Why Chains Shouldn't Excite You

The famous philosopher and all around awesome dude Plato had a vicious little story that's known as the allegory of the cave. It's commonly used to describe the possibility of an unknown metaphysical realm. This may sound like babble, but read on. The story kinda goes like this -

imagine you've lived in a cave your whole life. Chained to the wall, immobile, since childhood, with other prisoners. Rough story, right? It gets better. Behind these prisoners is a fire, and between the prisoners and fire is a walkway, raised off the ground, where people carry things and go about their business. So you see the shadows that are cast by them, and hear accompanying noise, and you perceive the shadows to be real, tangible people - not just their shape being reflected onto the wall.

It's hard to change perspective.

Now suppose, you are permitted to stand up. Wouldn't that be an amazing experience in itself? Foreign...and scary. You would turn around and see the people on the walkway, but not be able to recognize them or make sense of them. You'd think the shadows on the wall were more real than the legitimate things that cast them. And what about the fire? Wouldn't you take one look at it and avert your eyes? Wouldn't you want to retreat back into the darkness you know to be real to you?

Now, what if someone dragged you out of the cave? At the time, it seems they're forcing you against your will, but we all know that a man who spends his life inside a cave is missing out on soooooo much! And once you saw sunlight - you would be distraught and blinded and very, very scared. But scared of what? An entire world of promise and happiness. What if this cave was on top of a mountain? Across from a waterfall? We all know what wonders the world holds, but this prisoner would be frightened to death and want to retreat back to the cave - the safe, real cave.

It's hard to change perspective.

I think this describes, in a very real sense, our relationship with God. Somewhere along the line, we've lost what promise and joy God wants for our lives - I doubt this even as I type it - and have replaced it with more of an action movie villain. God's the punisher, the dude who comes out and splits the skies in half with a sword of light and causes random explosions of cities and goes boom and fire and AHHH!!!

We're just the prisoners inside the cave, and God is the guy who wants to drag you out. It's not fun, it's not easy, but wouldn't you want a world more than a cave?

I mean, sure, a loving and caring God is way easier to imagine than a "swift and hard justice" type God who kills people left and right with double-edged lightsabers. We want to believe it's all gonna be okay and that God's cool with us. John 3:16 is the most well-known verse for two very important reasons (at least, only two off the top of my head that relates to this post - if I missed something, anything, ever, let me know). One, it sums up the Gospel in one sentence. And two, it shows God's love. It doesn't say, "For God wanted to judge the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever is scared to death of Him shall maybe get into Heaven." It professes his love for us. For us!

The Bible doesn't say, "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is fear." Or judgment. Or doom. And in his letter to the Romans, Paul writes, "Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?"

Once you left the cave, why would you ever go back?

The text of the allegory poses this important question on the man who returns to the cave:

"Wouldn't he remember his first home, what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow prisoners, and consider himself happy and them pitiable? And wouldn't he disdain whatever honors, praises, and prizes were awarded there to the ones who guessed best which shadows followed which? Moreover, were he to return there, wouldn't he be rather bad at their game, no longer being accustomed to the darkness? Wouldn't it be said of him that he went up and came back with his eyes corrupted, and that it's not even worth trying to go up? And if they were somehow able to get their hands on and kill the man who attempts to release and lead up, wouldn't they kill him?"

This isn't news to Christians. It's happened before. Someone came down from up there and told us the real deal - we answered by shooting the messenger, Jesus.

Once you left the cave, why would you ever go back?

I hope this to be a spiritual journey for you, as well as myself. I don't profess to be a Christian know-it-all, or say that I have office to speak about every subject there ever is and was and will be. I'm just kind of thinking out loud. As Rob Bell says, "God has spoken, and the rest is commentary, right?"

Thanks for reading.

Note to self: Continue on the thoughts of being "Dead to the World". More of Paul.

Thanks to Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave