Fireworks optional

I will admit it here, I watch the TV show “Agent Carter”.  And what a heroine she is, flawed but keeps on swinging (literally) and the bad guys are just no match.  There is a part in a recent installment where the uncontainable “Zero Matter”, some ancient force that manifests itself as swirling black ink, infects one of the other good guys, but because it is so powerful an entity, the Zero Matter explodes through his body.  (No gore, since the guy is inexplicably okay, thanks to Hollywood…)

Not so in the real world of uncontainable forces; just ask Hiroshima, Japan.  I’m not a bomb expert, but I think there’s something about juxtaposing a few disagreeable components inside a metal container, and when the prescribed reaction takes place, the metal container no longer exists, at least in its original form. 

Uncontainable force is something the Israelites knew a little about also.

“The LORD said to Moses, “Warn your brother, Aaron, not to enter the Most Holy Place behind the inner curtain whenever he chooses; if he does, he will die. For the Ark’s cover— the place of atonement— is there, and I myself am present in the cloud above the atonement cover.”

Without racking up my word count on Old Testament types and shadows, suffice it to say the Bible is pretty clear that God is uncontainable.  So, in a sense, He is speaking metaphorically here, trying to get a point across on a level they can understand.  (He has to do that with me all the time.)  I used to think this had more to do with God being angry at our presumption upon His presence.  Now, however, I think the point He was trying to make had more to do with protection; i.e., humankind, in our fallen state, no longer had the capacity to “be” with this Definition of Life they called “Yahweh”. 

Too much life??  Yes.  Uncontainable Life, beyond our imagination.  Life that created the Universe.  Life that instills the human soul within the human womb.

There was a time when I lamented that I didn’t “feel” God enough, and His response was that if He allowed to me to “feel” Him fully, I would be flat on my face and no good for anybody.  Incapacitated.  Even in our redeemed state, on this side of eternity we are not capable to fully appreciate His presence; there is only One man who could:

“For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ…”

I write this by way of encouragement for all my fellow “non-emotional” semi-introverts who bemoan a seeming lack of demonstrative response.  Our heart-passion for God is shown in the decisions of the will, not in the level of enthusiasm or the number of tears.

But then there’s Heaven….

 

Leviticus 16:2; Colossians 1:19  Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.