Hello & Welcome to the Seeking in the chaos podcast, where a few of us help those who are seeking for God. We hope to give some answers and reasons about putting your faith in Jesus. My name is Barney Joseph and I am a sculptor. I have also had struggles with my faith and over time I have put my faith in Jesus.
It is important to know why we believe in what we believe. These are all matters of faith and we hope that as you listen, you will consider placing your faith in Jesus.
Question:
Have you seen people going on a procession with pots on their heads and some of them would have their tongues pierced with a miniature spear? Some of them lash themselves, some even have hooks pierced into their backs and strings tied to these hooks. These strings will then be tied to a dancer and as he/she dances there will be tugs on their skin! There are other kinds of penance too! Some take a journey to a holy place like Sabarimala, Mecca, Velankanni, or the Vatican city! Some people even try to enact Jesus’ sufferings by crawling, getting whipped and even crucifixion!
They must go through a lot of pain! It seems like they are doing some penance. All that struggle is for the god they worship. Why do you think people go through such rituals of pain and suffering?
Some Ideas:
I think that everyone, including us, are afraid of Judgement! Look at it this way: Different religious systems believe in an afterlife of sorts. Some believe in being reborn as a human. Some believe in being reborn as another life form on earth. Some believe in places like heaven and hell. There is a belief in an afterlife!
No matter what one believes in, before the said afterlife begins, everyone believes that there is a judgement! Everyone struggles with this! This is where the judgement part comes in. Someone or some entity or some system has to decide who goes where and in some cases…in what form!
That is why many believe in doing penances, asking for forgiveness, taking long pilgrimages, doing a lot of charity towards their old age, some penances involve sufferings in the form of beatings, piercings, walking on coals and even getting crucified! They are trying to please the Judge! Or in some cases, bribe the Judge!
All of these methods or struggles are because of the belief of how judgement will be made before the next life or the afterlife begins. We all, without exception, want the next life to be good, maybe even better than this one we are in! Let’s talk about the systems…
Karma:
Some believe in Karma, that comes from our deeds or actions. There can be good karma and bad karma. Good or bad karma can affect this present life! Some believe that bad karma from the previous life can affect this present life. And by extension, the bad karma of this life can affect the next life too!
In some religious beliefs, it is said that God will not forgive bad karma. What you sow is what you reap! You may have to live a life as a reduced being with sufferings. And so you are stuck in the cycle of rebirth until you can break the cycle with enough good karma at the end of a few lifetimes! Even though you may have more good karma, the judge (could be God or some system) could send you back into the cycle!
This system is similar to removing dross from gold, it will be repeatedly heated until all dross is removed! Many religious systems have now de-emphasised this and focus on other concepts of breaking out the rebirth cycles and going to the good place!
Tipping the scales:
The other system is thinking of one’s life deeds as objects. Our deeds will be put on a balance scale, with 2 buckets on either side. One bucket will have all our deeds, or our heart will be kept on one side and the other bucket will have an ideal weight. In the Egyptian system, it is a feather. If one’s good deeds outweigh the standard weight/feather then one did not get to go to the good place! You have to be at the same weight or lighter than the standard weight. However, the judge might not look favourably and send one either to live another life as penance or send one to hell, because of one particular deed or staining of the heart! So there is that part that is not guaranteed!
Great deeds or Labours:
The Greeks and the Norse had a belief that doing some great deeds for the gods or challenges that the gods had assigned to them assured that they would get better treatment in the afterlife. Doing something great or killing some opponent had a factor in appeasing the gods. The afterlife had separate sections for really evil people, common populace and great people. This was all decided by a god who ruled that realm.
The Greeks had Olympic games. People chosen by the gods would compete with each other in athletic games. It might be a race to the finish line, or carrying heavy things or throwing a javelin. The one who wins this would gain the favour of the gods. They get to become heroes and go to the good place. What about the others? If you had a defect, then you wouldn’t be chosen. You would be judged by the nature of your death! All go to the underworld and there are divisions there: Some good places for the heroes, some places for the other good people and a bad place divided according to the degree of evil; filled with suffering and pain, wandering around with no release.
The Cup metaphor:
The next system I would like to share is the Christian view. I think it would be easier to understand this with a metaphor!
Imagine a cup filled with pure water! It is sparkling and safe to drink. What if I took a little dirt off the street and mixed it in the cup? Would you be willing to take a sip of that water? What if we let the cup stay still so that all the dirt settles down? Will you now be willing to drink off this cup? What if I used a teaspoon and scooped out most of the dirt settled at the bottom? Will you be willing to drink this water? Would you consider the cup to be dirty too?
How can we fix this situation?
We will have to throw out the muddy water, wash the cup with soap and then fill it up again with fresh water!
Let’s try to examine this metaphor!
We humans are the cup, our life is the water gifted to us by God. Our sins are the dirt that we keep mixing into the water.
In the Christian belief, there is no one righteous! We all struggle with sin. This is like adding dirt into our cup. There are 3 limitations to this metaphor:
- The first limitation is that we can’t erase the past and therefore remove the dirt on our own!
- There is no other cup to transfer with a sieve or something!
- The other limitation in this metaphor is that we aren’t the source of the water. We don’t have another store of water. God is the source!
Jesus’ death on the cross factors into this logic. He paid the price for our sins. When a person believes in Jesus, he is filled with a “new water” by Jesus. A Christian is therefore called a new creation because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.
Now, do note that Jesus is the only one who can do that. The Bible says that, for humans, it has been decreed to die once and then face the judgement (Hebrews 9:27)! When a person is in Jesus, on that final day, it will be as though the whole muddy watered life has been poured out of the cup, cleaned and filled with the pure water that Jesus offers. Therefore there is no judgement when the cup is presented before God. Jesus has been given the right to give eternal life and to judge!
So what now?
We all struggle with judgement! Isn’t it nice to know that there will be no judgement at the end of this short life on this earth? What I see so far is that other systems do not give us any guarantees. In the Christian faith, there is a guarantee, there is hope!
Let me read to you a portion of the Bible called John 3:16
“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
Jesus came to take up the punishment of all humanity. By Jesus’ death we are forgiven. By his resurrection we know that he wasn’t just some person who came and died. Because he rose up again, we can trust Him. We can believe Jesus’ words in John 3:16. He doesn’t put that forgiveness up for sale or at a high price. He gives it freely to those who believe in Him!
It would be so nice to not be judged and end up being banished to an afterlife filled with suffering! All of this might sound cruel to someone who doesn’t believe in any God. So how did this idea come to be?
That’s what we hope to talk about in the next episode where we talk about the Banishment that led us to this predicament in the first place!
That’s it for this episode!
Parting Thought:
We hope that you will be able to place your faith in Jesus. At this point, that may be a difficult task. What we are doing here is presenting to you our faith. If you are interested, feel free to write to us or reach out to a church near you! Thank you for listening to the Seeking in the chaos podcast.
Got Questions?
If you have any questions, please do send an email to us. Our email is at the bottom of the page. We will get back to you with answers. If we are unable to figure that out, we will reach out to Bible scholars and get back to you with the answers. Have a great week and may God bless you!
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