Love drove evil out of heaven and cast it down into the Valley of Tears . Evil was evicted but not defeated. The war against evil was unfinished. Only the venue had shifted from up there to down here. The line of scrimmage had made its way to the earth together with the scrum. The earth was not unihabitated when evil arrived. On the earth, Adam and Eve lived in happiness at home with God in paradise. God's power made paradise for Adam and Eve. God's love, however, made paradise sweet. Evil plotted to squeeze the sweetness out of paradise. Evil would empty God's heart of its love for Adam and Eve and their children. Evil would induce humanity to run away from happiness at home with God in paradise. Surely, evil reasoned, this ingratitude - this insult to the generosity of God - would poke a hole in God's heart and drain it of love. Evil promised Adam and Eve a better deal than a life lived in happiness at home with God in paradise. Evil promised them deification . The only condition for the gift of deification was that they needed to abandon God, leave their home and enter the Valley of Tears. The promise of deification without God in the Valley of Tears was the sugarcoating with which evil coated the Valley of Tears to seduce Adam and Eve to abandon God. And they did. Although evil's plot succeeded in ruining Adam and Eve's happiness, it failed to achieve its prime purpose. It did not empty God's heart of its love for us. His heart stayed filled to the brim with love for us. To the surprise of evil, Love motivated God to commence his rescue plan the moment Adam and Eve abandoned God. Without delay, God began the execution of his plan to bring us back to happiness with God in paradise. First, God shattered the sugarcoating. He let us stew in the Valley of Tears like pickles in a barrel of toxic brine. By allowing us to put our fingers in the flame, we learned for ourselves that the fire is hot. Contrary to the testimony of evil, we do not become God without God in the Valley of Tears. Our baptism in the evil of the Valley of Tears is harsh but effective medicine. Next, God sent the Love Note into the Valley of Tears to dilute its toxicity as sugar cubes dilute the bitterness of a cup of bad coffee and to recruit an army to deliver the coup de grâce to evil. Jesus was sent to take the war against evil in the Valley of Tears to the enemy. He was the first to take a position in the scrum at the line of scrimmage toe to toe with evil. Alone, riding a Cross, with no weapon but love, Jesus made his stand. He invites us to stand with him. He invites us to become heroes. He began the opposition to evil. He did not complete it. Completion of the mission is in our hands not his. He showed us how to defeat evil. He hung from his Cross to show us how to hang from our crosses. He clung to his love for us even though we tortured and killed him. He held tight and refused to let go. In this way, evil is defeated. Therefore, cling as Jesus clung, hold tight and refuse to let go of love, evil's invincible foe. The seeds of evil do not grow in the soil of love. Love quarantines evil. Love stops the propagation of evil dead in is tracks. The firewall against the spread of evil is composed of bricks of love. Jesus wants us to become a brick in the wall. He wants us to elevate ourselves from the level of the most miserable and hideous of loveless beast to the level of our loving God. He wants us to deify ourselves with love.
We are made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26). He endowed us with the capacity to love (Luke 17:20-21). Our hearts are vessels that can be filled to the brim with love. The greater the love that we hold in our hearts, the greater is our resemblance to God. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.“ (John 13:35). Deification is the process of increasing our resemblance to God. Only love deifies us.
