Something which is called nothing

My text is from second Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 11, "I have become a fool in glorying, ye have compelled me: for I ought to have been commended of you: for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing." That is what Paul has to say about himself. "I am nothing." The greatest men in mankind were those who knew they were nothing. ...

I wish to start tonight by telling you a prison experience. When the communists took over my homeland, Romania, they did what they did everywhere where they came to power, what they would do in this country, too, if it would ever fall under them, they put in prison thousands of Christians. ... We never saw sun, moon, snow, flowers, stars, mountains, rivers. I had forgotten that these things exist. We never had a Bible not any other book. We never had a bit of paper or a pen. I forgot [how] to write. ... In solitary confinement we saw nobody except the wardens and the torturers. We never heard a sound. The cells were soundproof. We never heard a whisper. We saw nothing. We heard nothing. Perfect silence reigned in those prison cells....

Years of prison passed. ... We were hungry after food. We were hungry after love. Nobody ever smiled to us. Nobody heard us. Nobody caressed us. Nobody told us a nice word, only words of hatred. We were so hungry after love. ... We were hungry after a printed page. We were hungry after the face of a man. And we were hungry for one thing more, a hunger which is unknown in your country. We were hungry for Holy Communion. The years had passed and we had had no Holy Communion.

Now what should we do? We were everyone alone in his cell so it could not be a fellowship of brethren. At that time, we did not have even this one slice of bread a week. We got instead some dirty maize cake. Wine? From where should you take wine in a subterranean communist prison cell? We had no Bible. We had no hymn book. We had nothing. We consulted with each other, everyone alone in his cell, by tapping through the wall in Morse code. ...and we asked each other how [sic] should we do? We are hungry after the body and the blood of our Lord as it is communicated in the Holy Communion. How should we take it? We have nothing.

And at once we had an illumination. Wait a little bit! We had. We had! Something which is called nothing! If nothing would be nothing, we could not have it. We had something which is called nothing. Now, what is the value of this nothing? We have nothing. They have taken away from us our families, our houses, our furniture, our libraries, our churches. Everything they've taken away from us. They've taken away from us our own clothing. They've taken away from us even our names. Every prisoner, if he was a more important one considered by them, was taken away his name and given a number. And he had not, he was not allowed to tell even a warden what his real name is; they feared that a warden, over a glass of wine, might betray the secret of who is in prison to a friend of his. So we got given numbers, the one prisoner number 5,833, the other prisoner 9,221 and so on and all the prisoners did not remember their numbers and then they were beaten because of this. I had the advantage to have a number very easy to be remembered. I was prisoner number one so that was easy to be remembered.

But they'd taken away from us everything, even our names. We had nothing. ... We were nothing and we had nothing. There was another one who said, "I am nothing." Saint Paul. And when he wrote this, he was free. He said, I was nothing. And -- I am nothing. And then we had something, the name of which, is nothing. We had nothing. And we begin, we began in these half dark prison cells, these subterranean prison cells in which all kinds of thoughts come to you which don't come in the free world, we began to think about the value of the nothing. We all love this world with its beautiful, multicolored butterflies and the chirping birds and the scented flowers and the pretty children. Who will remember, "But wait a little bit -- out of what did God make this beautiful world?" He made it out of nothing. So nothing is a very valuable material, you can make a universe out of nothing! If anyone would try to make all of these things out of gold and iron he would not succeed. But out of nothing, God created this world. But wait a little bit. With what is Holy Communion taken in churches? It is taken with bread. And out of what is bread made? Out of flour. And out of what is flour made? Out of wheat. And out of what is wheat made? Well, God made it out of nothing! And in Holy Communion we take wine. The wine is made out of grape juice, and the grape juice comes from the grapes and the grapes come from the vineyard. And out of what is made the vineyard? Out of nothing! So nothing is a very valuable material. Nothing is the basic material with which Holy Communion is taken everywhere in the world. Nothing. We have nothing. And nothing is a material out of which the universe is made. ...

... And then we felt how foolish we had been not to rejoice about the fact that we had nothing and that we were nothing. And we decided by mutual consultation, on a Sunday morning, to take Holy Communion with nothing. I have read similar things have happened in the past too. So we decided to take Holy Communion with nothing. And at a certain moment on a Sunday morning, we gave a signal through the wall from one end of the corridor to the other -- there were many cells -- and at one and the same moment we took in our hands nothing, we thanked God for nothing. You must not have a thing to thank God for. ... A bird does not sing because of the things it gets. The bird sings because it has a song in its heart. And Christians are simply thankful and grateful in their character and they thank not for things. We thank because we are thankful. And we thanked God for nothing, we blessed the nothing, the beautiful nothing, out of which multicolored butterflies and the smiles of children are made. We blessed the nothing, we ate nothing, and we remembered the body of our Lord Jesus Christ which has been broken for us.


[RW]

Where is my face?

"So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the LORD said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?'" (Genesis 4:3-6)

...God questions Cain. It's the very well known story of Cain and Abel. "Where is Abel your brother?" But before this question - this is the second - is another one: "Why has your countenance fallen?" In Genesis 4:6. Literally speaking, if we were to translate this language - it's a little bit old for me, for us - literally it means, why has your face fallen? Your face. "Cain, you dropped your face. I can't see your face. Where is your face?" If we would search the language - you know, the language is a big treasure for all of us - we would find here something very interesting. In Hebrew, we find the word, panim. This is a plural, but always used as a singular. ... Like trousers or scissors. You know, there is a secret in this language. He speaks about faces. The Bible never speaks about one face. It always speaks about faces.

...The Greek word for mask is very similar to this Hebrew word. It's prosopeio. What does it mean, this? It means, "pro" - like, I have a face, but I have to turn my face toward you. I exist just in this motion of turning toward you. In other words, objectively speaking, one face cannot exist. Only panim. Only many faces. Only various faces. Just one face does not exist. Because my face contains your faces, but in the beginning it contains the face of God, of the creator.

God says to our friend, Cain, "You dropped your face." Do we have faces or do we just have our own face? Do we have a plural face? In other words, does our face contain the face of God or not? This is the basis of humanity. To share the face of God, the panim. If we don't, what happens? The next step of Cain is murder. The first step is to drop the face, the next step is to kill the other. To destroy the other's face.

We have a wonderful passage in the Bible when God speaks to a friend of His face to face. Moses. God wants to speak to us face to face. In other words, to share His face with us. We need to have faces penetrated by God's image. We need this, because if not, the next step is violence. ... My father explained to me once that this expression in the Bible, face-to-face, means to be so close, one face to the other, that there is no room for anything in between. Do we have things in between God's face and our face? Do we have? We do. We do. But we need the light of the Holy Spirit to see those things and to deliver us from behind those walls.


[AV, 2008]

Stumbling after Abraham

"After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, 'Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great.' Abram said, 'O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?' And Abram said, 'Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.'" (Genesis 15:1-3)

Abraham was so concerned with obtaining an heir that he failed to understand that God was offering Himself, the greatest of all gifts, to him as his sole reward....

Abraham expresses his lack of belief when he says to God "O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" ... "Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir." However, it must be noted that although Abraham displays a certain disbelief in God’s promise, he does not completely disbelieve God. Rather, what he does is demonstrate a limited degree of faith. That is to say, that although Abraham did believe that God would provide him with an heir, he did not believe that God would issue forth an heir from his own flesh. He thought that he would have to settle for a servant who would be only legally adopted into his family.

This was not the only expression of Abraham’s limited belief in God. On many occasions, he tried to assist God in the fulfillment of His Word according to his own will rather than waiting for the fulfillment of God’s perfect plan. He attempted to bring God’s plan into being by taking his nephew Lot with him whom he later had to abandon; having sexual relations with Hagaar who bore him a son, Ishmael, whom he later had to send away; and now he tries to substitute Eliezer for the heir that God has promised him.

This is our story as well. First we believe God at His Word, and then try to help Him bring His Word into being according to our own will and according to our own plans. He allows us each misstep, each expression of unbelief. He corrects every attempt to fulfill His plans by our own means. It is only after allowing us these faltering steps that He lovingly corrects us and leads us to maturity in our faith. It is at this point that His will is accomplished according to His perfect plan. This is the way to true faith.

So please, do not be discouraged as you too stumble along in Abraham’s footsteps. After all, you cannot be expected to be a better believer than he was.


[LH, 2009]

Searching everywhere for the lost

During all my trials I hear disparaging speeches about religion, about faith, about the Bible.

"Please," I object, "do not talk about the Bible in such a way. The Holy Spirit sealed every word of it."

"I do not see any seal here!"

"But it's there. Anyone can see it."

"Show me," the prison warden says, and going to the cabinet he takes out a Bible, and places it in my hands

My soul rejoices! Thank You, God, that I can take a Bible in my hands and can read from it!

"Stop turning the pages," the warden shouts. "Read what is in front of you!"

I begin to read aloud, "I will search for the lost..."

The warden interrupts my reading with a sarcastic laugh. "I wonder how will God find you, the lost!"

"But I have already been found," I remark.

"Then who is lost?"

"You."

[SSz, BR, 1997]