Metaphors for Loving the Invisible

(Editor’s Note: Larry Shallenberger is a contributor to Burnside, and we’re very pleased to offer this adapted excerpt from Chapter One of Divine Intention: How God’s Work in the Early Church Empowers Us Today (Victor Press, 2007). Connect with Larry at his website www.larryshallenberger.com.

I wonder if Jesus’ followers didn’t struggle when Jesus described the quality of life that his followers could expect as “abundant.” “Abundant life” is an awkward phrase - it’s as if Jesus was pressing against the limits of language to describe a manner of living that his disciples had never experienced. They had no point of reference to comprehend the intensity of being that comes from a vital relationship with God. Within the confines of the Aramaic language, Jesus spoke in terms of volume to communicate what was coming. In essence he was saying to them: “You’re going to get life, lots of life, life overflowing in buckets. Life force rising over the banks of your personhood.”

Experiencing this “abundant life” has been an elusive experience for me. I was raised in a faith tradition that emphasized the importance of Scripture. I was taught to turn to Scripture for guidance and wise principles. However, I’m not as instinctive when it comes to relating to the God of Scripture. Jesus once chided the religious leaders of his day for being fluent in the Scriptures without realizing that the Scriptures were pointing to a person—Jesus himself. I’m afraid that too often describes the quality of my connection with God. I’ve slowly learned, and am still learning, that “abundant life” is a relational term. It’s when I unintentionally substitute my Bible knowledge for a relationship with the Holy Spirit that I get cynical and assume that terms like “abundant” and “Spirit-filled” are bad punch lines. The truth is that when I feel most spiritually disjointed, it’s usually because I’m attempting a personal relationship with the message and not its author. My wife, Amy, puts it this way: An all-knowing, all-powerful, omnipresent Being is hard to love. I’ve tended to overcome this difficulty by settling for his literature.

I’ve noticed that the easiest way for Amy and I to talk about our marriage is in the language of metaphors. We are dance partners, co-servants, one flesh, or even two strings of a tied knot. Amy and I can discuss the health of our marriage in terms of how well these metaphors seem to resonate with our relationship. I know some who describe their marriages in terms of dysfunction - they talk about the “ball and chain,” “the split,” or the “breakup.” We can’t quantify our relationships, but when we describe them with metaphors, we know exactly what we are dealing with, don’t we? For example, if a friend tells us that her marriage is “on the rocks,” we don’t need her to give us any specifics to know immediately that she and her husband are not getting along together.

The same is true with our relationship with God. Acts 2 is the account of how God gave his people the gift of a relationship with the Holy Spirit. If we look closely, we’ll find three metaphors that us understand our relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Breathing God

When God the Father sent the Holy Spirit to the believers at Pentecost, special effects - gale-force winds and firelike lights - accompanied his arrival. God wasn’t engaging in melodramatic showmanship; he was supplying his people with instructive relational word pictures.

Commentator F. F. Bruce sees the galelike sound that filled the disciples’ house as an allusion to Ezekiel 37. In Ezekiel’s vision God breathed life into a pile of human bones that lay scattered on this heap. The bones sprang to life and regrouped into skeletons. Ezekiel watched in amazement as muscle, sinew, and skin reformed on these once lifeless bones until he saw an army before him.

Ezekiel was comparing sinful Israel to the fire-dried skeletons of Gehenna - Israel’s rebellion against God had drained it of all its life-giving marrow. The nation was without life or hope.

God told Ezekiel to speak to the four winds, and they resuscitated the lifeless corpses and raised them to their feet as a mighty army.God then turned his attention to lifeless Israel. He promised to revive Israel and fill his people with his breath: “And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live” (Ezek. 37:14 ESV).

When the highly Scripture-literate believers in the room experienced the sound of the rushing wind, their minds likely made a connection with Ezekiel’s vision and the way God had breathed life into his people. The rushing wind let the first believers know that “breathing in God” was a key to life in the Spirit. This metaphor helps us understand and express our relationship with the Holy Spirit in the language of dependency. The Holy Spirit offers life; we inhale the Spirit as if our spiritual life depended on it.

A few years ago, I trained in tae kwon do. There’s so much to think about when learning a martial art - how to stand, the body mechanics of kicking, how to position the arms to protect the torso, the proper footwork - that it’s entirely possible to forget to take in deep, regular breaths. Early in my training I found myself winded because I didn’t remember to breathe. I have a similar experience with my spirituality; I can get so consumed with the mechanics of discipleship - that divine to-do list - that I forget to breathe. You see, we can get so caught up with the “doings” of faith that we forget to just take in God.

The Burning Bush

Posted on September 24, 2007 12:00 AM