I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name. Isaiah 45:3 (NIV).
The Weeping Prophet was the name for the prophet Jeremiah. Yet again we are faced with the making of a prophet entailing hardship, rejection, and disdain. The weeping prophet was thrown into a cistern. He evidently would suffer and it would purify his inner man, making him the prophet that wrote the book of Jeremiah and Lamentations. To be thrown out is something we as Christians all face. To be one with Christ is to be rejected by the world. It is kind of like being picked last in gym. Christians are not looking for worldly popularity, far from it. When we want to know Christ we have to get alone, by ourselves. We have to find out what God thinks of us when no one else is around. The Christian life is not 'Mere Popularity,' although that could be the name of another book written by someone who was not a rejected poet.
C.S. Lewis never gained notoriety as a poet, but when he later became a Christian and turned to writing theology, his writing became well-known. He went on to become one of the great theologians of the faith. But the poet in him revealed a level of prophetic symbolism that would help him write the Chronicles of Narnia, with an archetypal figure, the lion Aslan. He depicted the gospel, and the events in the Bible in a story form that children could now read and comprehend. He had to depict in with symbols and characters.
Although we consider the Bible to be sacred writing, there are depictions of revelation in other novels and poetry as well. In this time, we must consider how much of what is happening is symbolic and in books, media and movies, and how much is happening in our hum-drum day-to-day lives. Jesus could lierally return in a movie, and we would all be watching on the big screen. It is important that we consider the media and fiction are huge influences in what people think and think about. It rivals the supernatural of the first century, now that we have the publishing and movie industries. These mediums allow us to enact things in a laboratory-like setting. It is contrived, but safer because it is somewhat artificial.
My conclusion: it stands to reason that there are few men and women on earth who would ask to suffer. Yet we are bettered and purified by martyrdom. We become like essential oils, with the impurities removed. We are now ready for the market, and 100% pure is a claim on our label.
