Let man's
soul be a sphere, and then, in this,
Th'
intelligence that moves, devotion is;
And as the
other spheres, by being grown
Subject to
foreign motion, lose their own,
And being
by others hurried every day,
Scarce in
a year their natural form obey;
Pleasure
or business, so, our souls admit
For their
first mover, and are whirl'd by it.
Hence
is't, that I am carried towards the west,
This day,
when my soul's form bends to the East.
There I
should see a Sun by rising set,
And by
that setting endless day beget.
But that
Christ on His cross did rise and fall,
Sin had
eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I
almost be glad, I do not see
That
spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees
Gods face, that is self-life, must die;
What a
death were it then to see God die?
It made
His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink,
It made
His footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I
behold those hands, which span the poles
And tune
all spheres at once, pierced with those holes?
Could I
behold that endless height, which is
Zenith to
us and our antipodes,
Humbled
below us? or that blood, which is
The seat
of all our soul's, if not of His,
Made dirt
of dust, or that flesh which was worn
By God for
His apparel, ragg'd and torn?
If on
these things I durst not look, durst I
On His distressed
Mother cast mine eye,
Who was
God's partner here, and furnish'd thus
Half of
that sacrifice which ransom'd us?
Though
these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They're
present yet unto my memory,
For that
looks towards them; and Thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour,
as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my
back to thee but to receive
Corrections
till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me
worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off
my rust, and my deformity;
Restore
Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou
mayst know me, and I'll turn my face.
John
Donne has always been my favorite poet as well as being a person I could relate
to at an existential level. For some
reason, on 2 April 1613—two years before, at the urging of King James I, he was
ordained into the ministry of the Church of England, and eight years before
being appointed Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral—Donne found himself having to
travel westward from London to Wales, thus preventing him from participating in
Good Friday services which were, of course, better attended than such services
are today. Donne turns this unfortunate
circumstance, via a simple,
metaphorically-transferred geographical reflection, into a powerful theological
meditation on the mysterious yet profound significance of the events which had
occurred on Calvary hill some 580 years earlier.
I
don’t have the time or the expertise, as a mere theologian, to provide a full
exegesis of this poem. For that I will
defer to my niece, Rachel Doll, MFA.
Nevertheless, I would like to reflect on three theological themes that
clearly come to the fore in this masterpiece.
The
first is Donne’s sense of his own sinfulness. Indeed, at the beginning of the poem Donne
appears to portray his westward transit as a metaphorical journey away from
Jerusalem due to culpable distraction caused by “pleasure or business,” similar
to planets and stars whose somewhat less-than-circular orbits manifest
disobedience to their “natural form” by virtue of being “subject to foreign
motion.” Even at the poem’s end, Donne
pictures his westward journey as a turning of the back away from the crucified
Christ, which is, so he reflects, the proper stance from which to receive the
Lord’s corrective discipline and restoration of the corrupted imago dei.
Secondly,
Donne correctly grasps the significance
of the cross as the necessary means to ransom human beings from sin.
There I should see a Sun
by rising set,
And by that setting
endless day beget.
But that Christ on His
cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally
benighted all.
Here
Donne, by means of the somewhat obvious word play between the sun and Jesus as
the “son” of God, metaphorically compares Christ’s ascent upon the cross and
descent in death with a sun that paradoxically sets in the very act of rising—and,
no less surprising, whose setting begets the endless day anticipated for the
New Jerusalem in Revelation 22:5. Note as
well the insight that this death of the Sun (an allusion to the “sun of
righteousness” of Mal 4:2?)/Son was necessary
in order to rescue humankind from sin. God
could not have willy-nilly forgiven human beings their sin by sheer fiat and
remained just (as implied, e.g., in Romans 3:25-26). What was needed, and what God consequently
provided out of sheer grace, was a “sacrifice” (cf. Rom 3:25; 8:3) that “ransom’d
us” (Mark 10:45 et par.) from both
the guilt and enslaving power of sin.
Finally,
Donne profoundly grasps both the paradox
and the glory of the truth of what Luther shockingly called “the crucified
God.”
Yet dare I almost be
glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too
much weight for me.
Who sees Gods face, that
is self-life, must die;
What a death were it
then to see God die?
Christians
are well aware of the famous story in Exodus 33, where Moses petitions God to
show him his glory. In reply, God says,
“You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” Donne reflects on this, even rationalizing
that gazing upon the cross would have been a “spectacle” too “weighty” for him to
behold. Donne, of course, knew the
Gospel of John as well as the classic Trinitarian orthodoxy based largely on it,
and so he is merely setting up his major theological meditation. The Jesus who hung on the tree, as St. John
said, was the eternal Logos who on
the first Christmas “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14). As a result, even though “no one has ever
seen God,” “the unique One, himself God, who is at the Father’s side, he has
made him known” (John 1:18 [trans. JRM]).
Jesus, in other words, is the embodiment of the eternal Word/Wisdom of
God and, as a result, as John says, “we have beheld his glory, glory as of the
only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
Jesus’
was a divine glory that we humans could see.
But his was a glory not manifested by blinding, life-destroying light,
but rather a glory manifested in “grace and truth.” Where is this glory seen? Supremely—so
John argues—on the cross, the “hour” (John
2:4; 7:30; 8:20; 12:23, 27; 13:1; 17:1) when Jesus was “lifted up”/exalted (John
12:32) and “glorified” by the Father (John 13:32; 17:1). Here we have in a nutshell the gracious
condescension of the eternal God, the God whom to see is, for sinful mortals,
to die. The latter is indeed a
terrifying thought to imagine. But Jesus
Christ demonstrates that such a vision is not the only or last word. Jesus, as the eternal Word, is God in his
self-revelation. His is the human face
of God. And that means that Jesus hanging on the cross—Deus crucifixus—is the definitive revelation of God. In other words, if you want to know and understand
God as he has revealed himself to us,
look at this Jesus.
It
is always salutary for us who know Christ as our Lord and Savior to reflect on
these glorious, life-giving truths.
Indeed, life is ultimately meaningless, indeed hopeless, apart from
them. For those who may not yet know
this Jesus—and this God—please ponder the claims of Christ, the Son of God who
"condemned sin in the flesh (Rom 8:3) in order to “ransom” us from its
eternal consequences. And look in faith
to him. In John 3:14-15, the author
alludes back to a story found in Numbers 21:4-9. There, in response to the covenant people’s
faithless complaints against God and Moses, the Lord sent venomous snakes among
the people, as a result of which many were bitten and mortally wounded. The people then, as one might imagine, had
second thoughts and repented, in response to which God told Moses to make a
bronze serpent which, if looked at, would result in the preservation of the
beholder’s life. Jesus, in John’s view,
serves a similar role for all of us born of “flesh” and living in “darkness”: “Just
as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” Soli
Deo Gloria.
No comments:
Post a Comment