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Thoughts
Do you trust thoughts which emerge unconsciously when, say, sitting as a passenger in some vehicle that has been stopped in traffic? Looking out of the window to see what has happened is not really any help. Perhaps it would have been better to have a newspaper or a book to read. Then idle speculation develops; then, without warning, the thought emerges.
I recently had such an experience when I began to think about towers. There are quite a few which are known to people who have never seen them, like Blackpool, London, Euston, the skyscrapers of New York and so on. They are almost the ultimate mark of 'civilisation'; are they also the mark of overweening attempts to overcome uncertainty, the knowledge of impermanence?
It is, I suggest, no accident that the story of Babel and its tower appears in Genesis, with its top in the heavens. The Lord saw what had been done - and the Lord did exactly what men had feared. He scattered them over the earth and confused their language.
Neither was it an accident that Jesus was tempted on a very high mountain where he could see the kingdoms of the world - the realms of the people scattered and confused - who would, if Jesus wished, fall down and worship Him; the ultimate treason against the Father.
When we begin ourselves to look at the confusion, the varied peoples, customs, laws, religions, nations in the world, the countries where they live, to say nothing of their wealth and poverty, the powerful, the powerless, the aggression, whatever peace there is enforced by police, militias, even low flying aircraft, it is not difficult to grasp, at least begin to understand the temptation spread out to Jesus, the almost limitless power.
It is very possible to see many significances shown in Jesus, not least the significance of being but one. It was not power he used, not as men know it. We are not called to arms by Jesus but to receive the true Word, the true Life, the true Peace. His tower is the tower of light.
Bob Mclean
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