Christian Koans part IV

Case 41: Fr. Mark's "Different from the 'you' who rises.

Br. Adam’s Introduction: A man who has become Rabbouni’s teaching and example carries a bush, burning and unconsumed, within him. When the Logos is like a burning fire, shut up in his bones, right and wrong are intermingled. When every cell in his body is a snake, lifted on a pole in the wilderness, his hands will feel the cross as fullness for their emptiness, and he will see his teacher face to face.

Main Subject: A novice asked Fr. Mark “St. Paul said ‘I died daily.’ I know all students of Jesus will do the same. I know all activity of the mind will stop. I know, in light of that daily death, that ‘we will not all die, but we will all be changed.’ But if a student dies daily, how will resurrection be?”

Fr. Mark said “The Logos, born in us, is a vision of God. And God said ‘I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious.’ Since it was purely God’s doing, Jesus himself didn’t worry about resurrection. Neither should we. In ways we can’t currently grasp, the “you” who dies will be identical to, yet totally different from the “you” who rises. As to what that looks like, remember the scriptures: “For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day.” [bxA]

Br Adam’s Verse:

Fully alive, the glory of God is a continuous death.
One who sees it looks with Christ’s eyes on the world.
To him for whom being is God, God is always present.
To him who speaks in Reality, God is always absent.
But who can differentiate the mind of Christ from their own?
When you remove the log from your own eye,
who, ever after, is the one who blinks?


















Case 42: Fr. Mark’s “Now that you say ‘We are students’”


Br Adam’s Introduction: No one need testify to the man of suffering. He offers his back on account of those who beat him, who hold him of no account. When he offers his cheek to those who pluck the beard, his majesty is non-majesty. When opens his ear to listen as one who is taught, his desire is non-desire. By his stripes, God’s servant justifies many. Many awaken by looking on him whom they have pierced. By his acceptance, he gives those who accept him the power to become children of God. Who is like God, in all the earth? See the following.


Main Subject: Fr. Mark said to his novices “Remember, Jesus said ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but the Father in Heaven.’ Again he said ‘Call no man on earth your Father, for you have one father in heaven.’ Additionally, you have heard Jesus ask that his followers not be called ‘Rabbi’: ‘for you have one teacher,’ he said ‘and you are all students.’

But I’d go further than that: An eye cannot see itself, and a student learns best who doesn’t realize he’s doing it. Remember Jesus said ‘I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’ If you were learning, you would not have sin. But now that you say “we are students” your sin remains.”

One of the novices asked “What’s to be done, then?” Fr. Mark replied, “when is the last time you saw a snake?”


Br. Adam’s Verse:

Though the logos speaks in parables and riddles,
It’s not mind that understands the words
And it’s not ears that hear them.
Woe to the mouth through whom they come
He sends out his word and it heals them,
But they say he has Beelzebul.