so often)
the soul that sinneth, it shall die.(?)
I suppose we might if we do…for I sense no need to further belabor again how big and scary death is made to us in our sight. How it captures attention, provokes, moves us by what we perceive as its imperiling of life “911, what is your emergency?”
But what of life? Is there life at all in it? Can this be mined to find life? Dug into for life’s discovery? Who do we call?
Are we as convinced as we might think or claim to be of this matter?
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
they are spirit, and they are life.
Who is giving command/instruction to “Behold”?
And what is commanded to be beheld?
Is it really “the soul that sinneth, it shall die” or something other, or at least something very much together with it that is also to be understood?
Have we forgotten this, even as we read this:
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
Something is always being spoken of to see by a someone who already sees and knows all things.
It either mistakenly (or even faithlessly) believes it is, or could be, in peril of losing something…even a something it fears losing that is not its own…but believes it to be, for in it and through come all and every experience that convinces a man “he is himself”.
Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine:
Only in this light can this be understood:
And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?
We are all and only handling any matter or all matters given to us.
As the apostle noted:
For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?
Was our brother John (the baptizer), of whom Jesus said “of woman born none had arisen greater” speaking by the spirit when saying this?
“A man can receive nothing except it be given him from above”
Were I to say I have come to see, or know something of self glorying; is foolish among the wise. For they would rightly say “With the amount you show you’d think you have a much better understanding of it”. And one is wise to both see that and say that. And correct.
I do not know as I ought.
Nevertheless, by the grace of God I am what I am.
I used to think/believe that was a very advanced understanding, a thing reserved only to some saying by one so very very “spiritual” and so very deeply informed. When it is merely the confession of any man who discovers he is just a man like any other, given to be who, and what he is. He, in that sense, is really just at the beginning.
It is inescapable once one sees grace shown to such, mercy poured out for such. For common man.
Even a/the chiefest of sinners. No wonder it’s written as a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.
For while we think ourselves better what we show is only the all that makes mercy necessary to us.
Yes, faithful are the wounds of friend. (Ministered? or Beheld?) Both?
Uh oh, Lord, now look at what I have done!
Is LOL inappropriate?
As though “LOL, I know, trust me, I felt it first before you even did it”
Are you surprised at your weakness? Stunned? Taken aback? He is not.
A friend who will laugh with us, and not at us, precisely because He is not uninjured. In being found in fashion as a man.
And neither ashamed.
Though all were heaped toward Him.
Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.
It’s where all is happening. It’s the only “where” where anything is happening, that is happening.
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