Far Beyond History
Years ago when our oldest son was in college, he said something that has remained in my mind, and likely will for the rest of my days. It was concerning the reality and factuality of history. How we people can think we know something, in regards to history, and yet, in reality, history is always effected by the cultural influences, mental health, personal perspective, and biased opinions of every person involved in the retelling of it.
Did you feel your brain go a bit wonky for a second there? :)
Seriously…the fact that history is reworded, retold, re-remembered, and rewritten over and over again causes the actuality of the event to be colored or tinted to some degree from the actual, factual moment in time.
For just a moment, let’s think on this fact together. How many times have you listened to two people tell of a common experience or event they shared, and yet they “disagree” with each other on some detail. One will say, “No it was this way…”. The other will say, “What are you talking about, it was not that way, it was this way…” And right there we watch personal perspectives begin to shift the reality of a specific moment in time.
Michael, our son, said, “Mom, history has a definite truth or reality to it, it’s just that people tend to skew it.”
This can be so discouraging for those of us who are truth-seekers. We want to know the concrete facts. We love the bottom line. Give us details we can count on and we’ll begin to paint the picture as accurately as possible in our minds and with our words. But then we learn that the actual, factual reality has been shifted based on this view or that view — and we become discouraged.
Then we pause at the madness of the world around us, and we take hold of the Bible, the inerrant Word of God.
Inerrant = without error
That’s profoundly powerful! To hold something in our hands, to take it in with our hearts and know that it can be relied on is of immeasurable value. We can embrace the different perspectives, all driving at the same telling of events, penned in the four Gospels of the New Testament — with each author, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, telling their experiences as a follower of Christ from their own positioning. Some moments mattered more to one author, other moments mattered more to another. They ordered their sharings differently, emphasized different events in greater or lesser ways, told some parts and not other parts, and even wrote their remembrances for understanding in different arenas. The events were the same, the sharing of them becomes “flavored” based on “where they were sitting” and how they were personally impacted by what was happening in front of them.
So how do we overcome this “he said”, “she said”, sort of confusion?
We SEEK out the TRUTH.
Each time you and I sit and hold our Bible, and open the pages, and drink it in — are we doing it because we have been told we’re suppose to…that it’s what a good person does… that it’ll make us a better person… OR do we open the Holy Pages and begin drinking them in because we hunger and thirst for Truth?
When the world is constantly feeding us its different perspectives, views, versions, and obtuse opinions — we can be too easily pulled off course of what is true and noble and excellent and worthy of receiving. And the Word of God is above all that swirl of confusion. The Holy Pages are soundly and profoundly unchanging, non-manipulating, unswayable, and void of error. The Word of God does not cause confusion, it extinguishes it. It compels us to go deeper, reach further, and focus carefully.
During our recent trip to The Holy Land, the intrusion of altered history challenged my mind over and over again. I asked the question, “Where is Golgotha, the Hill of the Skull, where Jesus was crucified?” And our guide smiled as he tried to carefully communicate… “No one actually knows for sure, because Roman history points to one location, but Greek or Jewish history points to other locations.” What?? One hill where our Jesus gave everything for our sake is not marked and known?
“Where was the tomb where Jesus’ body lay for 3 days before He rose from the dead?”…another kind smile and he explained… “Some believe it to be here, others profess it to be there… it is likely to be there, but no one knows for certain.”
Over and over again as we walked through the streets and onto the mountains I felt almost foolish for asking such childlike questions — but still I asked, “So is this for sure the place…?”
There were times our wonderful guide could answer me, “Yes, Donna, this is for certain, the place. The place where Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal, the place where Jesus would have watched many sunrises over the Sea of Galilee, the place where Jesus for certain lay his head to rest in Peter’s Mother-in-laws home, the place where Jesus stood after he had been flogged and was handed over to be crucified…these stones would have, without a doubt, felt the weight of Jesus walk across them…this view was what He saw…”
Places of certainty.
Not places of speculation or opinioned viewpoints.
In a world confused over what is right, what is wrong, wondering, can I believe what I’m being told — places of certainty are paramountly important. Peace brings certainty and certainty brings a type of peace.
I sensed the frustration showing on faces, of nearby travelers, when I asked over and over again… “So are you saying this is for sure a place we can know that Jesus…” And I confess in this writing here, the enemy of God tried to make me feel silly for wanting such a simple, clear, detail without room for opinion or scholarly skewing. I felt like I was 10 years old — but I needed to know — is this just what someone thinks, or is this truly a fact.
God was so good to my child-like heart as I walked across the sandy, rocky soil that had held the weight of the God-man-Jesus. To stand in places and feel a nearness in my soul, that echoed of “on earth as it is in Heaven”, was life-changing for me in a quiet, settling way.
I’m very use to smarter people looking down on seeking souls. If that happens to you, take heart, I know that seat well. For so often the smarter person is stuck on their opinion or their knowledge, that they’ll miss the beauty of a new understanding. But then sometimes, they’ll begin to glean beside the seeking heart when answers arrive and the Light comes a little more softly into the dusty spaces of intellect.
The Word of God holds endless treasures. Poetry without rhyme. It opens the ceiling overhead and invites us to not rely on our intellect, but rely on something much higher and greater. Something a child might have more ability to reach for, and the wisest of adults will long to grasp. Scripture says, “Even angels long to look into these things.” (1 Peter 1:12b) It’s a knowing that vibrates in the heart, and a Truth that holds us through the storms of life.
He sat on the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee… He watched the same sun rise over the same mountains… He watched the same stars twinkle over the same glistening waters. He looked at the sun sink low as it faded over the same horizon. He spoke to the Father from places of solitude as He looked out over the arrogant, argumentative, unbelieving world — and He chose LOVE.
The re-telling of history might not know the exact place where HE saved us — but without err or need of intellect — HE did.
