Violence is the Answer

“11 Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” (Matt 11)

After a year and ten days in the darkness of the ark, Noah opened the door and blinked and squinted at a brand new world.  Everything now was different.  Everything!  A year ago, they had entered into the ark as just another family of peasants in a world full of people laughing at them.  Today, they exited that same ark as kings of all they surveyed.  The flood was an obvious pivot point in history.

The greatest pivot point in all history however would have to be explained to the folk living in it or it could easily be missed!  When Jesus came everything changed forever!  “And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Rev 21)  Everything the Law and Prophets pointed to was being fulfilled, the system God has set in place for men to approach Him was being fulfilled and now the Kingdom of Heaven had come!  The last prophet, the greatest prophet according to Jesus, had come and instead of pointing down the hazy road of history to come and saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.” (Mark 1) he pointed across the Jordan and hollered, “There he is!  The Lamb who takes away the sins of the World!”  Talk about your awkward moments!  How silent it must have been in the crowd that day?

And yet, here we are, at the most, only two years later and Jesus has to remind the crowds of it.  ““What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 25 What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in kings' courts. 26 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 27 This is he of whom it is written,

“‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face,


    who will prepare your way before you.’” (Luke 7)

Jesus has to frame it for them.  Some went to see the spectacle.  Some to hear something novel.  (Keep in mind, there were no televisions and Jews frowned on the Greek theater.  Before there was reality shows, there was reality.)  Some to ensure this new fellow wasn’t a heretic and threat to their power.  Some to ensure this new fellow wasn’t another rabble-rouser and a threat to bring Rome down on their heads.  Jesus however tells them what John was…

He was the End of the Beginning and the Beginning of the End!

And what proof does Jesus offer for his claim?  Look, he says, at what has happened since.  “16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it.” (Luke 16)  The “violence” that the Kingdom suffers is the good kind!  The “violent” are the thieves, publicans, harlots, poor, ragged and ill, the demon possessed, Gentiles and yes, a couple of fishermen, the outcasts of society who had not accepted what the “pious” said about them.  They had instead crowded to Jesus.  They forced their way into see him.  Sometimes tearing holes in roofs, sometimes forcing their way through crowds on hands and knees just to touch his clothes.  Sometimes barging into a house where he was a having dinner with his disciples to plead with him.  They climbed trees.  They dragged him to their homes.  They dumped perfume on his head and cried on his feet.  They followed him night and day.  This is not the picture of passivity.  Yes.  They are weak.  Yes.  They know their need and that need is what drives them to desperate acts!  And those desperate acts when directed to Jesus’ mercy are childlike acts of faith so richly rewarded!  For they become greater than John the Baptist and great in the Kingdom of Heaven!  ““If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” 36 And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”” (Mark 9)  Many were receiving Jesus.  “33 For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ 34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ 35 Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.” (Luke 7)

Our faith is not a passive thing.  It is not a wait-and-see thing.  It is not a sudden shower of grace falling on us while we were doing something else!  It is a violent child-like, hop-on-Pop thing!  Children have no interest in niceties.  They are not concerned with their image or public opinion or manners.  They run and jump and yell over what excites them.  They run and jump and yell to who excites them!  Who loves them!  “23 And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ 26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’” (Luke 13)  It is not enough to hear the teaching and like some of the words.  It is not enough to “like” Jesus’ page on Facebook.  Our faith is not going to church on Sundays!  Our faith is not a part of who we are.  We are a part of it!  We are a part of Him!  Strive to enter!  Receive Him.  Accept Him.  Abide in Him.  Never stop pressing in!  Never stop desiring Him.  Never stop serving Him.  Then see if the flood around you changing the whole world isn’t one of Grace!

“14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1)

A Need's a fine thing that all people need.

“13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” 14 Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” 15 And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.” (Luke 7)

This is not the first person to be raised from the dead.  Elijah and Elisha both raised children back up for their mothers… or more accurately, prayed and asked God to raise them back to life (Notice Jesus doesn’t pray or call out to anyone, he simply says, “I say to you…”).  This is not even the first time we read of Jesus raising anyone.  Jairus’ daughter was awakened just a few chapters ago.  Jesus doesn’t make a big deal about the resurrection of this young man like he does when it’s time to raise Lazarus.  There’s no production, no asking relatives whether or not they believe in Him, no waiting for the proper moment when no one could dispute whether or not ol’ Lazzy was really dead or just taking a really long nap… without breathing.  Jesus is just taking a walk, sees the procession and takes pity on a poor widow.  It’s as random an incident as can happen in a world completely under the Father’s dominion.  So I submit to you that this incident is not about resurrection…

It’s about compassion.

Oh sure, it demonstrates God’s power.  And yes, it is pre-runner of all tears being washed away through the restoration of all things lost.  But the final resurrection when Jesus brings us all to himself, the wedding supper of the Lamb, the big Shindig in the sky is a drawing of the sheep before their shepherd.  We rise and immediately take our place before the Throne.  We rise to worship Him!  Not to take back up our earthly positions and duties.  “30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” (Matt 22)  Instead, here Jesus gives the boy back to his mother.  He returns him to his earthly service, his mortal concerns, his old life.  He is not resurrected to something new.  He may very well have a newfound respect and outlook on his life, but it’s still the same life: same B.O., same mom, same job in the same small Podunk town.  He will still need to answer the same questions we all have to answer the minute our feet hit the floor next to our beds each morning.  He will still have the same need to figure out what to do with the life he’s been given…twice.  How should he spend his days?  What is worth doing?  What isn’t?  What should he be about?  What is his life for?

And that’s what this story is about.

If Jesus is the Son of God, if Jesus really is a perfect, sinless man, then it stands to reason his life would be the model of a perfect, sinless life.  A life well lived.  Life as it is meant to be lived.  And when we boil it down to its essence, Jesus’ life can be summed up in one word.

Compassion.

We are sons and daughters of God.  Not of the same stuff as Him, not begotten but made, adopted into His Holy Family, Father, Son and Spirit.  The perfect wheel of love.  However, we, being given the ability to choose holiness or evil, chose evil, forever alienating ourselves, stepping out of the wheel and separating ourselves from our Holy Family. 

Or we would have, if our older brother, Jesus, had not had compassion on us from the very start and even before.  He was willing to give up his place in the family to draw us back in, to make a way.  To BE the WAY!  To take all of the sin and filth and rebellion pulling us down to death upon His self and give us His righteousness, His obedience, His purity so we could again enter into the perfect wheel.  Somehow clothed in His begotteness.  His God stuff!

Jesus’ life, even before He came to Earth, is all about compassion!  He took all he had, every minute of every day and gave it away to all those who had the greatest need.  The blind received sight, the lame walked, the deaf heard, the captive was freed and the dead were raised!  And greatest of all, our sins were forgiven!

This is how we are to live.  Loving God with all our heart, soul and strength.  Loving each other as Christ loved us.  Giving all the Father gives us away to those who have need.  Aid to the poor, healing to the sick, companionship to the lonely, forgiveness to those in debt to us.  “18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matt 18)  If we do this, if we truly try to give ourselves away like this, we will come up against an abrupt stone wall of truth…

We are not Jesus.

Jesus is our model in the story but the fact is, we are the widow.  We have as much need as the needy we will try to help.  But fear not, she has shown us the way as well!  Cry out!  Cry out to God and He will hear; He will have compassion on us!  Do not cry alone!  “19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matt 18)  The widow was not alone; she had a considerable crowd of her friends and neighbors with her.  The disciples were not alone, they had each other and they had a crowd following Jesus as well.  The crowds were mixed.  There was likely no common language; Aramaic, Hebrew and Koine Greek were probably all being babbled about.  There was no common affinity.  There was no common home.  They had but one thing in common.  One thing to draw them together.  One thing taking them down the road this day…

Their Need!

There is where God met them.  This is where God meets us!  “18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”” (John 14)

Dead Woman Walking

“11 Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. 12 As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. 13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.”” (Luke 7)

Before the gecko, before you were in good hands, before the corporations were on your side, before we made a profession of caregiving, before we expected the government to take care of us there was another system in place to insure people would be provided for in adversity, illness and their elder years…

It was called a family.

You didn’t have to find one; God had set it up so you were in one at birth.  A boy would be schooled and cuddled and scolded and trained up until the age of thirteen in one and then he’s ready for the workforce.  He would be apprenticed, either to his own father in the family business or farm or possibly to another man in town who needed a helper or in whose trade the boy had shown a talent.  Perhaps he may be a scholar and continue his education with the scribes, still a form of apprenticeship.  After a time, say five to seven years, he should be established.  He would now know his trade and be ready to take the next step of adulthood: to establish a family of his own.

For the daughter it would begin very similarly.  In the home, some schooling but mostly spending time with her mother and sisters and aunts and grandmother and cousins until she too reached the age of around thirteen.  By this time, she knows her trade; she has spent the last thirteen years learning the ins and outs of the household.  Her body has now told her she is able to bear children and so her father finds for her a suitable husband if he hadn’t had the lad picked out already or he and a friend hadn’t made arrangements much earlier.  This lad is most likely, or ideally a fellow around eighteen to twenty who has recently completed his apprenticeship for you see, the main point of the family unit is to provide!  To insure that his little girl is taken care of.  The cynic, the feminist may bemoan the patriarchal, archaic, authoritarian yea even despotic system that subjugated the will of the woman (remember, she may be thirteen but her body betrays her as an adult now), but if the father loved his little girl (and what kind of real father doesn’t?) and we see in the Bible many instances of fathers who doted and loved their little girls, he would obviously be trying to find the best man he could for her.  Someone from a good family, a hard worker, a lad going places.  This is the ideal of course, towns were small and so selection was most likely limited.  Some years there may be a good crop of raven locked, ruddy rascals to pick from and some years there may just be little Moishe the meager fishmonger.  Oy vey!

To our coddling culture that has extended adolescence right up to the Mid-life Crisis, full of boomerang kids playing videogames in their mommies’ basements and producing a generation of men who not only expect women to take care of them, they are so emotionally handicapped, they need them to, this ancient system sounds strange.  Regardless of how we feel about it, it had merits and it worked much of the time.  A woman was in a system of provision initiated by her father, was handed to her husband and in her declining years would be the purview of her children, most notably an eldest son.

But what if the woman were a widow?  What if she only ever had one son and then he died too?

It doesn’t take even much of a search of the Bible to see God the Father takes a serious view of how sojourners (aliens, immigrants, homeless), the fatherless and widows are treated.  Without even going into Deuteronomy, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and those guys affectionately known as the minor prophets, we have God’s original manifesto given in Exodus….

“21 “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 22 You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. 23 If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, 24 and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.”” (Ex 22)  Pretty straight forward, pretty cut and dried.  God may or may not help those who help themselves but He most certainly saves the helpless! 

“5 Father of the fatherless and protector of widows


    is God in his holy habitation.” (Ps 68) 

And God has come in the flesh to Nain.  A city where a widow follows the bier of her only son.  A young man on whom all her protection and provision and hopes lie dead.  She wails.  Does she wail the words of this very Psalm?  Does she wail the words of Exodus and Deuteronomy to her neighbors on whom she must now trust for aid and alms.  Can she trust them or will she have to resort to the only two trades now left open to her: begging or prostitution?  Both of which will cut her off from community and communion with God!  Her wail, whether of words or guttural howls, is not a request for aid; it is the last cry of a woman at the end of her means looking over the precipice of her doom.  She is undone.  She is a dead woman walking.

Except, God does see.  God does hear.  God is moved!  God does ACT!  In this case, He acts in a way no one could have predicted, no one could have believed, no one could have been praying for.  He stops the funeral procession.  The perfectly pure touches the unclean corpse and says to the mother, “Do not weep.” 

“3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”” (Rev 21)

A Little Push

“13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.” (Gal 5)

So we saw how the Law was a gift.  It showed us God’s standards for holiness, the requirements of righteousness, the metric by which we can measure perfection.  Those of us on whom God has shed his grace could see where they stood on that metric and realized they needed a little push.  “A little push” along the lines of what a satellite needs to break Earth’s gravity and get into space.  We all need a little help.  “A little help” along the lines of what a blue whale would need to perform brain surgery.

We need a savior!  If holiness is the Law of Heaven, the absolute bottom line for admittance to the afterlife and death, eternal death, is the result of breaking that law then life is nothing more than a mull in the marinade!  Cuz we’re as good as barbecue when it’s done!  But praise God from whom all blessings flow, He knew it!  He came and bailed us out!  And if you imagine your bail was set at only a couple of week’s pay or at most a month, go back to Leviticus and then to Matthew 5 and start over.  “24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7)  Jesus will!  Jesus did!  He paid that bail.  He delivered us by dying in our place, by tasting Hell for us.  God was satisfied and so He raised Jesus back up to eternal glory and so we know we shall be raised too!  No wonder Christians are nuts!  If we truly understood all this, if we truly ate it up and took it in and processed it in all it’s beauty, all it’s deliciousness, all it’s astoundingly, mind-gobberingly ecstatic goodness we’d all walk around laughing like monkeys in a fermented banana tree.

We.  Are.  Free!

But hangovers follow nights of revelry.  Life is full of Monday mornings.  Vacations, no matter how sweet, end.  And each day we must begin again to learn how to live in a world not only indifferent to our Savior and our joy but violently opposed to them.  They have used their freedom to overthrow God.  They have set themselves up as the rulers of their own lives, madness of course, their lives wouldn’t last another minute with not just His permission and forebearance but His continued blessings.  Not the least of which is His veil of invisibility without which He would be pretty difficult to deny.  But we’re not talking about them.  We don’t choose how they live.  We choose how we live.  How then, shall we, chosen, loved and freed live?

Do we not still have the Law?  Now that it no longer holds us down and beats us with our weakness and insufficiency, we can see it for what it is: the beauty of holiness.  What better way to honor our King than through obedience?  Not to save us, for we are already saved!  No, to honor and bring glory to Him who sits on the throne!  It is no hardship either, for all the law is love!  Which in itself holds the germ of submission for the glory of another.  The Law says to do the Law, wheels within wheels.  And as we learn to love the Law which is Love, we become more like God who is Love and we enter into communion with Him!  Why would we not want to do this?!

But is it want of want?  Did we not say, before we were saved by another, who then can be saved?  Did we not ask, Who can keep the Law?  We did.  And the solution here is the same as it was before.  Another must keep the Law in our place.  God himself must honor himself through us!  “16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” (Gal 5)  It is not we who provide the “little push” for we know we need a “little help.”  We just “walk with the Spirit.”  We do not see Him.  We do not know how much is Him and how much is us.  (Almost certainly all the former and none the latter.)  We just do, in faith that God is faithful.  “7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Cor 5)  “7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.” (1 John 3) 

So yes, Mr. Iverson, it’s practice.  And while it won’t make us perfect, it is the road we walk to it. It is the jersey which tells the world whose team we’re on.  It is the metric by which we will be judged.  It is the fruit by which we’re known.  Much more, it is that same fruit by which they will know God.

Freedom's just another word for...the law?

“169 Let my cry come before you, O Lord;


    give me understanding according to your word!

170 Let my plea come before you;


    deliver me according to your word.

171 My lips will pour forth praise,


    for you teach me your statutes.

172 My tongue will sing of your word,


    for all your commandments are right.

173 Let your hand be ready to help me,


    for I have chosen your precepts.

174 I long for your salvation, O Lord,


    and your law is my delight.

175 Let my soul live and praise you,


    and let your rules help me.

176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,


    for I do not forget your commandments.” (Psalm 119)

Law.  Rules.  Commandments.  Say them slowly.  Say them out loud.  How does your heart react to the very sound of these words?  How did the people who overheard you react to the sound of those words?  Now try these: Freedom.  Love.  Joy.  Slightly different notes being plucked on the heartstrings there I’m guessing.  I’m guessing if you stand up in your office and start shouting, “Freedom, Love and Joy!” and march out of the building, you might gain a few like-minded followers.  Shout the first list and you will probably only hear the door lock behind you.  And yet, the Word tells us the two lists are intrinsic.  Without the Law, we are slaves.  “34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” (John 8)  And the Law is love, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt 22)  If the Law brings freedom and love then no wonder the Psalms call it their delight!

But does the Law bring freedom, love and joy?

Your heart is not wrong when it shuts down on the words, Law, Rules, Commandments.  It does so because in our experience, we know these words do NOT bring Freedom, Love and Joy but Oppression, Repression and Subjugation.  The more rules we labor under, the less we feel like free men and women and the more in common we have with slaves.  Rules and laws mean submission and as only the merest casual observation will tell you, humans do not submit!  The closest we come is the appearance of submission in order to gain something we want: order, peace, security, love, prosperity.  This isn’t submission, this is subtle, selfish manipulation.  I’ll do this for you if you do that for me. 

And this is the heart of the passage in Psalms above!  It is the angst of Paul in Romans 7!  God created us!  God has freed us!  God has provided for us!  God has protected us!  Even when we are so blithely unaware of Him.  Even more so when we are downright hostile to Him!  He does all this and more for us and the best we can do is subtle manipulation for our own gain?  No wonder Paul rails, “13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me?”  It seems all the Law does is make us so much more aware of how far we fall short of God’s holiness!  Where’s the freedom in that!?  Where’s the joy?  All we got was a greater awareness of our sin!

Exactly.

“40 And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”  41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” (Luke 7) 

It was never the Law’s job to set us free but to show us how great a slaves we were!  God himself, through His Son, would set us free.  This was always the Plan!  This is why the Ten Commandments are immediately followed by instating the sacrificial system.  There can be no doubt when you have your bloody hands on the torn body of an innocent lamb how horribly violent God sees your sin.  If our hearts are freed by grace, we see, not a blood thirsty God but a God who sees clearly and wants more than anything to spare us, to save us from this, despite how wicked we are!  Remember!  All sin is inherently Pride!  Refusal to submit.  Me first!  Selfish!  The true antithesis of Love and as such is a destroyer of community, relationship, order, society.  The true antithesis of God!  You do not have an unselfish thought in your whole being!  If you do, it is truly, truly divinely inspired!  For God is Love.

“10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4)  Jesus completely submitted his own will to the will of the Father.  Don’t believe me?  Check out his prayer in Gethsamane.  He wasn’t itching to die.  He wasn’t looking forward to complete and total separation from God.  This would be the first time he would be cast from before God’s face!  This is true death!  This is what hell is!  But He endured!  For the glory of the Father and for the salvation of all who would accept his sacrifice on their behalf, all which would lay their bloody hands on him.  He modeled true love.  He washed us, stinky feet and all.  He modeled God.  Totally submitting himself to the Father for us, to free us from sin and death.  This is freedom!  This is love!  This is joy!

A New Beginning

“47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.” (Luke 6)

When God saved the Israelites and freed them from slavery, He baptized them in the Red Sea and brought them to Him at Mount Sinai.  There He made a covenant with them, He bound Himself to them.  The God of the Universe, the God outside the Universe, outside time, outside reality, relativity, responsibility bound His Holy self to a scraggly mass of refugees.  He submitted His Holy will to them and their good.  He fed them.  He clothed them.  He even provided money and riches to them through their now humbled neighbors.  He protected them in battle.  Then He then gave them a gift…

The Law.

When Jesus began his ministry to free all slaves, John baptized the people in the Jordan and the crowds gathered to Jesus on the mount above the Sea of Galilee.  There he illuminated the covenant God had made with His people: Blessed are the poor, the hungry, the meek, the scorned and persecuted for God Himself would provide for them!  God Himself would protect them!  He even healed their sick to show he meant business!

Then he gave them the Law.  There he explained and expanded the Law so that even those delusional enough to think they had kept it before would realize now that they hadn’t even come close!  Love your enemies.  To curse a fool is murder.  To look at a woman lustfully is adultery.  As you forgive, so will you be forgiven.  As you judge, so you shall be judged.  Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.  Not good.  Not good enough.  Perfect!

Did they laugh?  Did they scoff?  Did they weep?  Did they just walk away shaking their heads and ask, “Who then can be saved?” 

Who indeed.

When you believe God to be a Holy Judge and you begin to see what His standards really are, the only proper response is to cry out, “Who then can be saved?!”  Some may try to deny God as Judge.  They claim His love and grace but even while doing so, they deny its power and origin.  For you see, there can be no love and grace to us without God being Holy. 

Adam and Eve were created sinless.  They had a form of communion with God.  They were naked and unashamed; they walked with Him in the garden.  It doesn't appear they were holy however.  For you see, God was carefully attempting to teach them what Love is.   If the Word is teaching us Love is total submission to and for the good and glory of another, Adam and Eve were very carefully and deliberately being educated.  They were given something to do and something not to do.  In choosing to obey, they could demonstrate the seeds of love.  Since they had to be taught this, they were not in full communion with the Father and Son.  Therefore, the Father and Son were “set apart,” i.e. Holy and demonstrating their love for the created by trying to bring them into their communion, to enter into their holiness, their completeness.

Sin destroyed this nascent communion.  Pride urged our parents to try and become complete in their selves, to love only themselves, to take another path to godhood.  Sin makes big promises and delivers only death.  Was God surprised?  Did the Father and Jesus say to each other, “Shoot!  Gotta plan B?” 

Yeah, right.

Like it or not, this was foreseen.  This was Plan A.  You might even say it was Plan ΑΩ.  For now God could really show us what Love is! 

Our tendency, our instinct is to love only ourselves.  To submit to only our own wills, our own desires, our own animalistic, squirrel brained whims and fears.  This makes us slaves, it destroys our humanity, it destroys our relationships, it destroys God’s image, which is love, grace, mercy, holiness.  We devolve to our basest selves and we die tragic deaths.  Incurvatus.  Turned inward.  Ingrown.  All that’s missing is the pus.

So what was God’s solution for proud, stiff-necked, self-willed, unloving, rebellious, hellion children?

He gave them the Law.  Confused?  So were they.  Unlike them however, you’ll only have to wait until, Lord willing, tomorrow for the explanation.  They had to ponder it for thousands of years.  See?  Grace and mercy already.

The deadline for the Syndicate to respond is passed, the old dream 

is dead.

A moment of silence for the old dream..

kay, nuff o' that!

For the Rabbits are charging into a new and glorious future!  Stay tuned, bunnyfans!