「總要警醒禱告，免得入了迷惑。你們心靈固然願意，肉體卻軟弱了。」（馬太福音 26:41）
這是知道楊腓力事件後我想起的經文。
楊中生牧師在我初信主時曾告訴我，基督徒只是「蒙恩的罪人」。當年我不甚理解，因為我以為信主後只要靠著學習聖經的道理、遵從主耶穌的教導，我就可以讓自己趨於完美，一如我還是儒家信徒時，相信自己憑著修養品德，就可以成為止於至善的「聖人」。
直到我深受罪疚感所困， 楊中生牧師以上帝「無可理喻的愛」開導我，我才懂得神的慈愛與公義本質，懂得神與人之間那道無法跨越的鴻溝，懂得上帝的聖潔與榮耀，以及自己為何會同時「畏懼光」與「尋求光」----
因為我終於體認到，人與罪的關係是：「它必戀慕你，你卻要制伏它」（創世紀4:7）
在這樣充滿張力的的關係中，就會呈現這樣一種詭異卻真實的生命景況：
撐開陽傘
和地上罪的陰影
嬉戲（<懺>，2013年舊作）
我想，這應該就是楊腓力這八年來每天在熬受的日子。
至於審判，那是上帝的事。
***
“Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41)
This was the passage that came to my mind after learning of the Philip Yancey incident.
When I first came to faith, Pastor Jonathan Yang once told me that Christians are merely “sinners saved by grace.” At the time, I did not truly understand this, because I believed that after coming to faith, as long as I studied Scripture diligently and followed the teachings of the Lord Jesus, I could gradually perfect myself. This was much like when I was still a Confucian adherent, believing that through moral self-cultivation one could become a “sage” who abides in the highest good.
It was not until I was deeply tormented by guilt that Pastor Jonathan Yang enlightened me with God’s “incomprehensible love.” Only then did I come to understand the nature of God’s mercy and justice; to recognize the unbridgeable chasm between God and humanity; to grasp God’s holiness and glory; and to understand why I could simultaneously “fear the light” and yet “seek the light”—
For I finally came to realize that the relationship between humanity and sin is this:
“Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”
(Genesis 4:7)
Within this relationship, so full of tension, there emerges a strange yet profoundly real condition of life:
Opening a parasol
Playing
with the shadow of sin on the ground
(“Confession,” an old work from 2013)
I imagine that this is the life Philip Yancey has been forced to endure, day after day, over the past eight years.
As for judgment—that belongs to God alone.
沒有留言:
張貼留言