God Is Like…
I'm watching my way through Frasier. I'm in the eighth season of the classic sitcom, so it's not surprising that it should make its way into my thinking as I come up for air for the week. This setup that remains with me is when the two psychiatrist brothers Frasier and Niles come across the actor who introduced them to their lifelong love of William Shakespeare by performing at their middle school. Incensed that the actor is performing in a science fiction series they believe is beneath him, they hatched a plan to allow him to inspire others the way he has inspired them. They invest time and money to give others the opportunity to be similarly inspired by this actor who has meant so much to them. The only problem is, he is terrible. Reviewing the videotape from their more refined perspective of middle age, Frasier and Niles realize he always was. They come to terms with the fact that it was their impressionable immaturity, and the Shakespearean material with which the actor was working, that made him seem so gifted. Their love of Shakespeare has exceeded the limits of the person who first introduced them.
As masterful as the Bible's metaphors are, and is gracious that God is to submit Himself to any metaphor, they are destined for the same fate. This principle of metaphorical obsolescence might never be more clear than in Psalm 18. Seeking to describe God's stability in that psalmist second verse, the psalmist grasps for a variety of word pictures in quick succession when he writes, "The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold (NIV). At the time when his life is being shaken, clinging to the metaphor of God as Rock or as stronghold seems like the most intense descriptor available.
That metaphorical perspective lasts for all of five verses. Reflecting on his continuing experience, the psalmist proclaims, "The earth shook and trembled; The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken, Because He was angry."(NIV) Rocks, fortresses, and strongholds that a few sentences ago were imposing enough to demonstrate what God is like topple. Now God is in the shaking of the very earth on which these stand. The shadows of past metaphors have been outgrown as the psalmist matures in more of the experience of God's elemental power.
Sometimes I think we need to turn the pages on our past vicarious experience of God and the words we use to relate it. To paraphrase from another millennial TV show, The West Wing, it's one thing for some of the president's speech writers to have known him since the seventh grade. It's another for them to write like they were still there. Bursting forth from His inspired metaphors, God frequently describes Himself as our Father, at least once likening His love to a mother's love (Isaiah 49:15). But there comes a time when we realize that neither our parents nor any of the parental figures in our lives are reasonably going to be able to convey all that God is to us, any more than an actor who turned out to be fairly ordinary in his talents could continue to convey Shakespeare's mastery to Niles and Frasier as adults. The Bible likens Christ to the Bridegroom of the believing Church, and we can celebrate glimpses of His care and attention in our marriages at their best. To put Christ-like expectations on the marriage relationship itself, though, is a recipe for bitterness and disillusionment.
Likewise, some of the Psalm 18 strongholds God may use to provide for and protect us may prove outmoded in time, but His ability to provide and protect does not. Jobs, I'm learning in a stretch of unemployment that has lasted far longer than I would have expected, come and go. At their best, says Martin Luther, they are a mask behind which God as Provider hides. What source He ultimate Resource will use next, I would love to know. I am as ready to go back to the pride comforting routine of my previous employment as the Israelites were to go back to Egypt. Since I don't have this option, I'll wait for the next act of the greatest Dramatist and Actor of the ages, The One before Whom every previous performer pointing to Him in some way has been a poor player, strutting and fretting for his hour upon the stage. I'll celebrate the God pantomimes as they come, and I'll sharpen my own ability to display His character, but, in my heart of hearts, I await knowing Him as I also am known (1 Corinthians 13:12), an eternal relationship that needs no metaphor.
As masterful as the Bible's metaphors are, and is gracious that God is to submit Himself to any metaphor, they are destined for the same fate. This principle of metaphorical obsolescence might never be more clear than in Psalm 18. Seeking to describe God's stability in that psalmist second verse, the psalmist grasps for a variety of word pictures in quick succession when he writes, "The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold (NIV). At the time when his life is being shaken, clinging to the metaphor of God as Rock or as stronghold seems like the most intense descriptor available.
That metaphorical perspective lasts for all of five verses. Reflecting on his continuing experience, the psalmist proclaims, "The earth shook and trembled; The foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken, Because He was angry."(NIV) Rocks, fortresses, and strongholds that a few sentences ago were imposing enough to demonstrate what God is like topple. Now God is in the shaking of the very earth on which these stand. The shadows of past metaphors have been outgrown as the psalmist matures in more of the experience of God's elemental power.
Sometimes I think we need to turn the pages on our past vicarious experience of God and the words we use to relate it. To paraphrase from another millennial TV show, The West Wing, it's one thing for some of the president's speech writers to have known him since the seventh grade. It's another for them to write like they were still there. Bursting forth from His inspired metaphors, God frequently describes Himself as our Father, at least once likening His love to a mother's love (Isaiah 49:15). But there comes a time when we realize that neither our parents nor any of the parental figures in our lives are reasonably going to be able to convey all that God is to us, any more than an actor who turned out to be fairly ordinary in his talents could continue to convey Shakespeare's mastery to Niles and Frasier as adults. The Bible likens Christ to the Bridegroom of the believing Church, and we can celebrate glimpses of His care and attention in our marriages at their best. To put Christ-like expectations on the marriage relationship itself, though, is a recipe for bitterness and disillusionment.
Likewise, some of the Psalm 18 strongholds God may use to provide for and protect us may prove outmoded in time, but His ability to provide and protect does not. Jobs, I'm learning in a stretch of unemployment that has lasted far longer than I would have expected, come and go. At their best, says Martin Luther, they are a mask behind which God as Provider hides. What source He ultimate Resource will use next, I would love to know. I am as ready to go back to the pride comforting routine of my previous employment as the Israelites were to go back to Egypt. Since I don't have this option, I'll wait for the next act of the greatest Dramatist and Actor of the ages, The One before Whom every previous performer pointing to Him in some way has been a poor player, strutting and fretting for his hour upon the stage. I'll celebrate the God pantomimes as they come, and I'll sharpen my own ability to display His character, but, in my heart of hearts, I await knowing Him as I also am known (1 Corinthians 13:12), an eternal relationship that needs no metaphor.
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