"I think Jesus is the only man in history who never bored anyone. ... Since Jesus was the only man in history who never bored anyone, it follows that if your Jesus is boring, your Jesus is not the real Jesus. If it's a tame lion, it's not Aslan."
"Habitual boredom, boredom not with a specific task like chopping wood ten hours a day but with everything, not only leads to sin; it is a sin. The medievals called it "sloth," one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Sloth is not simply laziness. In fact, it does not necessarily imply any physical laziness at all. It means the passivity and inactivity of the will and the desires even in the presence of the true good. It is the soul's refusal to eat its food. Violence is spiritual junk food, and boredom is spiritual anorexia."
"What is the opposite of boredom? Not pleasure, not even happiness, but joy. Joy always includes surprise, sometimes even shock. Joy's opposites - rage, outrage, horror, and terror - are also shocks. Those who meet Jesus always experience either joy or its opposites, either foretastes of Heaven or foretastes of Hell. Not everyone who meets Jesus is pleased, and not everyone is happy, but everyone is shocked." Think about it - it's true!
Kreeft maintains that "everything God does is a surprise." For example, consider creation: "For in creation, the God who is everything and needs nothing acts as if He needs everything. ... God is not reasonable, in any human, expected sense." He creates spiritual persons - angels. And man. And he gives man "free will and lets him choose between Himself and Satan, Heaven and Hell, light and darkness, life and death. It is no charade: if we choose the Enemy, He lets us do it, and respects our freedom - forever."
Kreeft goes on to explain how 'crazy' it was for God to become man. Not only that, but He became a "human zygote, fetus, baby, boy, teenager, man, and then a corpse." And then there's this gem - "And then He gave Himself to our mouths and our stomachs as well as to our souls. That thing that looks like a little piece of bread - that's Him. I certainly sympathize with most Protestants, who do not believe that. It is nearly unbelievable. The priest puts God into your left hand, and you pick up God Almighty with your right thumb and forefinger and you swallow God Almighty, and He falls into your stomach. That is crazy - as crazy as the Incarnation."
"This is 99.9999999999 percent unbelievable. Like the Incarnation. This baby who can't even speak until his parents teach him, this man who has nerve endings all over his body and gets hungry and tired and bloody and gets nailed to a cross and dies - that is the "holy God, holy strong one, holy immortal one, "the eternal Word of the eternal Creator Who spoke all time and space and matter into being."
Wow!! How crazy in love is He with us! ♥ How merciful! How NOT boring!
Next time - a little of what Kreeft says about 'presence' ...
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