Following The Resurrection.3

"I know from where I have come, and where I will go. You cannot tell from where I have come, or where I am going.

You are from the earth.

I am from above.

You are of this world.

I am not of this world."

--Jesus

The Ultimate Extraterrestrial

Long before mankind would spend hundreds of billions of dollars investigating and speculating on whether there is life in outer space, a carpenter turned itinerant preacher in a remote country of the Roman Empire made an extraordinary claim to an extraterrestrial life!

Suppose this very Man-God had delayed His visit to this uniquely designed life-sustaining planet (supposing, of course, that His actual timing had nothing to do with the advancement of civilization). With today's 24/7 news cycle, can you imagine the debates that would erupt about the legitimacy of His message? What governmental agencies would NOT be employed to investigate His outrageous claims? What scientific bodies would not covet the chance to research His miraculous command of natural phenomena?

Hugh Ross, anthropologist/astrophysicist, makes a startling observation:

"Given the limitations imposed by the laws of physics and the conditions of interstellar space within the Milky Way Galaxy, a trip by physical intelligent aliens from another planetary system to Earth would take at least 25,000 years... That length of time implies multiple generations. As challenging as it might be to keep one generation focused on a single mission for their entire lives, the possibility of maintaining that focus throughout hundreds of generations seems hard to imagine. A more fundamental problem for interstellar space travelers, however, is that a trip of more than 25,000 years exceeds any reasonable extinction time for the onboard inhabitants. It’s one thing to keep a high-tech, intelligent species alive on a good-sized, resource-rich planet for that long (although even that possibility seems doubtful); it’s quite another to keep such a species alive, healthy, and goal-oriented for thousands of years within the confines of a spaceship."

Ross, Hugh. Why the Universe Is the Way It Is (pp. 60-61). Baker Publishing Group. (Emphasis added)

That certainly puts perspective on the words of Jesus and lifts the accounts of angelic visitations to a whole new level of wonder. Given what we know about the ubiquitous laws that exist throughout the billions of galaxies in this universe, Jesus' claim to come from outside this world confronts humanity with this choice: was He a lunatic or the Lord Creator God?! 

Think about what we could do with the billions of dollars we could save not listening to the stars but rather broadcasting Jesus' message to this world!

"For God so loved the world,

that he gave his only Son,

that whoever believes in him

should not perish

but have eternal life."

-John 3:16

FOLLOWING THE RESURRECTION.2

"This is what I have told you from the beginning, that all things must be fulfilled which is written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and by the Psalm-writers, concerning me!

Christ must suffer, and then rise from the dead on the third day; that repentance and forgiveness of sins might be preached in his name among all nations, beginning in Jerusalem."

--Jesus

"To see a Truth, to know what it is, to understand it, and to love it, are all one....To see one divine fact is to stand face to face with essential eternal life." --George MacDonald

Eternal Goodness Itself Suffers in the Fire of God's Redemptive Plan

The Consuming Fire is God working through the ages in His science, history and poetry to impart His vision of the Truth of essential life, that is eternal life, to every human soul whose eyes have not been opened, whose child-heart has not yet been born in him.

• A burning bush transforms an eighty year old man from lawless fugitive to premiere lawgiver 
• A smoking mountain makes a slave-bound people fit for
  
  nationhood
• Fiery visions warning of impending judgments turn hearts from sin
• A hellish, blood stained cross purifies a ragtag group of men who turn the world upside down 

For our Creator regards men not as they are merely, but as they shall be; not as they shall be merely, but as they are now growing, or capable of growing, towards that image after which he made them that they might grow to it.

Therefore a thousand stages, each in itself all but valueless, are of inestimable worth as the necessary and connected gradations of an infinite progress.

Growth toward the divine nature is accomplished through the divine process: repentance (agreeing with the Creator's indisputable right and necessary duty to judge how our actions measure up to that image) and forgiveness (accepting the bonding of our hearts with His by releasing our revealed inner corruption into the Fire of His Perfecting Love).

This, follower of Jesus, IS Good News worthy of our efforts to proclaim to everyone: that the Living Savior is at work with His father, tirelessly transforming every individual into His Goodness!

(adapted from The Consuming Fire, Unspoken Sermons I, George MacDonald.)

FOLLOWING THE RESURRECTION.1

"Oh fools, and slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Should not Christ have suffered all of these things and then enter into his glory! Be faithless no longer, but believe."

- Jesus

Slow belief or Suspended disbelief?

In order to get the fullest experience from a work of fiction, whether on screen or in a book, we are often

required to suspend disbelief. We know people can't really fly around on broomsticks, or spaceships travel at warp speed to distant galaxies, or caped wonders bend bars of steel. We also know reasonably mentally healthy people can distinguish between fantasy and reality.

And we know people don't come back from the dead. Especially those who die in an exceptionally brutal manner!

To shake them (and us) out of the fog of disbelief, Jesus directs our thoughts to this powerful truth: the Savior fit to save all mankind must suffer the worst of mankind's warped world.

He created a world worth redeeming.

He came from heaven to rescue that world from natural and man-made induced suffering.

He gave himself to show what it is that makes a god worthy of universal devotion, honor, sacrifice and worship.

He lived Perfect Obedience to the Perfect Will to develop Perfect Love in all the created order.

God plunged himself into the most significant and toxic of human experiences: the suffering man brought upon himself when he realized not only his own vulnerability and the fear of exposure when his disobedience cast him out into a hostile environment, but that he could, with forethought and malice, inflict hurt on other naked/vulnerable members of the species.

As Dr. Jordan Peterson* observes,

"...the rise of self-consciousness and its attendant realization of mortality and knowledge of Good and Evil is presented in the early chapters of Genesis (and in the vast tradition that surrounds them) as a cataclysm of cosmic magnitude...
Earthquakes, floods, poverty, cancer--we're tough enough to take on all of that. But human evil adds a whole new dimension of misery to the world. Conscious human malevolence can break the spirit even tragedy [can] not shake.
...the central problem of life—the dealing with its brute facts—is not merely what and how to sacrifice to diminish suffering, but what and how to sacrifice to diminish suffering and evil—the conscious and voluntary and vengeful source of the worst suffering."

Sacrifice and Suffering

The idea of sacrifice as a means of holding suffering in "abeyance" and ensuring a more beneficial future is an idea as old as mankind itself. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the benefit.

My wife recently took a tumble with her horse resulting in a severely broken ankle. She was in another state hundreds of miles from our home on a trip she'd planned with several of her horse riding friends. Those friends demonstrated extraordinary sacrifice in ensuring the best possible future for my wife's foot. First, they immediately cut short that day's ride. Then they transported her to the nearest emergency room...an hour away. Then they rearranged their schedules to accommodate the follow up visits with the surgeon who needed to repair the ankle. And they took her place for cooking and clean up duties so that she could rest! The benefits of their sacrifice included minimizing the suffering my wife had to endure and a deepening of the bonds of friendship.

Why must the Savior suffer?

The greatest benefit for all of mankind is to be made right, eternally given to the highest good possible: Oneness with God. The disciples would have some sense of this idea as sons of Israel whose history was replete with illustrations about the purpose and effectiveness of God-ordained sacrifice.

What they certainly did not grasp is how God himself would offer himself as the Ultimate Sacrifice to achieve the Ultimate Benefit for mankind. Nor that his resurrection put the stamp of finality that this sacrifice was eternal!

image by 2013 Anatoly Shumkin

"...the Son of God, who, instead of accepting the sacrifice of one of his creatures to satisfy his justice or support his dignity, gave himself utterly unto them, and therein to the Father by doing his lovely will; who suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their suffering might be like his, and lead them up to his perfection" -George MacDonald

Just as suffering shapes the person (our response can leave us stronger, more patient, humbler, with deeper understanding of God's care and will, -or- it can leave us bitter, vengeful, angry, wounded) sacrifice shapes the suffering in giving it meaning and purpose in helping us reach our potential to love...like Jesus.

"Greater love has no one than this that a man lay down his life for his friends."

Now you know.


*Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules For Life, chapter 7

The Living Word.9

"I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world...

Surely the heavens above you, and the earth beneath your feet, will one day pass away;

but the words that I speak will never pass away."

--Jesus

Image from L.A. Times

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  And God said, Let there be... and there was.” Genesis 1:1,2

Order and Chaos

From the very beginning, we are told that Speech Brought Order Out of Chaos.  

In a series of lectures on the Bible’s account of Beginnings*, Dr. Jordan Peterson, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Toronto, details how the foundational principles of all life are encapsulated in this ancient text.  The importance of understanding these principles as the guiding force of civilization cannot be overstated. For example,

• by revealing God as the Ultimate Authority of organizational structure, a pattern of Dominant Hierarchy was established that provides a framework to build families and societies upon.  
• “Thou Shalt Not…” established a measure for truthfulness.  
• Cain and Abel demonstrate the difficulty both of receiving correction and mastering destructive urges.
• Noah and the Flood teach that by aiming to live by the highest possible Good, one can find a way out of the world’s overwhelming problems while saving a life or two.
• Ham’s curse shows the severity of mocking the sanctity of Fatherhood and
• the Tower of Babel puts the lie to “too big to fail.”

Remarkably, many other cultures throughout history and around the globe have similar stories demonstrating, without doubt, that despite cultural and language differences humanity, in cooperation with Nature's God, has figured out the things that work to sustain Life on Earth.

These “natural laws” engraved in the narrative of human experience were encoded, through speech, into the greatest organizational/governing structure in the history of mankind, namely the US Declaration of Independence and Constitution to provide order, stability and prosperity to its citizens.

But Chaos, always a clear and present danger, lurks ever ready to upend order.

Recent events in the USA demonstrate. The U.S. Constitution stipulates that to qualify to be a U.S. President one must be a Natural Born Citizen. The Framer's relied on a historical document titled "The Law of Nations" for definitions on citizenship and state building. Author Emer de Vattel subscribed to the sanctity of fatherhood by defining Natural Born Citizen as: the citizenship of your father at the moment of your birth. So, if your father was a Kenyan citizen at the moment of your birth, you are a Natural Born Kenyan citizen. If your father was a Cuban citizen at the moment of your birth, you are a Natural Born Cuban citizen. If your father was an American citizen at the moment of your birth you are a Natural Born Citizen of the USA. For, you see, paternal Natural Born Citizenship transcends maternal, geographical and political arguments.

Several candidates from both political parties in the 2008 and 2012 USA elections were not Natural Born Citizens and in electing Barack Obama to become the President of the United States of America a Portent (a sign or symbol of something ominous) to Chaos was inaugurated. Not because of his political ideology or obscure background, but by breaching the natural, historical and customary use of language, chaos has begun to bring confusion and disorder to society.

Because the citizens of the USA were unwitting, unwilling or unaware of what was happening to the violent breach in the order of the Rule of Law chaos has gained a foothold and is rapidly eroding natural order:

-Consider the vitriol and hatred when “debating”  what bathrooms a school child should use…

-Consider that some municipalities place heavy fines on those who misidentify a person's preferred gender.

-Consider that there are now an infinite number of “genders” which one could misidentify…and be fined for.

-Consider that government feels empowered to control the speech of its citizens.

-Consider that the sacred institution of marriage has been ridiculed into Oblivion.

-Consider that the US military has become the experimental and engineering laboratory for social tinkering.

-Consider that people will violently protect the “rights” of illegal aliens to live off the largesse of American taxpayers while defending the “right” to slaughter US citizens in the womb.

-Consider that demanding free speech on a college campus can be considered “microaggressions” of hate speech.

-Consider that a few overpaid professional athletes can create havoc and disrupt a unifying national tradition.

-Consider that our nation's youth are clamoring to have the government take away more and more of their freedoms.

-Consider how fearful we've become to speak out against noxious ideas like transgenderism,  intersectionality, white privilege, institutionalized racism, political correctness, toxic masculinity, social justice and multiculturalism.

“Truth reduces the terrible complexity of a man to the simplicity of his word, so that he can become a partner, rather than an event. To tell the truth is to bring the most habitable reality into Being." -Dr Jordan Petersen, 12 Rules for Life, An Antidote for Chaos

Alas, consider how Chaos has savaged truth speech, fractured partnership and is turning what once was the greatest “habitable reality” into a nightmare.

Now more than ever, Followers of Jesus must speak (and live) the timeless Truth of Jesus' words to a world gone...chaotic! If ever we needed Speech to bring Order out of Chaos, it is now in the Words of Jesus!

The Living Word.8

I do not pass judgment on those who hear these words and do not believe; for I have not come to judge the world, but to rescue it.

Be warned; those that reject my words will be held accountable: the truth that I have spoken will stand as their judge on the last day.

--Jesus

I'm 5'4". If you factor pygmies and NBA giants I am "average" height. 

The"truth" of my existence, however, is that I wasn't destined to receive pinpoint passes for high flying thunder dunks!

Truthfully, as I approach the age 63, I still have nagging doubts about my Being. I have been a child, son, student, actor, athlete, musician, husband, father, clerk, salesman, laborer, printer, designer, business owner, pastor, teacher, bus driver, carpenter, farm hand.

The measure of my success has not been thunderous ovations from adoring fans, but it has been regular paychecks I received from -generally speaking- ambivalent employers for the work I produced.  In one way, my Being was "judged" by those who used my varied skill set to achieve their goals.

As satisfying as it can be to be rewarded for labor produced (with the fruit of that labor I raised a family and achieved some of my own goals) there is still a longing to know and experience greater success. Not bigger paychecks or louder applause, but the knowledge that my Being mattered; that there was a truth to my existence for which I will be eternally satisfied!

The ultimate success, according to Jesus, is how our "Being" measured up to Truth.  Not that we merely spoke accurate facts or didn't lie but that as MacDonald states:
by "obeying the Will that is the cause of our Being,
the cause that demands us to be true, and that Will being

• Righteousness and
• Love and
• Truth

we begin to stand on the apex of our being, to know ourselves divine and feel ourselves free."

When a man is, with his whole nature, loving and willing the truth, he is then a live truth.

He is the thing God created him to be.

Dr. Jordan Petersen, professor of clinical psychology, observes:

"At the beginning of time, according to the great Western tradition, the Word of God [logos] transformed chaos into Being through the act of speech. We also transform chaos into Being, through speech. We transform the manifold possibilities of the future into the actualities of past and present. To tell the truth is to bring the most habitable reality into Being.

• Truth builds edifices that can stand a thousand years.
• Truth feeds and clothes the poor, and makes nations wealthy and safe.
• Truth reduces the terrible complexity of a man to the simplicity of his word, so that he can become a partner, rather than an event."

-Dr Jordan Petersen, 12 Rules for Life, An Antidote for Chaos

MacDonald expands on this "partnership":

"But a man has not originated this in himself. He has seen it and striven for it, but not originated it.

The one originating, living, visible truth, embracing all truths in all relations, is Jesus Christ.

He is true; he is the live Truth.

When a man is true, if he were in hell he could not be miserable. He is right with himself because he is right with him whence he came.

To be right with God is to be right with the universe; one with

• the power,
• the love,
• the will of the mighty Father,

the cherisher of joy, the lord of laughter, whose are all glories, all hopes, who loves everything, and hates nothing but selfishness,

which he will not have in his kingdom."

Adapted From Unspoken Sermons III, The Truth

When I proposed marriage to my wife many years ago I told her that my one ambition in life was to do the will of God no matter where that might lead. His will has lead us to many places, with many chapters beginning with great promise and ending, more often than not, leaving my 5'4" frame battered and bruised wondering whether I'd missed a turn along the way.

For the way of His Will is not lined with cheering crowds urging us on. It is often dark and foggy, lonely and fearful with the only thing we can occasionally get glimpses of is the Savior in front beckoning us on into the light until we begin to see that following His Will is not simply altering our direction as we mentally brace ourselves for some new duty, but loving the Will that brought us safely to where we are. Stronger, Godlier, more manifestly True than when we started.

To be rescued from meaninglessness is the cry of every human heart!

To stand in the day and hear the thunderous ovation of an audience of One is the reason we're born!