The End of Disability
“you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.” (1 Pet 1:18-21 cf. Rev 13:8)
Background
Last Wednesday I received a steroid injection for bursitis in my right hip. (This came from damage due to a fall that happened in the middle of the night some months ago.) My hip has been persistently painful and is causing some chronic limping. Nevertheless, by grace I am used to praying about deep matters sometime around 3 am. This teaching is the fruit of such prayer. I trust it will be useful my forthcoming trip to Myanmar from Sat 25/1 until Wed 5/2. Please join me in prayer as 3 brothers will be going with me this time.
Introduction
My title, “the end of disability” is deliberately ambiguous. It could means either the termination of human limitations, or their goal in the purpose of God. In this case the two coincide. Our culture is likely the first in human history when disabilities are profiled as potential advantages, in contrast to, say, “male white privilege”. Things have not always been that favourable for the disadvantaged, My father, suffered various WW II non-combat injuries in PNG, in the end qualifying him as a TPI pensioner (https://tpifed.org.au/), someone reckoned to be totally and permanently incapacitated. Unlike today, when disability is reckoned as an honour, at least in its potential overcoming, https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=250156, to go on that pension was reckoned as an indignity. That is a bit of western history, but the Bible is full of stories of the disabled, aged, blind, leprous, lame etc receiving mercy from their Creator. Today, the Third World still has many such folk. How then should contemporary Western Christians see disability? The Lord spoke to me in the dark hours about how he sees such tragedies. In my ongoing physical struggles the Spirit of the Lord continues to speak with me about eternal mysteries otherwise incomprehensible to the natural mind (1 Cor 2:6-11).
Death as the End of Disablement
The verdict following sin is death, “ of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die….the wages of sin is death” (Gen 2:17; Rom 3:23). In a world under the condition of the curse (Gen 3:17-18), death is reckoned to be the final and ultimate disability. It is “common knowledge”, that the dead can do nothing (Eccl 9:5). Even more pointedly, throughout the Old Testament to be unburied was a dishonour indicating that the person so treated was under a divine curse (Deut 28:2; Jer 8:1-3; 16:14; Ezek 29:5).
This is why the biblical stories of how the corpse of Jesus was honoured by spice and ointments are so significant (Mark 16:1; Luke 23:56; John 19:39-40). The well-known words of the Apostles’ Creed, “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried”, are not bland historical notes but the finale of the victorious earthly journey of the humanity of the Son of God. For Jesus, and so for us, death and burial are not signs of the final dishonour of a useless life, whose vitality is reduced to the strength of memory, but a gateway to glory. As the solemn Eucharist declares of Jesus, “Dying and living, he declared your love, gave us grace, and opened the gate of glory.” As the Bible proclaims, Christ has “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim 1:10).
God Begins Everything with Disability
A brilliant Aussie OT scholar, teaches, ‘If we can imagine God drawing up the plans for the universe before He created it, and if we could examine these plans, we would not see Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but Jesus Christ in the Gospel’ (G. Goldsworthy). In dealing with eternal matters, our thinking must begin before space and time. It is not wrong to teach creatio ex nihilo/creation out of nothing (Gen 1:1; Heb 11:3), but we all know that “nothing comes from nothing”/ex nihil nihil fit. Instead of arguing about ultimate origins from something as abstract as “nothingness”, Christians can speak of a loving timeless origin from a humble Almightiness who reveals himself as a pre-existent crucified and glorified Lamb. This the surprising vision that gripped the apocalyptic seer John, “I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. 5 And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” 6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” (Rev 5:4-6). The revelation of the Lamb once slain but raised (disabled-and-healed) is the key to how the all patient love of God (Ex 34:6) could create and preserve a world as evil, rebellious and rebellious as ours. The foundational first principle of the creation of the universe is not a mysterious “nothingness”, but a weak, pathetic, dead, but gloriously raised Lamb. “the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world” (Rev 13:8 cf. 1 Pet 1:19-20), who bears the holy and saving name. “Jesus!” (John 1:29).
Growing the Church through Disability
Humanly speaking, I can see no good, concrete, reason to go back to Myanmar. I have visited the pagodas and churches multiple times. (The language is far too difficult for me to attempt for someone who failed high school French! ) A persuasive reason is found in Paul’s words, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.” (2 Cor 5:16). I love the people and the nation, primarily because they are men, women and youth birthed and walking in the Spirit. If you are not seeing “all things” through the lens of God-willed disability you will never, until you see the Lord at least (1 John 3:2), comprehend such spiritual power. “when I came to you, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimonyof God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (1 Cor 2:1-4)
Conclusion
Preparing to go to war-ravaged and traumatised Myanmar, we (JY, NG, PN, RS), are full of expectation for revelations from the disabled-and-healed heavenly Lord. Not the least because one of the blessings of my more mature years has been working with believers from non-Western nations who respect the aged and so more readily submit to fatherly discipline. This enables a strong revelation to people like myself that weakness and aging are not the disabilities we might naturally imagine! The Western church long been searching for a new paradigm shift (cf. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21692327.2017.1422988#d1e341) to lift her out of spiritual lethargy (Rev 3:14-22). This can come as we submit our minds to the disabled Lamb who always worships his “Father in Spirit and in truth” (John 4:24 cf. Isa 58:1-14). Such a reconfiguration of popular Western consciousness (Rom 12:1-2) will precipitate repentance and trigger the revival we have long sought. PTL