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 Award winning author Mike Mason brings profound and arresting insights on the life of faith. We commence a new series that are edited excerpts from his book 'The Gospel according to Job' (Crossway Books, 1994) Mike, a regular contributor to canadianchristianity.com, is perhaps most well known for his book 'The Mystery of Marriage.' that won the ECPA Gold Medallion award.
[other pieces by Mike Mason]
The most remarkable feature of the Lord's speeches to Job in Chapters 38-41 is how free they are of theology. For the first time in the book a character opens his mouth without any need to explain or rationalize. How refreshing this is, and how mysterious! Instead of rationalizing, God simply points. He points to the mighty works of His own creation that have been there all along for anyone with eyes to see.
Essentially God speaks to Job, and to all of us, just as He has all along in creation, bombarding us with the most ordinary of things and at the same time showing us how wonderful they are. Throughout our lives He keeps this up until one day, inexplicably, one little image impinges on our clouded screen, and all at once something perfectly ordinary splits our hearts wide open and becomes for us what it was meant to be all along: a love letter from our Creator, an original work of art signed by the Master of the Universe and hanging on our very own wall.
In a couplet of indifferent poetry that has become strangely famous, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, 'The world is so full of a number of things, That we all should be as happy as kings.' But we are not as happy as kings. Even when God spills open His treasure chest at our feet, still we seem to squint and grimace at all the jewels, as if they were too bright, or not quite bright enough, for our liking. How can we be so shortsighted in the face of God's glories? It's because we're living in a cloud of sin. We literally have scales over our eyes, just as Paul did after his experience on the Damascus Road. Is it possible that Paul's scales had been there all along, and the reason he went blind was that he had never seen them before? Three days later the Lord healed him and the scales fell from his eyes (Acts 9:18). Yet even then, apparently, the apostle continued to struggle with eye trouble for the rest of his life.
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G.K. Chesterton wrote that the way God describes all His fabulous creatures and parades them before Job, He makes each one seem like a monster walking in the sun. The whole is a sort of psalm or rhapsody of the sense of wonder. The maker of all things is astonished at the things He Himself has made. Chesterton goes on to conclude that the riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man, and that man is most comforted by paradoxes.
Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars? (Job 39:26) Thomas Merton's comment on this verse was, 'A Zen line in Job'. He was certainly right in detecting a Zen-like quality that runs throughout God's speeches. How like a koan is the question in 38:22, Have you entered the storehouses of the snow? Or consider this from 38:24: What is the way to the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
Deep within us, no doubt, lies buried a kind of psychic memory of what it was like for Adam and Eve to live in the Garden of Eden without sin. And even deeper must lie the memory of that very first morning of creation, just after the Lord had breathed His own life into Adam's nostrils and the man had opened his eyes on a brand-new world. Is this what Zen is? Is enlightenment a kind of echo of this moment? If so, then western Christianity, so inordinately pragmatic and rationalistic, could stand to learn something from the Zen masters.
At the same time, it should be clear that this is just one aspect of the Lord's message to Job, and that a full-orbed faith in Christ involves much more.
The gospel is more than just a return to Paradise;
it is entry into eternal life.
More than just an awakening to the reality that already is, it is the forging of a brand-new reality, a brand-new creation. To be born again is to add something new to reality that was never there before. This is the true Zen, the true Zion to which no one comes except through faith in Jesus Christ.
August 7/2008
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An increasing uneasiness rose within me as I read this article. Even though Zen Buddhism was mentioned several times as if it were a rational way of explaining God's Word, I still could not discern the reason for the uneasiness.
I would like to thank Irwin, who commented on this article earlier today. He gave me some insight into the reasons why I should purge this article from my consciousness. However, a further step is also necessary: Canadian Christianity should look into publishing a series of articles about the errors contained in other world religions. The Bible says that Jesus did not come to bring peace; He came to bring a sword. This sword, the Word of God, tells us that Jesus is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him." "There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." God has given us a complete revelation of His truth in the Bible, and Christians should be careful not to take counsel from those who appeal to teachings of other religions.
Sorry, Mr. Mason, but I hope you will make this a matter of prayer.
Opening the Bible to the interpretation of Budhism and the oh so lost Mystics is not what God desires of any of His children. Wolves in sheeps clothing. They look like sheep, they smell like sheep - but they are wolves.