Disclosure: Christianese ahead. I’ll try my best to deconstruct it, though. Also, there are entire fields of study dedicated to answering some of these questions, so please don’t mistake this one post in the middle of my journey for an attempt to conclusively provide answers.

My faith tree feels like it got struck by lightning this past year. Maybe even a few times. The damage doesn’t go all the way down to the root; I still see clear signs of quickening and health, even if they aren’t perceptible in the same way as ten years ago. But there are definitely some branches falling away. I can feel it. Some of the work is too close right now for me to be sure exactly which branches are being pruned and how, but I am trying to trust the process.

I’ve been asking questions I would have been afraid to ask before, and letting go of pointless shame wherever possible.

One of the questions I’ve asked is “What is the point of God?”

If people can still get sick.

If children can die of cancer.

If everything is so damned confusing sometimes.

What are we doing here? Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?

The thing is, I think maybe that was the point of Jesus. Because the Old Testament is full of stories of God and Israel just missing each other. There are moments when they see things for the truths they are. But the great majority of the time the nation of Israel is wandering around in the desert, suffering atrocities, committing atrocities, or making and following lots of rules (all the while recognizing themselves as God’s specially chosen people).

There are a lot of things in the world that are utterly bewildering. What is God like, if this is how it’s going to be?

In a letter to the early Jewish church (so some of the first Messianic Jews) it says “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being…”

I took some Chinese classes a few years ago (long story) (there were a lot of Chinese kids in my preschool class so the center I worked for paid for me to go) (OK not that long). </digression>

I remember in one of my classes the teacher explained that in Mandarin there are different words for light. In English we talk about “the light you turn on” and “the light you use to see”. We can use that word somewhat interchangeably. In Chinese though, the word is not interchangeable. “Tài yáng” means sun. The one that rises in the east. “Yáng guāng”, on the other hand, is defined as “sunshine, sunlight, or sunbeam”. The light that is, is a distinct concept from the light you can see by.

As a child I tried once to stare at the sun. Luckily I didn’t do it for too long, because looking directly at the sun can make you blind (I will sometimes foolishly ignore my mama’s wise advice, but only so far it seems).

There are ways in which it hurts my eyes to look at God right now. Through cancer. Through unexplained illness. Through death.

But if God is utterly like Jesus, as doctrine teaches, then there is some hope; though by no means a full explanation. Jesus, who cries with devastated people. Who uses mud and spit to cure blindness, who hangs out with embezzlers and prostitutes, who takes away shame where it can be of no help, and who preaches shame over those that would presume to make God so very exclusive and inaccessible to oppressed and hurting people.

So if Jesus is the Yáng guāng of God’s Tài yáng, I think I can see the point of him. I can’t look directly at the sun. But the light of the sun is the means by which I begin to see everything else.