Saturday 17 May 2014

God is Love and Forgiveness at work.


Love and forgiveness attributes of God were created before all of creation itself.  Forgiveness is the Lord’s name, attribute and character and these attributes were created by the Father before eternity, time  and humanity.  The Father God knowing that  His creation of the human in His image and of His own desires and “choice” would at times fail to rise above the wrong “choice” and hence make a wrong choice and further repay evil with good, and so forgiveness would be required. If this was and is not so, then this would mean that there was and is a limitation on God and He would not have known that Adam and Eve would make wrong choice and so forgiveness like Wisdom were created before time.
Love also an attribute and characteristic of God and in the image of Yeshua connects every part of humanity’s being to every other. It is the superglue.  The soul, that spark of God, which makes the creature so like God, has a deep need and hunger for “love” its source, God.  It is attracted and yearns for  its very source its being and origin and yearns to return to the One from whom he is given life.
In pasturing of another   or in a spiritual setting the word “love” “unity” “forgiveness” and “acceptance” are essential if there is to be a recovery from wounds and a return to authentic “love. And it is  especially in forgiveness that love is seen most pronounced and obvious and which leads to the emergence of a renewed one because of the “choice” made not to repay pain with pain. Wound with wound.
A pastoral carer’s role is to enter into the struggles of another as it strives to feel, free,  see, recognize, love and work through the disrepair in its life and assist the other in the struggle for renewal or even for state of  repair, or as the Hebrew  person might say tikkun.
Acceptance with all its meanings and effects ensures true union of love, forgiveness and a reconnection.  Grace, another attribute and characteristic and gift of the divine and offered by Christ i then becomes the true acceptance.
In both the First Testament and second Testament scriptures is revealed a God of acceptance. A God who goes to great lengths to reach the broken and hurting creature. He enters into the pain and accepts it. He is a God who accepts what is offered to Him because God sees that the human is a part of Himself, willingly and lovingly created by him to be His representative amongst the created order.
Knowing how special, how greatly honoured we are held in His esteem and gaze, should permit and help us to know that He created us and loves us and is ready to forgive us and our earthling siblings. He so loves that He shows us that He is always on our side.  He never abandons. As long as we are alive then He will always be ready to pick us up. 
In God we see the greatest offer of friendship in the situation of brokenness and see a God wishing to come near the brokenness and not be ashamed or repulsed by it. Just to repair Tikkun,   because in the repairing then his creation will complete  the mission which He has given to it and in the carrying out of the mission  not only to grow, but to grow in  stature, wisdom, and truth, and  learn to grow in perfection, that is, to learn to choose to do good, to make “good choices” when an evil choice is much easier to make.
This is the work and honour of the human being only, because beasts and angels do not have this very important option but only the human has been entrusted with this and has this capacity.
To this end we succeed when we have failed and made wrong choices and have seen the consequences of the wrong choices and then turned this around and worked towards making right choices.

Ecclesiastes 7:20 says, “ there is no righteous man in the whole world who continually does good and does not transgress” And yet even when “not good” is done there is the gift  and attribute of forgiveness a gift in the mind of God even before  Adam was created.
Our nature and humaneness belong to the order of goodness in the mind of God and were so before creation, because creation was declared “very good” and even after sin the creation was not destroyed but a promise of forgiveness was made for the future to come in the person of the Messiah and a new humanity. 
Different from the first one human (Adam created from the Adamah and Jesus both from the Adamah and divine) this new humanity, led by Yeshua enfleshes Love, Forgiveness and Grace, the characteristics of the Creator whose breath was infused into the creation because the Creator desired us to be just like Him. In His own image and likeness.
It was His “choice” and not His need for us to be and in the breathing into each human being His breath He also breathes into each individual an option for “choice” and permits us to “choose” to grow or journey into goodness. To develop divine manners and ways so that at the appointed time we do not find ourselves homeless in a strange land far from the creator Father because we have not made choices like Him.

He created us to be like Him and to make a “choice” for Life and on this journey as we make more and more “right” choices we become more and more like Him.  In His own image of one who  chose “life” even though He knew that “Life” would “choose” against Him. To this end He became “forgiveness” so that it was possible to offer this option when the need arose.

 

Monday 5 May 2014

Jesus is Manacled before Pilate

The imagery this brings to mind is filled with pathos. The creator of the universe tied.  This image of God and Man having his hands tied and unable to do anything or defend himself without causing a violence to order.
A reflection of this is that Jesus accepts the situation. He stands there both as me and Him with both of us having our hands tied.
Why cant he do anything? because we have bitten of the tree of knowledge.  We have demanded "choice" and now in this freedom which He gives as part of our contract for being human He cannot intervene.
At times the human creature cries "why Lord?" why didnt you stop him/he" and to this question he shows His hands tied and He is rendered helpless.  We have chosen choice.