Self Trauma Hidden Idolatries

Introduction

Recently our household has been going through a trial amidst what we experiencing as extreme trauma. Relatives have been coming, staying and going, and I am preparing for a trip to Myanmar (23/1-3/2), whose subject will be Rest and Renewal with a focus on the healing of trauma.  If trauma is a feeling and state of powerlessness the human mind will often seek to overcome its sense of disablement by doing strange, indeed, paradoxical, things. I awoke in the middle of last night with a lacerated bleeding right hand, my writing hand, and knew immediately the source of the wound. As a teen I used to attempt public wounding to appeal to my parents for compassion. Unlike “the testimony of Jesus” (Rev 19:10) my urgent pain displays, were a strategy that never once worked. (The resurrection life granted from heaven would await much later conversion!) Therefore, it was clear to me that during my “dark night of the soul” (https://www.keylife.org/articles/the-dark-night-of-the-soul/), while struggling with bad dreams, I had turned to gnawing my own right hand unconsciously. Arising, I went on to do what I characteristically do when a revelation comes to me, I started to study relevant scriptures around 3.30 a.m. The outcome if the article blow.

Old Testament Practices

Many of us know about the self-mutilation of the priests of Baal on Mt Carmel (1 Ki 18:28) and the self-cutting of the Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5:5), but these ugly dramas are only outstanding examples of a much wider phenomenon. Despite the clear teaching of the Mosaic Law, “Priests must not shave their heads or shave off the edges of their beards or cut their bodies.” (Lev 21:5), episodes of self-maiming are quite common in old covenant Israel (Isa 22:12, 14; Jer 16:6; 41:5; 43:31; 47:5). In this way she had become “like the nations” (Deut 8:20; Ezek 20:32), despite the prohibitions of her merciful and compassionate Lord and God (Ex 34:6; Ps 103:8; 145:8). The relevance of traumatically induced self-mutilation continues in the modern world, for the Elijah call remains on the people of God (cf. Rev 11:3-13).

The Elijah Call

Whilst the glorified Elijah appeared to encourage Jesus on his way to the cross (Luke 9:28-36), he did not appear as an exemplary victorious prophet. Though famous for his triumphant encounter on Mt Carmel with the prophets of Baal (1 Ki 18) most of us overlook what comes next in the Elijah story.  Threatened with death by the pagan queen Jezebel, the patroness of the Baal cult, the man of God flees for his life and pleads for sudden death before the Lord, “He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.”” (1 Ki 19:4 cf. Moses’ desire to die in Num 11:14-15). If Elijah’s plea for death had been answered by his God, his passing would have been no more glorious than the invocations of the possessed Baal priests to their false deity. God’s will was greater than his own small thinking. Elijah must not die naturally but ascend into heaven triumphantly once he had completed his missionary commission (1 Ki 19:15-17; 2 Ki 2). Ascension did not terminate the call of Elijah, it continues is the S/spirit through John the Baptist down to us.

The Call of John the Baptist

John the Baptist carries Elijah’s spirit from conception to death (Matt 11:12; Mark 11:13; Luke 1:17). It shouldn’t surprise us therefore that despite his fearless preaching to those who would later kill Jesus (Luke 3), John begins, like Elijah in the wilderness, to lose faith in prison. “When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples ³ to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”” (Matt 11:2). The troubled and confused prophet is assured and blessed by the Lord Jesus: “Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”” (Matt 11:6; Luke 7:23). Therefore, John dies in peace declared by the Lord as the greatest of all the prophets “there is no one greater than John” (Luke 7:28). Jesus concludes with this challenge to his disciples/us: “Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he (John).”” (Luke 7:28). Though slaughtered via the spiritual harlot in the king’s palace, Herodias, just as his predecessor Elijah was threatened by evil queen Jezebel (Mark 6:14ff cf. 1 Ki 16:31), John advanced to glory. Evil men and women come and go, but the real agent working to undermine their faithful testimony is the dark spirit in the great harlot of Babylon perpetually plotting against the faithful Church (Rev 17; 18:24; Rev 20:4). “Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus… Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on” (Rev 14:12)

Overcoming The Sin of Self-Punishment

Like me, you may know folk whose arms and legs bear witness to slashing/self-mutilation following there suicidal thoughts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicidal_ideation.)  In Christ we need not react to such things by moralism or abhorrence but with “great grace” (Acts 4:33). For self-mutilation is only an extreme form of the self-accusation/self-criticism/self-judgement/self-blame so prevalent in the legalistic Western Church today. For all centring on self, rather than the indwelling life Jesus as “our life” (Col 1:27; 3:4) expresses the original sin of  turning away from our Creator-Saviour into oneself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incurvatus_in_se). Let us cease such infantile works and give heed to Paul: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:20). Living is not about our personal successes or failures, it is always about the all triumphant of plan of God in Jesus.

Conclusion

Whether it is my natural struggles or your daily temptations dear believer, we are in a continual battle with dark spiritual powers (Eph 6:13). Instead of submitting to deeply repressed childhood traumas and self-judgement the Holy Spirit is calling us to be “rooted and built up in Him” (Col 2:7; Eph 3:17). Our time is much like that of the Roman era, with cross-dressing self-castrating priests publicly celebrating their spiritual “freedoms” before the altars of their “gods” (https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/lgbtq-history/the-galli/).  The time is fast approaching when those evicted from the kingdom of God into the darkness of sin will involuntarily “gnaw their tongues in agony” (Rev 16:10-11), whereas the holy saints will be constantly moved to cry “Hallelujah” (Rev 19:1-7) concerning the final triumph of God and the Lamb. This is precisely what I was found doing as at first light when I went out prayer walking the streets around me this morning nursing my lacerated right hand. Since every form of supreme self-love is an expression of idolatry let us obey the divine commandment: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” (1John 5:21 cf. Ex 20:3).