Veritas Life Center Participates in Biola’s 2018 Advent Project
Veritas Life Center’s Joe Gorra contributed two devotionals to Biola University’s 2018 Advent Project, a project of the Center for Christianity, Culture and the Arts (CCCA). The projects are not merely text-based reflections, but an attempt to encourage people to engage scripture with the visual arts, poetry, music and a devotional reflection. The different art forms evoke different responses - affective and intellectual - even if not directly related to a particular scripture in the devotional.
For Gorra’s contribution, he reflected on the following topics and scripture passages, which are highly relevant to life in Christ far beyond the Advent and Christmas season:
“Intelligently Designed for One Body”: Scripture: Ephesians 4:1-7, Galatians 3:26, 28-29.
Dear follower of the Way: What are the core facts of your existence? Go beyond mere appearances or satisfaction with eyeball-sight. De-clutter the 'senses of self’ that collect around ‘who’ and ‘whose’ are you. Attend to the invisible yet consequential, spiritual reality of your life.
The Apostle Paul has a way of crystalizing what is important: Jesus’ people are union-ized into a worldwide body; a fitted-for-belonging communion of life-giving-life that flows from the very Spirit of God (Eph. 4:1). This is not merely about participating in a weekly congregational gathering, although those rhythm are important for the gathering-and-sent health of this dynamic organism called, ‘body of Christ.’ Paul’s apostolic vision-casting in Ephesians 4 is not about getting more people to merely ‘go to church’; he doesn’t suffer from that failure of imagination nor is he satisfied with merely ‘getting’ people to do something for the sake of being churchy.
And so here we are in 2019, learning to “live worthily of the calling with which [we] have been called,” at the heart of the world that we already live in yet from the body’s Center or Head, Christ Jesus our Lord. What wisdom and wonder from the mind of Christ is to be witnessed, gained, stewarded, and spoken into the world in which we dwell as body of Christ?
What does Christ’s “reconciling all things” ministry [2 Cor. 5:18-20; Eph. 2:16; Col. 1:20-21] signal for the world in which you embody as church . . . for the world of commerce and enterprise, of design and aesthetics, of education, of family, of local networks of community, of politics, of law, of even religion? Read More . . .
“Wise Men Pursue a Lowly Mighty King”: Scripture: Matthew 2:7-12. Here’s an excerpt:
The adoration of the wise men comes as a profound theopolitical act right in the middle of a high-stakes drama concerning “Who really is the ‘king of the Jews’?” Or, to cast it in a more theological light, “Who really is the Good Shepherd to rightly rule the people of God into the fulfillment of Yahweh’s promises?” [cf. vs. 6 prophesy from Micah 5:2].
More starkly put, can you imagine grand wizards surrendering their minds, let alone their reputations, their gravitas, their affluence . . . in pursuit of a childborn ‘king of the Jews’?? Enter: the wise men.
Matthew reports that upon ‘seeing’ the child with Mary his mother, the wise [men] throw themselves to the ground as a sign of devotion, reverence, adoration . . . the kind reserved for beings of high-ranking status, whether divine or human; and in that moment, they commit political heresy relative to Herod and yet now know more than the ‘insider’ establishment ‘knowers.’ Their adoration overflows with “gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh” (vs. 11). So stunning and wondrous. Here in this one verse, we have the climax of ‘general’ and ‘special’ revelation colluding together to summon joyously abounding adoration. Truly amazing. Truly miraculous. Read More . . .
In addition to the Advent Project, Gorra wrote for CCCA’s 2018 Lent Project, with a reflection on the “Public Reading of Scripture.” According to Nila Osline, communications coordinator for CCCA’s Advent and Lent projects, since the inception of these projects in 2013, the readership has greatly expanded to well over 32,000 people. According to Gorra, the CCCA Lent and Advent projects “are often delightful collusions of diverse art forms happening around scripture,” says Gorra.
I experience a vivid, central image with these projects: poets, artists, musicians, singers, writers all gathered around an open scripture, enacting their craft while scenes from everyday, ordinary life, flash-in-and-out as a background presence. A gentle, persuasive and searching wind swerves throughout the company of this many seen by faith. Where am I? What am I experiencing? It’s surely more than a mere web experience.
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