It is only a short step from being “Great Again” to wanting to be the Greatest Of All Time. While it may be tempting to give “Great Britain” a pass due to “Great” being part of its name when striving to “make itself great again”, there are no shortage of nations,  political parties, and individuals who wish to be recognized as the Greatest Of All Time (GOAT). Perhaps it is only human nature to want to be the greatest of all…. but perhaps we are endeavoring to being the wrong kind of domesticated animal.

Along the way, we are confronted by the question,  “what does it mean to be Great?” from an eternal perspective. 

In the first post of this series, we explored the roots of God’s heart for three protected classes of people as described in the the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures which also form the first few books in the Christian Bible’s Old Testament). In this post, we will explore how this theme is addressed clearly and in no less uncertain terms other parts of the Tanakh (Old Testament) as well as the Christian New Testament scriptures. 

In the Hebrew Scriptures, time and time again, God warns his people (the nation of Israel and its various tribes) that his judgement is coming and he charges his own most favored nation to treat the protected classes properly, ensuring they are treated justly, with generosity, and affection (love). This appears to be one of the clearest outward signs of a nation that is in alignment with God’s character and eternal values. This recurring message was echoed through the prophets. 

Before Israel’s sole remaining tribe of Judah was carried off into exile under Babylonian rule, God implored his people to forsake their waywardness, idolatry, and unjust treatment of the three protected classes through the prophet Jeremiah: 

“If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the alien (immigrant), the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever.  But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.” (Jeremiah 7: 5-8)

Later on,

“This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the alien (immigrant), the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.” (Jeremiah 22:3) 

God’s chosen people did not heed the warning and were carried off into captivity. Once in exile, the prophet Ezekiel picks up the refrain and explains the reason for their downfall: 

“‘See how each of the princes of Israel who are in you uses his power to shed blood.  In you they have treated father and mother with contempt; in you they have oppressed the alien and mistreated the fatherless and the widow.”  (Ezekiel 22:6-7)

After 70 years of captivity and exile to Babylon, the prophet Zechariah lays an option before the remnant of Israel : Will they be the type of people worthy to be part of a “New Jerusalem” that God is going to (re)build under a Messianic Kingdom? 

“And the word of the LORD came again to Zechariah:  “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien (immigrant) or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.’ “(Zechariah 7:8-10)

The entire book of Zechariah pivots on the existential question raised for the reader in chapter 7… will the reader follow the poor example of their forefathers who failed to uphold justice and protect the cause of the widow, orphan and immigrant? Or will they choose the path of God’s heart and priorities by administering true justice, showing mercy and compassion to one another, and caring for the three protected classes? 

Each one of these prophets had a similar message from the Lord almighty for the people who were God’s chosen and most favored. Caring for the protected classes was not simply a prescription for the time of Moses, it permeated the entire history of Israel as a recurring theme, and was one of the standards by which the entire nation would be judged.

The prophets pointed toward an anointed one who would bring salvation (yeshuah) and through whom God would usher in a new kingdom and restore his people from captivity and exile. 

The Christian New Testament scriptures identify this promised messiah as Jesus of Nazareth. (Jesus is the greek form of Yeshua, the Hebrew word for salvation). Jesus, brings this theme front and center in his last message to his closest followers (his disciples) a few days before his last meal (a Passover meal) which preceded his crucifixion, death, and resurrection as recorded in the Book of Matthew (chapter 25). The setting of this message is a future cosmic stage with angels and all nations looking on as Jesus, the Son of Mankind, sits on his throne administering the final judgment. He describes a separating process where he divides those who are allowed into his eternal kingdom (the sheep) and those who are turned away (the goats). 

Matthew 25:31-46   When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger (greek: xenos) and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,  I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

In this story, it is much better to be a sheep than a goat. But what distinguishes the sheep from the goat is curiously similar to the warnings and charges that were found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures to take care of the protected classes. Jesus equates the treatment of those in need, the strangers (greek: xenos – the root from which we get the term xenophobia) – as tantamount to caring for Jesus himself. Feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, inviting the stranger (immigrant/alien) in, providing clothes, caring for the sick and imprisoned. Whoever is the LEAST of those around… to care for them is to care for Jesus, and to neglect them or to mistreat them is to mistreat Yeshua himself. 

Caring for the Least Among Us – That is what it means to be Great in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

So will those aspiring to be a GOAT end up being treated like the goats in Jesus’ story? Or should we rather be found to be like sheep and caring for the Least of those Among Us? Who are these “Least Among Us?” Might they be hiding in plain sight? Would we find them in a mansion or a manger? A restaurant or a food bank? A church or a harvesting field? A rodeo or a meatpacking plant?

Zechariah spelled out what it looks to be a goat and its consequences: 

“But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry.

“‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the LORD Almighty.  ‘I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land was left so desolate behind them that no one could come or go. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.’”  (Zechariah 7:11-14)

Those who wish to identify with the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Yeshua,  should be easy to spot using formula Jesus gave for dividing sheep from goat. God’s economy is somewhat inverted compared to what the world values. Instead of through missiles and might, Greatness is to be found in service, love, and compassion. How do you define Great? Is it Eternally Relevant? 

 In the last post of this series, we will explore clues as to why God has such a soft spot in his heart for these special protected classes of people (widows, orphans, and immigrants/aliens/strangers). 

What does it mean to Make A Nation Great?

With all the recent excitement about making certain nations great again (which is not a new concept, but one used in the 1930’s by Hitler in reference to Germany during the rise of Naziism, and more recently by Margaret Thatcher in 1950 with regards to Britain, and Ronald Reagan in his 1980’s American presidential election campaign), it may be instructive for those of a Judeo-Christian background to examine what the God of the Bible (which includes the Jewish holy scriptures Torah and Tanakh) had to say about building a nation.

When the God of the Torah (which forms the beginning of the Bible) set up a most favored nation, the nation of Israel, God gave them rules to live by, values to uphold, and explicitly described three specific classes of individuals that were to receive special treatment. The wellbeing of the nation was tied to the treatment of these protected classes, and the nation was cursed if it failed to adequately care for these protected classes. This is as close to a template for making a nation great as can be found in scripture, and may provide a roadmap for today as nations consider what it means to be “great” and how to achieve or re-establish “greatness.”

The first place we are given a glimpse of this is in the passage from Exodus, the second book of the Torah:

“Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt. Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.  My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.” Exodus 22:21-24   

In this passage, we are introduced to three classes of individuals who are singled out for special care and consideration by God’s people: aliens, widows, and orphans (also known as the fatherless). It is remarkable that God takes care to warn that He is attentive to the plight of these protected classes and fiercely protective of them. He also warns that their mistreatment will incite His anger, and ensure a retribution by God against such mistreatment. God does not take mistreatment of these protected classes lightly, but rather has zero tolerance for such mistreatment in his favored nation, to the point of death and harm to one’s own kin.

The mention of these protected classes in God’s favored nation is not an isolated pronouncement in the book of Exodus, but a recurring theme that appears again and again in the Hebrew Scriptures… (see also Deuteronomy 10:18, 14:29, 16:11, 16:14, 24:17, 24:19, 26:12, 27:19; Jeremiah 2:3, 7:5, Ezekiel 22:7, Zechariah 7:8)

As we investigate further, we see that God exhibits a core value of kindness to these protected classes and takes an active role when they are mistreated: 

“For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.  He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.  And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.” Deuteronomy 10:17-19  

Here, the God of the Bible ties his majesty and magnificence and the foundation of his reputation to his oversight of the three protected classes and even focuses extra attention on aliens by tending to their need of food and clothing. “Alien” in Hebrew is “ger” – which can also be translated stranger or sojourner, and refers to people residing locally who are from a different region or nation. We learn that care and protection of these protected classes are a core part of God’s character.  We see a definition of what it means to be great in God’s economy. God juxtaposes “great”, “mighty”, and “awesome” with impartiality, honesty, and care for the protected classes. He did not equate greatness with military power, economic superiority, and judicial expediency.

In God’s economy, a great nation reflects God’s character and assumes the same priorities that God promotes and demonstrates. Anything less than protecting these special classes falls short. What are the measures being used by nations aspiring to be great again to quantify their greatness?

For those who identify as God’s favored nation, treatment of the aliens among them must be tempered by self reflection and the acknowledgement that they were once aliens themselves. Aliens are not a foreign “them.” This passage of scripture demands that the “chosen” of God’s people see aliens as “us”, or at least identifying with such as part of their own history. It erases the distinction between aliens and local born. 

How does a nation practice self reflection? How does a nation acknowledge it’s past and incorporate its own history of being isolated, weak, and in need of aid and assistance at some point in its past – as it considers how to treat the current “aliens” living among them? Can a nation have sufficient humility and fortitude to embark on such a self examination? Have countries done so successfully in the past?

If we wish to identify with being part of God’s chosen and favored nation, how do we evaluate our own personal history of neediness and alienation as individuals, as well as our families and our communities? Proper reflection is the prerequisite for appropriate action. 

Appropriate action is not passive, but stems from the direct imperative God gives his people to LOVE (Hebrew – ‘ahab) those who are aliens. The root of the word for love in Hebrew means to have affection for. It is not enough to refrain from harm (no mistreatment, no oppression, no taking advantage of…), but there is a prescriptive to treat them with affection. Instead of fearing aliens, God’s people are to extend love to them. What does it mean for a “favored” nation to love the aliens found within it? Is that happening in the nations who proclaim to want to be great again? 

We see a picture of a God who leads by example by giving the alien food and clothing. Is this God’s way of teaching us the first steps toward treating them with love and affection? (There is no distinction between “legal” and “illegal” alien in the Bible. If you are not from around here, you are an alien, regardless of how you got here…) 

There are other clues as to what it means to treat an alien properly in the scriptures:  

“Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow.”  (Deuteronomy 27:19)

Ensuring the aforementioned specially protected classes are treated with justice – in all of its forms – is an imperative. Failure to treat them justly, denying them due process and fair hearings, and treating them as one would want oneself treated in the same circumstance (which is at the core of evaluating justice) brings on the severe consequence of a curse from the Almighty. Nations who wish to be great in the eyes of God would be wise to heed this explicitly grave warning. In light of such a clear pronouncement, it goes without saying that nations certainly should not in any circumstance create orphans, or widows (by forcefully and unjustly separating married partners or children from their families) God reserves divine violence for those who mistreat the widows, orphans and aliens. 

Lest we need even more clarity on what it means to love the alien, Leviticus 19:33-34 says, 

 “‘When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”

The ultimate test of whether we are treating aliens properly is really the “golden rule”. Are we treating the aliens the same as a native born? Are we loving the alien as ourselves? Do we recognize that we once (or at the very least our forefathers) were once aliens? There is no equivocation about how we are to treat the aliens and God makes it explicit that this treatment is tied to the core of who God is. If we wish to claim the Lord of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Bible as our God, we have no choice but to treat the aliens as a native-born, and to love them as ourselves.

Eternal Greatness, at least that recognized in heaven, may indeed come not through military might, but through a manger. How much are nations professing to be great at risk for incurring God’s wrath due to the mistreatment of aliens and the state’s creation of widows and orphans under their purview?

 From MAGA to MANGER. Part 1.

Merry Christmas. I was thinking about the significance of the meaning of Christmas this morning and this is what crossed my mind. Christmas is the pivotal point in our reality when God entered unidirectional time – in essence – limiting Him/Herself into this constrained dimension of existence.

As the tripartite God before “time”, S/He would be free to move forward and backwards within this dimension, but by entering our creation in physical form, S/He constrained Themselves to travel only linearly in the flow of our unidirectional time and gave up that aspect of “god-ness” that pre-time GOD could traverse. S/He limited himself/herself (did not grasp on to that essence of omnipotent time-traveling god-ness” in order to demonstrate something about Him/Herself.

The funny thing about unidirectional time is that it is only within the confines of unidirectional time that there can be a truth. For Truth is the reality that does not change over time, and if there is an entity that can traverse time and affect the reality in the “past” or in the “future” it would render history malleable and there could be no TRUTH. But once we have unidirectional time, we can have Truth – something that does not change in the past, in the present, or in the future (within the constraints of unidirectional time). And it is only here that we can have a story (that does not change) – a history (and herstory). And it is into this realm of unidirectional time that God through Jesus inserted Him/Herself in order to demonstrate some aspect of Truth about Him/Herself. I believe that Truth is the revelation of God’s most defining characteristic – that of Compassion – that S/He is the God who suffers WITH us so that we are ultimately not ALONE. Here is a God who does not run away or distance themselves from suffering, but embraces (our) suffering in order to cure (our) aloneness. All this because God chose to confine Him/Herself into unidirectional time so that there could be a Truth about Him/Her to demonstrate. On this Christmas holiday, we welcome the infinite Creator God into our unidirectional timeline and look towards His/Her demonstration of Compassion toward us and to our hurting world.

The transformation of our prayer from “God, please grant us a silver bullet”, to “Lord, grant us the ability to see Your presence in the midst of our trying situation” is the indicator that we have accepted the burden of carrying the cross daily in following the Lord. 

When we ask for eyes to see God in the present struggle, we have forgiven God for allowing this circumstance to befall us. (We are accepting the consequences of that injury) and we are acknowledging that our primary need is not to be shielded from hardship nor even evil, nor from brokenness, but to be fully in the presence of God where these exist. And where is God to be found? In suffering. That is His glory – He is the Compassionate God. (When Moses asked YHWH {the Old Testament name for God} to show him His glory, the first thing YHWH  revealed about Him/Herself was, “I am Compassionate”. 

When we begin asking God for eyes to see Him/Her in the present struggle, it quickly becomes evident that this is not a one and done request. It is not something that can be accumulated and stored up for a rainy day. It quickly becomes apparent that this needs to become a daily plea. And in some scenarios, it is a moment by moment plea. 

We all want to store up that manna (bread that fell from heaven for the Israelites escaping enslavement in Egypt)  – that sign of God’s presence and provision – so that we have enough to last us a few days, a week, a few weeks, or a few months. But the nature of manna is that it can’t be stored up. There is only enough manna that can be gathered to last a single day (or a weekend). This is the daily reminder that our sustenance comes from God. We don’t want to need daily reminders. We wish we could be inoculated for a week at a time, a month at a time. But Jesus reminds us in the Lord’s Prayer that our request is for DAILY bread. We need to see God’s presence in our struggle each and every day. 

So the prayer request for daily bread really becomes a request for vision – to be granted the eyes to see and recognize God’s presence in the difficulty, the calamity, the injustice, the feeling of abandonment.

The request for food from the faithful follower of Jesus is really a request for healing from blindness. We don’t need to invite God into our struggle, we need to recognize how S/He has been there already and that we are choosing to join Her/Him in Her/His demonstration of love through Her/His compassion. 

If forgiveness means accepting the extended consequences of an injury or loss, how did Jesus’ death on the cross consummate God’s forgiveness for mankind’s transgressions (also known as “sin”)?

Transgressions generate consequences along two dimensions. One is related to the effects of the transgression on another person (a victim), we can call this the horizontal dimension, and the other dimension is related to the effects of the transgression on one’s relationship with God (we can call this the vertical dimension). For God to forgive every person of their transgressions, He must accept the consequences arising from both of those dimensions.

For the horizontal dimension, accepting the consequences of a transgression includes taking on the pain of every injury, experiencing the terror of every abandonment, and enduring the wickedness of every injustice.

If we believe a model of existence where God resides in a distant locality far removed from our reality here on Earth (for example, in a cosmic castle called heaven beyond the outskirts of our universe), it would be all too easy to also assume that God is also far removed from the suffering that afflicts mankind. Perhaps we might even believe that the Almighty is so insulated from the pain of that suffering by the cosmic distance that God doesn’t care – or is too far or feeble to do something about it. One might even conclude that God is merely a spectator watching things unfold on the stage of the Earth. Taken to the extreme, an infinite distance would be tantamount to there being no God at all.

What if God was not far, far away, but was present in every instant, and was a participant in every interaction that resulted in injury, suffering, and injustice? In this reality God would experience the pain and injury from every calamity, mistake, selfish act, assault, injustice, and evil act while absorbing the full brunt of discomfort, anguish and terror that each victim experienced. What if it cost God as much if not more discomfort than the human victims?

While it might not erase the pain a victim experienced, God’s co-experience of suffering would do two things: First, it would intertwine God’s consciousness of the pain of the situation with a stake in its outcome. God would not be a passive bystander in such a reality. Secondly, it would enable the potential for a community of suffering between God and the victim and allows for God to be WITH the victim in the midst of suffering. This is significant because the one need that was built into mankind from the beginning of creation was to address aloneness. (“It is not good for man to be alone.” Genesis 2:18 )

The consequences that God would need to accept in the course of forgiving mankind of their sin then, includes the experience of pain, injury, and suffering that arise from each sinful act (horizontal dimension), but it also must include the consequences of the rift in the relationship between the transgressor and God (vertical dimension). If God’s greatest interest in creating humanity was to have a personal relationship with every man and woman, then the choices for independence from God that underlie every transgression cause that vertical relationship to be diminished. Taken to its logical conclusion, a broken relationship results in aloneness. The transgressor finds him or herself separated from both the earthly victim of the transgression as well as from God.

For God to take on the consequences of separation means that God himself must experience that aloneness (both horizontal and vertical). Jesus’ dying words on the cross was, “Lama sabachthani”, which means, “my God, why have you forsaken me?” In that utterance, we are given a glimpse into the horror that Jesus felt at being alone from his heavenly Father. The Holy Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) which had only known community in the perfection of heaven for the first time experienced aloneness in the person of Jesus on the fateful day he suffered on the cross.

The consequences of transgressions can go far beyond a victim experiencing pain and aloneness, they can result in the victim’s death. In this case, the victim’s death would be the consequence of a most extreme injury. An injury so severe, the victim’s life is extinguished. For God to accept the consequences of such a mortal injury, God would need to die himself. God would need to accept the same consequence as the victim if he were to truly forgive.

In death, one loses all ability to contribute to one’s continued existence. Physical death is the ultimate state of dependence where one can not continue to exist unless there is an intervention from an agent outside of the confines of unidirectional time and linear space.

What are the ultimate consequences for the transgressor who causes another pain, injury, or injustice? At its root, every transgression grants the transgressor some measure of value or benefit at the expense of some other soul who pays a price for that value or benefit. Within that transaction, the transgressor drives a chasm of distance between themselves and the victim, and also between themselves and God. Transgressions at their core are a person’s choice for self sufficiency at another’s expense. A transgressor rejects any hint of dependency on God to provide for them and grabs at the reigns of control in a vain attempt at self sufficiency. Instead of leaning into and entrusting their lot toward a benevolent and involved Creator, the transgressor determines to grab by their own will, the desired commodity. This rejection of community and interdependence stems from a lack of trust, and an unwillingness to entrust one’s fate to another. Taken to it’s logical and ultimate conclusion, this independence leads to aloneness. Through a lifetime of choices, a person can drift farther and farther away from God as they pursue a life of self sufficiency and the illusion of control over one’s own destiny. The opposite of transgression, then, is faith – to entrust one’s circumstances and future to God and to lean into him/her in dependence.

The significance of this is highlighted in the story of the “original sin” in the garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and partook of the forbidden fruit. In an earlier post, we saw that this transgression was rooted in their desire for independence from God. They wanted to become self sufficient and obtain a desired commodity (the knowledge of good and evil) on their own apart from the Creator. In fact this same motivation (independence through self sufficiency) underlies all transgressions. The consequence proclaimed for this transgression was death. This might be seen as a punishment – a deterrent that might attempt to keep future souls from venturing across the line, or it could be viewed simply as a direct consequence of the move toward independence. The choice for independence away from the source of life results in a being that can not sustain their own existence so death).

According to the Christian faith, one can depend only  on the Creator for restoration and continued life after death. If mankind was designed from the start to be in communion with the Creator and the man (and woman) choose to leave proximity with the Creator, they are operating outside of their “design limits.” Ironically, only the Creator can fix their predicament of isolation. No matter how hard mankind attempts to be self sufficient, they are brought one way or another (voluntarily or involuntarily) into a dependent state with the Creator, and ultimately through death if not some other means.

For God to accept the consequences of these moves toward independence (and thereby forgive them), God needed to experience dependency in a way never before encountered by the perfect Trinity in Heaven. Since before the dimension of time was created in our universe, God existed in the perfect communion of the Tri-partite Godhead (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). As God, S/He was self sufficient. This all changed when Jesus died on the cross. When this member of the Godhead died, Jesus was the one member of the Godhead who became totally dependent upon the other members of the Godhead to bring him back to life. Scriptures tell us that it was the Father to whom Jesus entrusted His fate. Jesus was God’s role model for how to entrust oneself, one’s existence to the Father, by being willing to let go of self sufficiency (which was a right of Jesus’ as the member of the Godhead) – and entrusting one’s future existence to another entity.

When we lose (or give up) our ability to maintain our continued existence, we die and immediately become dependent upon someone else to intervene on our behalf in order to have any chance of continuing to exist. Jesus chose to embrace that dependency so that the Godhead could experience the consequence of death, but also so that He could show us the way to entrust ourselves to the Father’s redeeming and resuscitating power.

In short, Jesus’ death on the cross was God’s mechanism for accepting the consequences of injury and injustice to victims in the horizontal dimension and it was also the mechanism by which God accepts the consequence of complete aloneness which occurs in the vertical dimension for the perpetrator of the transgression.  A transgressor’s progressive steps toward increasing independence results in ultimate aloneness, a kind of spiritual death. The dead cannot restore themselves, and only a powerful outside agent can restore one’s existence from that death.

Jesus was God’s role  model for us in both regards, and in both instances, Jesus’ total dependence upon his heavenly Father was the mechanisms by which the heavenly Father saved him and preserved his existence by raising Jesus from the dead.

The Bible teaches that Jesus died for the forgiveness of our sins. How did Jesus’ death on the cross translate into God’s forgiveness?  Forgiveness is one of those religious terms often used as a core tenet of Christian belief that ironically many find hard to articulate exactly what it means and why it is important other than because “God said so” and more worrisomely, that God won’t forgive us if we don’t forgive others. (Faith is another such term, and so are Grace and Mercy, but we will deal with those in future posts).

What does it mean to forgive someone? How can it possibly be “okay” for some injury or injustice to have taken place? Christians are commanded by God to forgive their debtors, as God has forgiven them. But it’s not sufficient to say the words, “I forgive you” as if it were some mystical incantation that magically bestows a state of forgiveness upon another. Merely forcing one’s self to say the words certainly does nothing to remove the deep well of venom that one might feel entirely justified for wishing upon a transgressor. When the pain of injury becomes personal, when the damage extends beyond a moment into a chronic condition, when the aftershock of injustice spreads beyond one’s self and invades the lives of our loved ones, what does it mean to forgive, and how is such forgiveness possible?

Forgiveness is a uniquely Christian imperative that does not appear in other religions in such a foundational role. It is also perhaps the most difficult practice of any spiritual behavior to master, and ultimately, it is the one task that is impossible without external help.

But first, it will help to qualify just what forgiveness means, and to understand how it is possible.

When one initially thinks about forgiveness, one is drawn to the act that caused injury or perpetrated injustice. It would be tempting to think that forgiveness has something to do with that moment in time – or some way to view that incident (by ignoring it?) or perhaps withholding judgement for that incident. The problem with this approach is that it does nothing to assuage the inner compulsion we feel for the need to exact punishment and vent our rage upon the one(s) who have caused us pain.

To understand forgiveness, we need to realize that the injury or injustice does not merely affect us at one point of time, but continues to affect us from that time forward. There is the pain of the initial injury, but also an ongoing loss as a result of that injury. Forgiveness then, is all about accepting the consequences of an injury and loss, and those consequences can even be hidden at first and take time to materialize, and in some cases, may grow deeper and wider as time goes on. Forgiveness, then, is not focused so much on the act of the transgression, but on the ongoing effects of the transgression – and it is an acknowledgement and an acceptance that those painful effects may continue forward into the future. In fact, forgiveness is a choice to accept any and all on-going effects of the injury.  Forgiveness is certainly not a one time act (such as a magical incantation or proclamation), but an ongoing perspective and attitude with which to view one’s circumstances.

What could drive a sane, sentient, feeling person to accept the on-going consequences of injury and loss? One’s own guilt for some other trespass? A sense of quid-pro quo as payment in advance in order to receive forgiveness from God? Those seem to be pretty oppressive reasons and heap negative upon negative in a comparative contest of who is more deserving of punishment. Under that calculus, one might forgive others only when they felt even more grateful that they had already been forgiven of a more serious trespass. While that is certainly one valid reason to feel compelled to forgive, there is an even more universal one.

Universal forgiveness is possible when the story is larger than the incident between a transgressor and a victim. Universal forgiveness is possible when the story is one where a third entity is deeply and intricately intertwined within the fabric of the situation, and indeed experiences the injuries and injustices as much, if not more than the primary victim. Universal forgiveness is ONLY possible when the narrative of the story expands to include not just the incident of the past, and the pain of the present, but also the hope and the expectation of beauty arising out of tragedy. Universal forgiveness is possible when the victim joins in partnership with the third party in the hope and expectation that the third party is actively engaged in finding some way to craft a work of beauty out of trauma.  Could it be possible that God did not stop creating after the sixth day of creation, but has now shifted the exercise of his creativity from making something out of nothing to transforming brokenness into stories of beauty? Universal forgiveness is possible when the victim is willing to become part of the raw material the third party uses to create a picture of redemption. Universal forgiveness is possible when the victim experiences compassion while they wait for the revelation of that creativity.

We can only forgive if we believe that God continues to Create and transform even within our troubled circumstances AND that He is With Us in our suffering as we wait for His creativity to be revealed. When we forgive, we do not hope for a particular outcome, we buy God time and give Him permission to exercise His creativity in a way that we may not be able to predict in order to fashion something of beauty out of our tragedy. The core of forgiveness, then, shifts our focus and attention away from the transgressor and their injurious act(s) to God’s creativity and compassion.

What makes forgiveness hard is that we are forced to give up our sense of independence, self determination and expectation of fulfillment which we had before the injury. By nature we wish to be self sufficient – to establish our future security by our hard work or clever machinations. Indeed, that mentality formed the root of the original sin described in the Bible at the garden of Eden. Adam and Eve partook of the “forbidden”  fruit as an act of independence, thinking that they could secure for themselves a desired commodity apart from the Creator. When someone causes us injury and/or loss, we lose a bit of that ability to secure our own future – and the greater the injury, the greater the loss of control we feel (and the greater animosity we harbor against the transgressor who forced us into this needy circumstance). The only way for us to find satisfaction after such a disruption is to entrust our wellbeing or enjoyment to an external benefactor which by nature is unpredictable.  If the “original” sin can be boiled down to our own choice for independence and self sufficiency and whose antidote is that we once again entrust ourselves to a benevolent God, an injury or injustice that requires us to forgive places us into that exact same posture of needing to entrust ourselves to a benevolent God. The injury, loss, or injustice yanks the certainty or likelihood of satisfaction out of our hands and forces us to confront the inevitability that the only way we will hope to find satisfaction is through an agent outside of our control. We find forgiveness difficult because the solution to injury and injustice is the same as the solution to our own sinfulness. We hate being forced to depend on an outside entity to make us whole. We detest having to trust God when we are not convinced of His creativity and compassion. The stronger we believe that God is indeed Compassionate (loving) and Creative, the easier it is for us to forgive and to wait for the revelation of His Creativity.

If we find it hard to forgive, the solution is not to try harder. The solution is to find a way to remind us or convince ourselves that God’s creativity is big enough and unlimited enough to turn EVEN THIS tragedy into a beautiful story, and to ask for eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to sense and recognize His loving compassion throughout our time of waiting for His creativity to be revealed.

WHAT: Forgiveness means accepting the extended consequences of an injury and loss.

HOW: Entrusting the fulfillment of a prior sense of sufficiency (self sufficiency) to an external source (ultimately, a benevolent God).

WHY: We believe that God is compelled by his nature of compassion and creativity to craft beauty out of tragedy

WHEN: (When will God exercise the transformation and redemption of tragedy into beauty?) Sometime in the future – hopefully before we die, but not necessarily so. (Psalm 27:13-14)

How did God forgive us of our sins by sending Jesus to die on the cross?

Jesus’ death on the cross as the payment for the sins of the world leads us to the story of the first sin, the “original sin” in the garden of Eden.  The scriptures describe how Jesus’ “obedience to death on the cross brought righteousness to many which counteracts the condemnation that came to mankind through Adam’s trespass in the garden.” (Romans 5:15-19).  Why was Adam’s eating of the forbidden fruit worthy of death? Isn’t capital punishment a bit severe for petty theft? What was the significance of ingesting the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil?

“you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:17

Why then, would God prohibit Adam and Eve from partaking of such fruit?

There are actually two ways of looking at the prohibition that God laid out – one focusing on an object, the other is focusing on an action. If the prohibition was chiefly concerned about an object,  it would clearly be the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But if God did not want Adam (and Eve) to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, why did God create the tree and the fruit in the first place?  Couldn’t God have just omitted creating the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil and spare Adam and Eve of the possibility of transgression? We know that everything God created, including all the plants and vegetation was good. So why would eating that which was created good, be all that bad? Without an understanding of good and evil, how could anyone fathom God’s goodness? It would seem that wisdom would be something God would want to share with the very creatures who could appreciate the qualities of his goodness.

When we focus exclusively on the fruit (the commodity), it is easy to miss other more important dynamics which can lead us to fall prey to the same error that befell Adam and Eve. A critical underlying question is, did God originally intend for Adam and Eve to gain wisdom (the knowledge of good and evil)? And if so, how were they supposed to obtain it?

Things begin to make a little more sense if the intent of the prohibition was not  an object, but an action.  Ingesting food is the way we internalize an external source of power and make it a part of ourselves. What if the real focus of the prohibition was against eating the fruit, not just having possession of the fruit. If there were a different mechanism for obtaining wisdom than through eating, then perhaps it was the act of eating, or metaphorically ingesting as the means to obtain the prized commodity of knowing good and evil that was the problem. Eating fruit can be done by one’s self, in solitude, and certainly in this case was done apart from God’s presence. What if there were a different mechanism that God intended to use for passing on to Adam and Eve the knowledge of good and evil? What if wisdom were intended to be transmitted through daily walks and conversations in the garden, fully within God’s presence. If this were true, then the emphasis of forbidden could apply to the eating in solitude, apart from God, rather than on obtaining the fruit itself.

If this were true, ingesting fruit would symbolize man’s attempt to obtain a valued commodity apart from its creator. Could it be that the “original sin” at its heart was really Adam (and Eve’s) choice for independence from God instead of dependence, trust, and communion with him?  In fact, every sin can trace it’s roots to this dynamic – an attempt to improve one’s lot apart from God – and often at the expense of those around us. This striving for independence goes beyond the striving for emotional independence we often see in children, “Leave me a lone, I can do it myself, I can do it myself…” and into a spiritual independence where we think we (mankind) can be the ones to define the parameters of what constitutes right-ness (or good-ness) and therefore work our way into achieving that righteous state by our own efforts. Indeed every single religion in the world that prescribes a path of specific behaviors to reach to heaven, nirvana, or some form of “enlightenment”   falls into the same fallacy of the “original sin” – that it can be up to man’s effort to define and also reach rightness.

The reason why this is deadly was hinted at in the story of creation, when after a string of proclamations that what God had created was good (including the fruit trees in the garden of Eden), the scriptures said “it was not good for man to be alone.”

If God created man (and woman) with an innate problem to address of aloneness, any time man(kind) chooses to be independent of God, it would exacerbate that aloneness.  In fact, it is such a serious problem, God equates the move toward self sufficiency and away from dependence on him as death.

The very first question asked in the entire Bible, is “where?”,   “Where are you hiding, Adam and Eve ?”and it also is the most important question in the Bible – even more important than “Why?”.   This question of “where” also becomes the ultimate question that man will ask of God when man encounters suffering and evil. “Where is God in the midst of suffering and injustice?” and it becomes even more poignant in light of the fact that much of the suffering and injustice of the world comes about due to someone’s choice toward self sufficiency and independence from the Creator. Whenever our focus shifts from the Creator toward self sufficiency and grasping at that which was created, mankind inevitably begins to harm one another and even the environment.

This started even in the Garden of Eden, when Eve blamed the serpent instead of owning up to her disobedience, and Adam blamed Eve instead of confessing his own culpability, which destroyed any semblance of trust they could have for each other and proved that the two of them were not sufficient for addressing each other’s aloneness problem.

In this light, the Biblical concept of sin might be viewed not as a deviation from a perfect standard of behavior, (theft of forbidden fruit)  but as a move toward self sufficiency and independence from God often at the expense of our fellow man and our environment. Sin and righteousness should not be viewed transactionally (imperfections that accumulate and which must be purged or covered over to restore perfection), but relationally, where one is either moving toward God in dependence and trust or away from him towards self sufficiency and independence.  The difference may be easier to understand if we see sin not as a noun – a quantity that exists outside of us that we try to avoid accumulating, but as an preposition – a descriptor of how our actions and appetites are placing us in closer proximity to and dependence on God, or farther away from him toward independence.

Consequently, the result of death from eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil (and by extension, every other sin) is not so much a punishment for infraction, but a consequence of choosing independence from the source of life. If it is God who gives us life and sustains us, our choices towards independence from him will leave us with nothing but increasing aloneness and ultimately death.

This also could illuminate what happened on the cross when Jesus died and took on the sins of the world. If sin is defined as independence from God, then Jesus became the Aloneness that everyone deserved as the natural consequence of their choices towards independence from God. It also explains why, in that moment of Aloneness on the cross, Jesus cried, “Oh my God, why have you abandoned me?” For the first time, one member of the triune Godhead was split off from the other two. And died.

Why did a part of God have to die?

Before we dive deeper into the tree in the Garden of Eden, I want to take a quick glimpse at another significant tree described in the Bible. The scandalous event of the New Testament portion of the Bible is undoubtedly the killing of one part of the Triune God which happens on a cross. This man made “tree” was the torturer and executioner’s tool of choice used by the most powerful state in the world at the time (the Roman Empire).

There is a curious cry by Jesus Christ just moments before he died during his execution on the cross. It is a clue to the darkest suffering, the deepest terror that he endured while he was alive on this earth. While the physical pain must have been tremendous (and certainly illustrated in its most gory detail by a recent motion picture depiction) – crucifixion was tantamount to state sanctioned torture and Jesus would ultimately die by asphyxiation while suspended by nails in the wrists and feet, our attention is drawn to a different concern. At this point in time right before his physical death, Jesus is preoccupied by his sense of abandonment. He cries out “Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani”, which means, “O my God, why have you abandoned me?”

If we take Jesus’ cry at face value (“Why have you abandoned me?”), it implies that he felt abandoned by his heavenly Father during his death on the cross. Some theologians have explained this by saying that at the point on the cross when Jesus took on the guilt of the world’s transgressions, the heavenly father could not be sullied by the imperfection and thus turned his face from his own son leaving him to die alone on the cross. In this line of reasoning, dying alone is the just punishment for missing the mark of perfect intentions and perfect behavior. This death penalty was meted out against Jesus who was substituted for every other person in the world who deserves to die as a result of Adam and Eve’s transgressions in the garden of Eden (the partaking of forbidden fruit) and the inheritance of their guilt and proclivity for disobedience. Because Jesus never exhibited imperfect intentions nor imperfect behavior, his payment of the death penalty could be applied to everyone else in the world who did deserve that penalty.  One conclusion that this line of thinking could lead to is that God is supremely interested in perfection, and that Jesus’ death was just a mechanism for transferring perfection back into  an imperfect world. It is as if God made a perfect world, (plan “A”), man messed it up in the garden of Eden, and God had to come up with plan “B” to fix it by sending his son as a cosmic payment [to whom?] to cover over the unsightly mess of imperfection. I believe there is a much more compelling story than God’s attempts to maintain perfection in the universe, and it centers around the concept of aloneness – the aloneness that Adam (and Eve) were created with, and the same aloneness that Jesus felt on the cross as he died.

Jesus’ cry of abandonment was not a single isolated statement, but rather, the opening line to an age old Psalm of lament, Psalm 22.  Psalm 22 opens with a three stark questions of “Why?”: Why has God has abandoned, why is he so far from saving, and why does God not answer? A careful look at these three why questions, however reveals that they are really questions about proximity. Where is God in the midst of the suffering? (abandonment implies that God is not near). Is he too far away to save one from the suffering? Is he too far away to hear the cries and groans and answer them? (Surely if God were close by, he would answer the cries and save one from the suffering)

These “where” questions are followed by an admonishment and reminder to trust in God. The first supplication in Psalm 22 is for God not to be far away (verse 11) which is repeated again in verse 19. It is followed by an entreaty for God to come quickly, and then to be delivered from the sword, rescued, and saved.  The Psalmist wants the concern about (God’s proximity) to be addressed before anything else.

It is not a coincidence that the very need that Jesus expressed at the point of his death was the same need that was alluded to in the Creation story – “it was not good for man to be alone.” These two illustrations of aloneness – Adam (and Eve’s) at the point creation and Jesus’ feeling alone at the point of his crucifixion and death bind the two together under the same need and demonstrate that God, in the person of Jesus, has himself experienced the sense of alone-ness we humans all struggle with, and can therefore relate to our suffering out of his personal experience.

Psalm 22 highlights the tension between feeling abandoned (and alone) with an admonishment to keep trusting in the God who delivers those who trust in him. The resolution of this tension is revealed in verse 24:

For he has not despised or disdained (ignored) the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.

This is a reminder that God is very near to those suffering and is attentive to their cries  is not far away as first considered.

While the Psalmist requests for his life to be spared of the sword,  to be rescued and saved, Jesus’ deliverance does not come before his death, but after it when God raises him from the dead.

What is most remarkable is that the triune God of the universe chose to limit his power to such an extent that the Son “part” of the Trinity required a power outside of himself in order to be raised back to life. A definition of death is the point where one’s capacity to maintain one’s own life and and one’s own existence ceases. The Son’s willingness to die forced him into an utterly dependent state as well as an utterly alone state when he became the sin of the world. This is the scandal of the New Testament, that the God of the universe would give up self sufficiency and become dependent on another.

Jesus became the example of entrusting one’s self to the heavenly Father. Indeed, the Greek word for faith, pisteuo, means “to entrust.”

This act of entrusting is central to the Christian faith, and becomes the mechanism of salvation – both for Jesus and for all who would become his followers. The degree to which one entrusts things of value to the Creator is the degree to which one is saved. Until one releases control – or the need for control – over something of value, and transfers it to another, no faith has been exercised.

Taking a step back, we see that the most important question is not Why, but Where [is God]. And the answer is that God is in fact near, and that our only recourse is to entrust ourselves to him.

The creation story culminates in the interaction between the Creator and the pinnacle of God’s creation, humankind. This is represented in the story by Adam, and by extension, Eve. (I use Their to describe the Creator, because the text in Genesis states that the Creator proclaimed, “Let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness….” Genesis 1:26)

The Pinnacle has a need from the start – man is incomplete himself, so the glaring question that must be addressed about Adam is, how should that which is not good (that man is alone) in an otherwise good creation be satisfied?

The Genesis narrative describes attempts made to address man’s problem of alone-ness. A search was conducted for a help-mate to satisfy that need for companionship, and it was quickly determined that anything created up until that point, including animals was insufficient to meet that primordial need for companionship. If One by himself was a problem, perhaps Two would be sufficient to ameliorate aloneness…?

The Creator fashions an “other” from the man: perhaps it takes another of the same kind to satisfy alone-ness?  A clone identical to the first man apparently would not suffice (a man plus a man), so a counterpart was created – of the same kind, but intrinsically different, yet dependent upon each other for continued propagation. Would two pieces from the same puzzle be enough to satiate the need? (A man plus a woman?)

It takes a garden and some trees to find out the answer to that question.

Much has been written about the events that transpired in the Garden of Eden. Many would say that at this point, before any fruit in the garden were harmed, perfection prevailed. It was the theft and ingestion of some forbidden fruit that led to the the shattering of the ultimate ideal, they would say. Taken to its logical conclusion, such a viewpoint would espouse that mankind should seek to return to that perfect state in Eden – man and woman, happily ever after in the garden, content to abstain from the forbidden fruit. Perfection would be defined by the absence of disobedience (the absence of “sin”, in some circles). If this were true, mankind’s potential would be fulfilled by somehow attaining perfection, whether by self effort, or by transference from another source. Indeed, there are some who believe that the goal of “salvation” is to reach perfection – and that if one can’t reach perfection (the absence of infractions against a cosmic law) by one’s own effort, then one must depend on another, even Jesus, to provide that perfection. But this line of thinking fixes the goal of humanity’s existence to be attaining “perfection”, the absence of “sin”.

Did the Creator expect Adam and Eve to forever obey the prohibition and avoid the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Was the Creator surprised that the prohibition was ignored and that God’s perfect plan was forever ruined by the theft and eating of some fruit? Was God’s plan A interrupted by an unforeseen circumstance (theft of fruit), and that God had to resort to a plan B to carry out his intentions? Did the Creator intend for Adam and Eve to never taste the knowledge of good and evil in the first place?

If so, why did the Creator invent that particular tree? Couldn’t the garden of Eden have been created without a Tree of the knowledge of good and evil to begin with? That would have guaranteed that Adam and Eve could have remained “perfect” and unblemished by disobedience. They could have lived through eternity oblivious to evil (and also to good) – but would have been safely tucked away in their cocoon of Eden. If it was God’s intention for them to be perfect, it would have been trivial to ensure that by not even creating a forbidden fruit.

The fact that God would go to the trouble to create a tree, even a forbidden one, indicates that there is more to the tree’s purpose than being a target of abstinence.