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Morning Meditation
August 8, 2026
Reading: John 2:23-25
When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.
Excerpt from Paul Tillich’s The Courage To Be:
Doubt is based on man’s separation from the whole of reality, on his lack of universal participation, on the isolation of his individual self. So he tries to break out of this situation, to identify himself with something transindividual, to surrender his separation and self-relatedness. He flees from his freedom of asking and answering for himself to a situation in which no further questions can be asked and the answers to previous questions are imposed on him authoritatively. In order to avoid the risk of asking and doubting he surrenders the right to ask and to doubt. He surrenders himself in order to save his spiritual life. He “escapes from his freedom”(Fromm) in order to escape the anxiety of meaninglessness……Meaning is saved, but the self is sacrificed. And since the conquest of doubt was a matter of sacrifice, the sacrifice of the freedom of the self, it leaves a mark on the regained certitude: a fanatical self-assertiveness. Fantasticism is the correlate to spiritual self-surrender: it shows the anxiety which it was supposed to conquer, by attacking with disproportionate violence those who disagree and who demonstrate by their disagreement elements in the spiritual life of the fanatic which he must suppress in himself. Because he must suppress them in himself he must suppress them in others.
Meditation-Rebecca Northington
When I read this excerpt from Tillich alongside this text from John, “because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone”, I am once again blown away by Tillich’s uncanny ability to synthesize and simply grasp what it takes so many of us eons to communicate. The hope for Christianity has never been rooted in fear and judgement. It is not rooted in proof of Christ’s life, his ministry, or his resurrection. It is not rooted in being superiorly righteous or pious. God knows what is in all of our hearts regardless of how we act. He knows the hypocrites who pretend to love the poor and disregarded, but who in truth belittle and demean them. He knows each one of us who have abdicated our own relationship with God for a more reliable set of rules that we can abide by, and pressure our neighbors also to heed.
But spiritual self surrender offers only short term relief for the work we all must do. It temporarily stays these existential questions of meaning and purpose. Spiritual self surrender gives us permission to prioritize other things, while deluding oursleves into believing our faith is intact. This approach however, silos our multiple selves. How we live out our Christian lives is only relevant for specific audiences and in certain spaces with this approach - the places where we get credit for following the rules that other people have created. When we fully integrate a life of faith with all of the necessary wrestling, we begin to understand the full extent of God’s love for us and God’s hope that we share that love with one another, without calculation or intention. Rather with a sense of overflowing gratitude for the offering we have been given and a desire to offer it to all. It is Agape love. When this love is at the center of us and we continue to integrate our separate selves in faith - this is when we catch a glimpse of our purpose and the meaning of our lives.
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