My Acne and Faith Journey Part 4: Not an Ancient Myth
Acne and the Defective Heart: A Spiritual Diagnosis
At church, I learned that I had to make Bible reading and prayer a regular habit for spiritual growth.
I was taught to start reading the Gospel of John, and after that, continue with the Epistles of John, the remaining gospel accounts, and finally, the Epistle to the Romans.
I decided to purchase another Bible as I wanted to grow deeper in my acne and faith journey.
After browsing the bookshelves, I opted for an ESV Bible that included maps and illustrations.
This time, reading the Bible was different.
It felt as if life itself was bursting from its pages. It was unlike anything I had experienced before.
Other books gave me knowledge, but this one breathed life into me.
It satisfied a hunger within my soul that had long been starved. God’s words were soothing my wounds and uplifting my downcast soul.
But that wasn’t always the feeling.
The more I read, the more I see that in my pursuit of all the externals that would affirm my self-worth, I slighted the God who loves me.
Worse, I saw God as an instrument to give me the very things I worshiped.
…for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.
John 12:43
And I realized my experience with acne magnified the defect in my heart.
I saw acne as a sabotage for the outcomes I wanted for myself—a threat to my desire to have firm control over things coming my way.
The success and self-image I vowed to author for myself was an idol I wanted to build, so I would feel godlike and make others worship me and sing me hymns of admiration.
The Bible just gave me a heart diagnosis, and it wasn’t a good one.
I thought I was just struggling with confidence, but I was struggling to erect my golden calf of self .
I was in sin and hostility and idolatry against God.
I wanted to be my own god, exchanging God’s glory for mere human praises.
Because deep in my core, I wanted to be more important than others…even more important than God.
Reading the Bible was convicting me, yet the whole time I couldn’t help but be more drawn to Jesus.
This Can’t Be Man-made
Even though my mom disliked the idea I was leaving our religious tradition, she gave me a gift that helped my budding faith to be well-grounded.
It was a Bible study guide, “Beholding Christ…The Lamb of God: A Study of John 15-21″ by Charles Swindoll.
It provided me with historical and cultural information, as well as cross-references and insights, that helped me see the overly familiar Stations of the Cross with fresh eyes.
On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus was teaching his disciples while they were on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane.
He told them that he is the true vine, the Father is the vinedresser, and the disciples are the branches.
The disciples need to abide in Him if they were to bear fruit.
As the branches are attached to the vine, Jesus instructed them to abide in his love and to love another as he loved them (John 15:1,5,9,12).
On their way to the garden, Jesus and the disciples went across the brook Kidron.
The brook, which was on the east side of the Jerusalem Temple, was dark red because of the blood of approximately 250,000 slaughtered Passover lambs.
Then, he prayed: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word” (John 17:20).
And while he was praying for me, and for every unborn person who will believe in Him, the bloodied sight and smell of the waters foreshadowed the horrors of crucifixion.
Judas betrayed his own Rabbi for a mere thirty pieces of silver, the price of a slave. He led a band of soldiers to the garden where they often met.
But Jesus was not even caught surprised. He engaged first and asked, “Whom do you seek?” (John 18:4).
The heavily armed soldiers responded, “Jesus of Nazareth.”
The moment Jesus declared “I am he,” “they drew back and fell to the ground” (John 18:6).
But though they were knocked to the ground, they couldn’t revere Jesus’ divine authority.
Judas still betrayed Him. The soldiers still arrested Him.
The religious leaders “made plans to put Him to death” because they saw Jesus as a threat to their religious positions and their nation (John 11:53).
They accused Him of blasphemy because He claimed to be God (John 5:18, 10:33).
The religious leaders deliberately breached Jewish law: they arrested Jesus and held His trials at night, they hired false witnesses, and they turned Him over to Roman officials when the Sanhedrin (composed of 70 to 73 ruling men) needed to decide on the matter first.
The way they tried Jesus shuddered me: “Then they spit in his face and struck Him” (Matt. 26:67).
I got so used to seeing the crucifixion scene that it ceased to disturb me, but this truly unsettled me…Jesus covered with his own blood and men’s spit.
It was already early morning when Jesus was handed over to Pilate for a Roman trial.
Pilate was told that Jesus was “misleading [their] nation and forbidding [them] to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a king” (Luke 23:2).
But Pilate didn’t find Jesus guilty of treason against Rome. He was even surprised Jesus was silent and did not defend Himself against the allegations.
Pilate sent Jesus to Herod for a trial. But Herod did not make any decision and had Jesus sent back to Him.
So, Pilate decided to scourge Jesus.
Jesus was tied to a low column while the Roman soldiers took turns whipping Him as many times as they pleased.
The lashes woven with metal balls clung deep on to his flesh, shredding and tearing it.
A whole battalion of Roman soldiers, usually around 600 men, was called to be present in this barbaric torture and mockery (Matt. 27:27).
It was an amusing spectacle for them: The King of the Jews, clothed in a purple cloak and crowned with thorns, was no king at all but just a degraded man.
Pilate presented the scourged Jesus to the crowd that they might pity Him and realize He posed no threat neither to Jerusalem nor to Rome.
But they demanded Barabbas, a murderer and an insurrectionist, to be freed instead.
Pilate still furthered his efforts to release Jesus, but the chief priests used the political card to make Him cave in:
If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes Himself a king opposes Caesar.
John 19:12
The crowd cried, “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!” (John 19:15).
Pilate succumbed to the mob’s roar. He washed his hands and delivered Jesus to their will.
Jesus bore His cross to Calvary to die by crucifixion—the most horrendous capital punishment ever invented by humans.
Jesus was offered “wine mixed with myrrh” (Mark 15:23). This narcotic drink could have dulled His senses and numbed Him of pain.
Yet, He refused and chose to be conscious of the full pangs of crucifixion.
The Roman soldiers shoved Jesus to the ground.
They hammered down large iron spikes through His wrists and feet to fix Him on the cross. The soldiers then lifted up the cross.
Under the strain of His full weight, Jesus’ nailed wrists bore the downward force, dislocating His shoulders and elbows.
As Jesus remains suspended on the cross, His body weight tugged on His diaphragm.
So, when He breathed, air entered His lungs and became trapped. Jesus had to push against His nailed feet to breathe out.
Breathing became agonizing and suffocating.
Flies and various insects swarmed around Jesus’ disfigured form, while the crowd derided and ridiculed Him as He was forgiving mankind (Luke 23:34).
Soldiers arrested Him at night. Religious leaders put Him on Jewish trial the same night. Pilate put Him on a Roman trial early in the morning. Soldiers crucified Him at 9 AM. The crowd mocked Jesus who was suspended on the cross for six long hours.
In an unbelievably brief period, Jesus was pushed to His physical, emotional, and mental limits.
He had not rested nor slept the previous night. He had not eaten nor drank anything since the last Passover meal He shared with His disciples.
The only thing Jesus had before He died was a sip of sour wine. He drank this cheap, invigorating wine to keep Himself conscious of the unbearable pain.
After He drank it, He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Then He died.
And finally, this old church hymn I always halfheartedly sang finally struck a chord within me:
Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world
It left me thinking this can’t be a man-made story. The whole plot runs contrary to ancient literary tendencies and human nature.
Ancient literary techniques tend to embellish. Human nature desires and seeks glory.
Who would write about a character utterly rejected and humiliated and condemned to punishment reserved only for the vilest of criminals…and claim that character is God Himself incarnated in human flesh (fully God and fully human)?
Even the theme of salvation is incomparable to other literary pieces I studied in college.
Mythological heroes rescue people from evil threats from without. Gods and goddesses need to be appeased with sacrifices.
But Jesus redeems people from the evil within and without. And Jesus is the sacrifice to appease God’s wrath (Rom. 5:8-9).
So how can this be a story of human invention when foreshadowing, a literary technique, was used to hint at events occurring thousands of years later?
Right in the Exodus chapters where I gave up on my first serious Bible reading were the hints of the big reveal.
The tabernacle God wanted Moses to build so He could dwell in their midst points to Jesus— the second person of the Triune God who became man and dwelt among us (Ex. 25:8-9; John 1:1,2,14).
The bronze altar, where animal sacrifices were burnt, was a foreshadowing of Jesus’ crucifixion on the Calvary (Ex. 29:38).
In the same way the bronze altar was in the outer court of the temple, Jesus was crucified outside Jerusalem (Ex. 40:6).
In the same way the bronze altar was all covered with blood on the Day of Atonement, Jesus offered His blood as atonement for our sins (Lev. 8:14-15, Rom. 3:24-25).
The blood from thousands of animal sacrifices was not enough to pay for my sins.
Jesus canceled my debt to God by paying it with His holy blood (Col. 2:13-14).
Because if Jesus never paid my debt, the wages I would receive would have been death (Rom. 6:23). There would be no chance of eternal life for me.
The veil of the temple served as a barrier, that only the high priest might enter the Most Holy Place in the temple once a year (Ex. 26:31,36; 30:10).
But when Jesus died, the “veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” that we may “enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus” (Matt. 27:51; Heb. 10:19).
It was mind-blowing to fit all these pieces together—especially since the Bible study I had with the pastor’s wife was also about this.
When the Samaritan woman talked to Jesus about the place of worship, Jesus responded that place didn’t matter.
His response was alluding to the torn veil. This direct access to God, not limited to any location, was granted through His blood.
I only had a very basic training in literary criticism, but I couldn’t dismiss these connections as mere coincidences.
This kind of foreshadowing only implies that the whole plot must be conceived outside of time… and no one is outside of time except God.
But the crucifixion wasn’t the end of this great story.
[1] golden calf (Exodus 32)
