DOA DAN REKONSILIASI

Berdoa merupakan hal yang sederhana namun juga sulit. Seringkali kita tidak berdoa kepada TUHAN melainkan kita hanya berbicara pada udara. Atau kita berdoa namun doa kita hanya berisi laporan, pengumuman maupun informasi kepada TUHAN. Saya yakin kita menyadari bahwa doa merupakan dialog dengan TUHAN, hanya di dalam kehidupan bergereja, doa seringkali menjadi kegiatan saling “copy paste”, dengan kata lain kita hanya mengulangi perkataan orang lain di dalam doa yang kita panjatkan. Pertanyaannya adalah apakah kita sudah berdoa atau kita hanya melontarkan kata-kata? Benar bahwa doa bisa berisi petisi (permohonan), intersesi (syafaat), adorasi (pengagungan) atau kontemplasi (perenungan). Namun ada satu hal yang HARUS terjadi di dalam doa kita yakni “rekonsiliasi”.

Rekonsiliasi atau pendamaian merupakan salah satu hal penting di dalam doa. Doa dapat menjadi mediasi bagi gejolak batiniah dan rohaniah. Seringkali, amarah, kekesalan, kekecewaan menjadi bagasi yang kita bawa ke mana-mana dan tidak jarang “bagasi” tersebut menjadikan kita malas berdoa atau bahkan menghindari doa. Kita kecewa pada diri sendiri melihat kurangnya kompetensi kita, kita marah menyaksikan orang-orang lain tampak lebih baik, lebih berhasil dan lebih bahagia dari kita. Kita kesal karena impian kita tidak bertemu dengan realita. Kemudian kita berperang melawan diri kita sendiri – bersikap kasar pada diri sendiri, membenci diri sendiri, memarahi diri sendiri dan meremehkan diri sendiri. Atau kita marah pada orang lain karena sudah diperlakukan secara tidak adil atau martabat kita sebagai manusia telah dilukai, ditampar dan dinjak-injak. Kita marah karena kita merasa TUHAN telah memperlakukan kita secara tidak adil. Kita marah dan menyalahkan TUHAN atas segala penderitaan yang kita alami. Kita merasa TUHAN telah bersikap kejam pada kita.

Nah, doa merupakan mediasi untuk mengalami rekonsiliasi - berdamai dengan TUHAN, diri sendiri, sesama, bumi dan realita. Melalui doa di Taman Getsemani, rekonsiliasi terjadi di dalam diri Kristus antara keengganan-Nya untuk menerima cawan dengan hasrat-Nya untuk melakukan kehendak Bapa untuk meminum cawan yang pahit. Paulus mengatakan bahwa kita menjadi ciptaan baru (pemulihan martabat) karena Allah, dengan perantaraan Kristus telah mendamaikan kita dengan dirinya, dan telah mempercayakan pelayanan pendamaian kepada kita (2 Kor 5:18). Rekonsiliasi melalui doa merupakan mediasi bagi kita sebelum kita melaksanakan pelayanan pendamaian yang merupakan mandat dari Allah. Kiranya Roh Kudus menolong kita! 

Batam, 29 Agustus 2014

Lan Yong Xing

THE DEEP MEANING OF HAPPINESS

Happiness is a much sought after topic, it has been discussed for centuries. I believe every person on earth is searching for happiness despite their different definitions of happiness. We may need to halt and ask ourselves, “What are we yearning for?” Why is there always a sense of “not enough”? Sonja Lyubomorsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California poignantly states, “We quickly get used to many of the accomplishments we strive for in life, such as leading the big job or getting married, soon after we reach a milestone, we start to feel that something is missing”. Cornelius Plantinga Jr. echoes that there is always a sense of “not this” or “still beyond”.

We plunge ourselves into extravagant shopping and tempting culinary to give us satisfaction. We are happy for the infinite choices that the market offers us, yet ironically we are distressed with the amount of choices and we often find ourselves in the state of not knowing what we want. We are worried and distressed as we fear that we might miss out any good choice or fail to satisfy ourselves satisfactorily. Soon we find ourselves in hedonic treadmill – endless pursuit of happiness. What we call happiness turns out to be superficial or happiness in disguise. Happiness seems “beyond reach” or using J. R. R. Tolkien’s expression, “beyond the walls of the world”.

Back to our question, what are we truly yearning for? According to C. S. Lewis, there is sense of Sehnsucht (spiritual longing). Alas, we long for what has been lost.  But what has been lost? In order to understand this, we can look at the first plot (Creation) of the main drama of the world – Creation (original plan), Fall (problem) and Redemption / Re-Creation (solution). When God creates out of emptiness, He proclaims all materials are good.  He desires material to be good, to be managed and to be enjoyed. Human beings, the crown of creation are created in His image and likeness. As the image bearers of God, human beings are to mirror the glory of God. Interdependency of Creation portrays the chain of relation of all creations. With all these as the setting, God mandates human beings to work – produce, develop for common good. They also receive the mandate to marry, reproduce and to develop cultures and civilization.

However, sin has vandalized the ultimate purpose of the Creator for creation. Human beings are alienated from their Creator, fellow human beings and the nature. This state of estrangement is a tormenting misery. Human beings yearn to recover this lost of harmony. Work is degraded to exploitation with human pride and glory as the operating system. Marital life is also distorted from Adam and Eve (monogamy) to Adam, Eve and Irene (polygamy), Adam and Steve or Eve and Irene. Sexual union is disordered from covenantal relationship to lustful desire for union not just with human beings but also with other creatures.

Human beings are searching for “edenistic happiness” or implanted “residual memory of the Paradise (David Naugle). We are searching for the lost “relationship”, “divine DNA” and the “garden of Eden”. Due to our disorderliness, what we love is potentially harmful to us. Tolkien’s character of Smeagol best demonstrates such life. Smeagol’s love towards the ring tormented his life entirely, both physical and spiritual making him “Gollum”. Or put it in another words, human quest for happiness is disordered and harmful to the seekers. Timothy Keller in his The Prodigal God has poignantly showed us two paths of happiness demonstrated in the parable of the prodigal sons. The path of the younger son is hedonistic, sensualistic, materialistic, egoistic and against tradition whereas the path of the elder son is materialistic, arrogant, egoistic, self-righteous, virtue-seeking and traditional. The path we choose might be harmful to us.

Why aren’t we satisfied in our quest of happiness? Why is there always something missing? The bible explains that God has also set eternity in the hearts of men (including women), yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 3:11). It is the spirit in a man (again, including women), the breadth of the Almighty, that gives him understanding (Job 32:8). Hence, only when divine nucleus (Anselm Grun), divine DNA (Richard Rohr) or Sensus of divinitas (John Calvin) is recovered, we cannot attain true happiness. Only when we recover what Augustine calls the “Summum bonum” (the chief good) which is the Creator Himself, we cannot find satisfaction. True happiness occurs only when human-divine union is attained – one with God in Spirit (1 Cor 6:17) and “participate in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

God invites us, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare” (Isaiah 55:1-2). God offers us true happiness. Yet before the full realization of God’s Kingdom, happiness can be experienced paradoxically – happiness and pain. Christ (divine-human hybrid) suffers rejection, homelessness, separation in order to bring us home to the Father’s extravagant banquet which symbolized the infinite happiness. This is our joyful homeward journey. Let us embark on this journey!

Batam, August 22, 2014