Annoucement: Blog Closed & Moved

I would like to take this opportunity to announce the close of this blog and the introduction of my new website and blog.
If you have been reading my blogs you may have noticed a progression over time.

The first blog that I started I kept from March 2003 to September 2004. It wasn't necessarily public, but just something I shared with family and friends. Back then I tended to write about the everyday things that were happening in my life, mostly whatever project was distracting me at the time - playing and recording music, writing novels, and marathon training.

It was at the end of the September of 2004 that I began to have a spiritual awakening which lead to my being born again in 2005. During this time I didn't really keep a blog, save for a few scattered entries.

When I picked up blogging again in August 2005, the subjects I would write about reflected this change in my life. I occasional still spoke of the everyday things of life but began focusing more in more on what I was reading and learning in Scripture through the Holy Spirit.

At that time I will still active within the Jehovah's Witnesses organization, the religion I was born and raised in. Because I had been tipped off that the congregation elders were monitoring my blog to make sure my views were invariance with the official teachings of the Watchtower's governing body I tended to censor myself somewhat and to be careful at how I worded things.

Despite my care, eventually my blog did become part of the evidence that lead to a judicial committee (religious tribunal) being brought against me. Incidentally, it was the statement from the February 26, 2006 entry Rock or Sand? that was seemed to be the problem:

"We recognize that the brotherhood that we love so much does not belong to a legal body or any men taking the lead among us; but rather it belongs to Christ who is the head of the congregation."

After being disfellowshipped from the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Spring of 2006 I had more freedom to express myself and the things I was learning. Since then began to write less and less about the everyday things of my life and more about Bible topics of Christian spirituality.

Now as I look back that the older parts of this blog I don't feel that it really represents where I am right now so much as the path I've taken. At first I thought about closing and removing this blog entirely. However I discussed this with a friend and they suggested that I keep it as perhaps some may benefit from reading through this progression. I'm inclined to agree.

For what it is worth while I will no longer be posting anything new to this blog I will be leaving it up. Additionally, I have added most of the contents of my previous blog that has been off line for some time. (All entries prior to August 2005)

I plan to continue blogging at my new home at anthonymathenia.com. It will continue the general format of the last few months - though with less focus on my personal life, unless it specifically relates to my discipleship and life in Christ.

Yours in Christ,


Anthony

Simplicity is Beautifully Deep

It was on the drive back from the creek where I was baptised that I reflected on the simplicity of that act of immersion. You simply go under the water and you come back up.

When I wrote to my friends and family to tell about my baptism my sister wrote back, "Looks like all those years of practicing at Sugar Shack paid off."

"Sugar Shack" was what we called my grandparents' cabin in rural Missouri. It had a creek nearby where we would swim and play. How many times have I went under the water at a creek playing baptism?

Baptism - so simple a child could emulate it.

It is the same with the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The elements are common table items, bread and wine. The breaking of the bread, the passing of the cup - these were something that Jesus' disciples had done numerous times before. Yet this is what Jesus gives them to remember his sacrifice and his coming. Something old. Something new.

But these simple acts unfold to have a depth of meaning.

How deep?

So deep that 2,000 year later I still don't think we have the complete picture. It seems we can meditate on the symbolism and the meaning endlessly. And maybe that is why religious denominations have felt the need to dress these simple acts up with a bunch of pomp and ceremony. But really that is not necessary.

Regarding the Lord's Supper, Paul says, "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; ... and in the same way took a cup" - 1 Cor 11:23

The apostle gives just as he received and felt no need to add decoration and tinsel. It is already beautifully simple and simply deep.

One of things I have recently begun to appreciate about the Old Testament scriptures is even in the everyday accounts and stories of people there is so much symbolism. People back then were just living their life but fast forward thousands of years and we see all these little things point to bigger realities (or perhaps the bigger reality, Jesus). In the OT Jesus' is found in the most normal of places. He is in people watering sheep and feeding flocks and growing grain and making tents and kneading bread and fighting battles and getting married and ...

A friend once jokingly asked, "Why do we need to know that Esau was a hairy man and Jacob was a smooth man?"

Because it means something.

And here is a secret -- your life means something too. If we could teleport thousands of years into the future and look back at your life . Yet if our eyes are open today,I know that God can give us peeks. In looking back at my own life I have seen the greater realities of things that seemed insignificant at the time.

What happens when we keep our eyes open to find God in the simple things of everyday life? We make interesting discoveries. Such as --

The Kingdom of Heaven is like scrambled eggs.

My friend had that revelation in a cabin as we were making breakfast. As she explains it:

"First he break us out of our shells. Then whips us together. The yolk of spirit overwhelms the egg white flesh, and colors our live. He applies heat, and we become a mixture of cooked and partially cooked. The longer the heat is applied, the more even and of substance we become. All the seperate eggs, are now of one body, one existence, a new creation."

It may sound crazy but Jesus was constantly using little things like dough, scattered seeds, and fishing nets to explain big concepts like the Kingdom.

Once Jesus told this parable:

"Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search thoroughly until she finds it? Then when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.” - Luke 15:38

Think about a woman that actually had this happen to her. When she was busy sweeping the floor searching for her coin she didn't know that secretly she was acting out a divine truth about God's nature. How often in your life are you simply going about your simple business unaware there is a grand mystery in what you are simply doing?

Your life is a parable.

Paul is aware of this fact. To the Ephesians he begins by giving what seems to be advice for marital relationships between a husband and wife but then concludes by saying, "It is a great mystery ... I speak concerning Christ and the church." - Ephesians 5:22-32

Imagine that. Humans had been getting married for ages completely unaware that the everyday concept of marriage concealed a great mystery about Jesus and his congregation. This is just a small bit of a larger whole because as Christians everything in our lives has spiritual meaning. Our whole life becomes a sacrifice and an act of worship and even in simple everday things like eating and drinking we can glorify God.

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship." - Romans 12:1

"Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31