CHRISTIAN NEWS MAGAZINE FOR KERALA MALAYALEE CHRISTIANS FROM INDIA AROUND THE WORLD
JANUARY 2008 ARTICLE
VOL:07 ISSUE:01

A BRIDGE IS BUILT FROM 'THERE TO HERE'
By PROF. DR. ZAC VARGHESE, LONDON

“It is clear that a bridge cannot be built from here to there. But can it be built from ‘There to here’?” This question was raised in an essay written by Ravi Revindra on Kirshnamurti, the Indian thinker. Kirshnamurti was a consummate thinker. It was Kirshnamurti’s nature and authentic style to ask such questions to provoke and challenge people to think. He always wanted people to work out things for themselves without sleepwalking into someone else’s ideas and borrowed thought processes. For him ‘thought was the function of mind trapped in time.’ He searched an encouraged his students and listeners to develop an ‘intelligence beyond thought’ through out his life. Fragmentation of life he thought was due to thinking of one thing and doing another. I think that the above question is fundamentally important to us and Christmas narrative is a perfect answer to the above question. However, the questioner expects us to respond to this question from different perspectives: the purpose of building a bridge, the type, resources needed, method of construction, when and where so forth. I was particularly stimulated by the many sidednesses and the depth and stretch of this question and my very limited response in this short article is just a beginning of my journey on the spirituality hidden in this question of bridge building. I invite my readers to think and respond from their own perspective.

Do we realise that the current fad of effortless information collection has the built-in potential danger of causing intellectual paralysis, which may destroy our thinking faculties? Like junk foods, ready made thoughts are available for us in all situations of life. With ‘data mining’ and ‘Google search’ with few key words it is now possible to become an armchair pundit on any subject. However, the way to knowledge begins with the admission of ignorance. The person who cannot learn is the person who thinks that he knows everything that there is to know. There is a miracle in observing the unobserved realities; there is a miracle in breathing in the untutored-truths; there is a miracle in catching the drops of truths from ‘the clouds of unknowing’ to quench our spiritual thirst. Such people have a ‘thirst for God, the living God.’ But the greatest miracle is the miracle of silence; such miracles are born when silence speaks to silence. It is in silencing certain genes scientists are discovering the magic of protective genes. It is in silence, silence of mind, that we observe the ultimate reality. There is no shortcut to this, silencing the mind is necessary to enjoy the harmony of the divine music. Psalmist had this realisation when he wrote: “Be silent and know that I am God.” It is in this reality we have the oneness of the creator and the created. This to me is the ‘intelligence beyond thought.’

Humanity through out its history has had various traditions of building bridges, or towers, tower of Babel, to reach heavenly heights; it is an effort to build a bridge from ‘here to There’ for our pilgrimage. Most of the institutionalised religions are such bridge builders trying to find us a way to heaven through their separate and closely guarded toll-gates. Do-it-yourself human efforts to reach heaven from earth have been a failure and this leads to the conclusion that a bridge cannot be built from ‘here to There.’ But to me Christmas story is the answer to the question I quoted in the beginning. Yes, a bridge is built from ‘There to here’ because we read about it in St. John’s gospel: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John3:16). The incarnation story is all about building a bridge from ‘There to here.’ Therefore, for the first time mankind was able to see, feel and touch the immortal, infinite an eternal in the inseparable humanity and divinity of Jesus the Christ. It is only in our utter poverty of spirit we will be able to reach out for the divine grace and find the bridge that He has built towards us. We need to have the experience of the ‘dark night of the soul’ of St. John of the Cross to reach out for the divine light. Then we come to realise and repeat the question that Sri Aurobindo raised “Is it when I am nothing that I truly become a man?” It is in our nothingness that we will be able to enjoy the fullness of the amazing grace of God. The fullness and abundance of life begins from our self-emptying. Hannah’ Song (1Sam 2:1-10) and Mary’s Song (Luke 1:46-55) are examples of this self emptying.

We have lost our God-given humanity because of our self-centred attitudes and ego boundaries. We only have an outward skin of a human form, the human character has been sucked out of the system because of man’s inhumanity to man. Society as it is organised today has become complex, corrupt and destructive. We look to others, religions, governments, reformers and visionary leaders to bring about necessary changes. We seem not realise the simple fact that each one of us is responsible for what is going on in our families, communities, and societies. To bring about the necessary transformation, we need to change ourselves in utter humility to receive the grace available to us. Christmas is a time to remember that such amazing grace is abundantly available to us through repentance, trust, reconciliation, and transformation.

It is clear that a ‘bridge cannot be built from ‘here to There’ through sacred books, gurus, priests, philosophers and organisations, God’s amazing grace is the bridge that he built for us built from ‘There to here.’ In the Yahweh’s world of the Old Testament we often see God as a stern judge and law-giver, there was nothing between man and God except an unbridgeable chasm, estrangement and fear. Prescriptive sacrifices, prophetic and priestly mediation, covenant and contracts were available to people for their immediate needs; the concept of an after life, resurrection or heaven was far away from their thoughts. God’s appearances to Moses were in wind, fire, thunder, lighting and cloud. It was a column of cloud by day and a column of fire by night that led Israelites through the desert. How could one build a bridge under these circumstances? But in Jesus this chasm is replaced by intimacy, the fear by unconditional love, and the estrangement by friendship. In this friendship, we live within the life of the other. This relationship is built through the indwelling Christ and His kingdom within us. In John’s Gospel we see how abiding in Jesus, having an intimate organic union, is necessary for an abundant harvest. We then realise that faith itself is a grace or gift from God. This grace is grounded in the will of God and not in human achievement or desire. This led Paul to say, “Thy grace is sufficient for me.”

To strengthen this idea further we should look to the final stages of the crucifixion narratives. The veil of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom, when Jesus died on the cross; it is another expression of grace and love of God flowing from Him to mankind. Let us join in the flow of this grace to build all the necessary bridges in our lives to make real connections to mend brokenness through love and kindness. I wish that we may find that ‘Golden bridge of love’ that Jesus built through his birth, life, ministry, death on the cross, and resurrection at this Christmas. Christmas is not just one isolated fairy tale event, but through this window of opportunity we should be able to see how the whole salvation plan for humanity is knitted together into the rich tapestry of Jesus life from the very beginning through Bethlehem to Calvary and beyond. We cannot get away from the reality that God came in search for us and He built the bridge from ‘There to here.’

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