“Cleansing the Temple” Malcolm Guite

Come to your Temple here with liberation
And overturn these tables of exchange
Restore in me my lost imagination
Begin in me for good, the pure change.
Come as you came, an infant with your mother,
That innocence may cleanse and claim this ground
Come as you came, a boy who sought his father
With questions asked and certain answers found,
Come as you came this day, a man in anger
Unleash the lash that drives a pathway through
Face down for me the fear the shame the danger
Teach me again to whom my love is due.
Break down in me the barricades of death
And tear the veil in two with your last breath.

This morning a listened to a podcast discussion on the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar that sadly seems to be inactive. Despite truncated production, the one episode that was published gave an invigorating introduction to Balthasar’s book Christian Meditation. From which, the hosts highlight VB’s theology of meditation, IN Christ. I have two takeaway thoughts and one takeaway prayer:

1. Thomas Torrance’s The Mediation of Chirst might make a great reading companion to VB’s Chirstian Meditation for their mutual, high christology. Torrance holds a reformed catholic view of the atonement that leaves much to mystery, while staying firmly trinitarian in upholding the hypostatic union. Jesus the Christ is cosmically inclusive by way of his exclusice mediation on the cross. In a similar way, VB maintains the particular mediation by the person of Christ, in prayer. By Christ’s mediation, one does not empty the mind in order to incite God to come near. Rather, Jesus prays for us as the incited action of God, particularly when he came near in space and time to pray for us in death (Lord, Jesus, pray for me now and in the hour of my death). “Why am I forsaken,” can only be prayed by Christ on his cross.

   VB and Torrance might hug or, at least shake hands, in saying: even now, the risen, slain-Lamb is behind the veil, praying to his father, in the love of the Spirit, for his people.

2. Prayer is inviting one’s soul into the presence of Chirst and finding one’s home in the triune God. AND Prayer is kneeling, at the trough of our sin, sadness, misery, and self-love, in/with Christ, long enough to find satisfaction in a father already running to meet us—coming to our senses…in the words of George Herbert, “Something understood.”

Our Father, in whom we surrender our perceived control, your self-revelation is heavy with value. Please bring your crowned king to rule, here and now, like it is there and always, in heaven. Give us grace enough for our next breath and decision, in remembrance of you. Please wash us with the clensing blood of your son, Jesus, as we wash others with the water of your word. Don’t steer us into the songs of the Sirens but sail us away from the rocks into the open sea of your love. Because we journey, fight, and serve your purpose, by your strength, and for your praise. Amen