Why did God give us two hands? We need two hands to hold two important buckets of knowledge so we can contemplate the details of each and the relationship between the two. One hand is not enough. A third hand is superfluous. One hand is to hold his ignominious defeat. The other hand is to hold his glorious victory. Can you articulate the details of his ignominious defeat? We tortured and killed the God who loves us. We made him suffer and die. Sin does not get much worse than torturing and killing someone who loves you - especially when your lover is the Son of God. Can you articulate the details of his glorious victory? He rose from the dead still alive and still in love with us. He did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. Can you articulate the relationship between his ignominious defeat and his glorious victory? The evil we did to the God who loves us ought to have extinguished him and his love for us. But, it did not. Both he and his love for us survived the evil that we did to him. That he emerged from the black hole of death still alive is the proof that Jesus is God. No mere mortal emerges alive from the black hole of death. He did. That he emerged from the black hole of death still in love with us, however, proves so much more than "mere" divinity. This added, apocalyptic detail reveals to us that our simple conception of divinity as omnipotence is not quite accurate. It is incomplete. Divinity is also love - a mysteriously intransigent, inexplicably persistent and radically stubborn love (Lamentations 3:22-23) (Jeremiah 31:3) (Psalm 8:4-8). The dial that controls his love for us is in his hands not ours. Moreover, it is set to the highest degree and locked in place (Jeremiah 31:3). Not even the evil that we did to him could budge it (Lamentations 3:22). If his love for us were counterfeit, it would have faded as we tortured him and died when we killed him. But it did not. It persisted. That love survived the evil baptism into which we immersed him is the irrefutable proof that divinity is love. His omnipotence is awesome. Indeed, his omnipotence made paradise for us. However, it is his love for us that makes paradise sweet. Omnipotence without love is a false God. Omnipotence makes God powerful. Love makes God perfect
When we showed Jesus our worst, Jesus showed us his best . In the comparison between Creator and creatures that took place on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection, we did not do well - not well at all. The ugliness of our contribution to the comparison amplified the beauty of his contribution. The evil that we did to him was the foil that highlighted and amplified and emphasized and accentuated and magnified his forgiveness of us. The greater was the evil that we did to the God who loves us , the more astonishing is his forgiveness of us.
Let us devote 50% of our resources to installing, maintaining and upgrading the Christian operating system and no more than 50% on the applications. Is 50% too much to ask?
Jesus's flesh and blood burnt in the furnace of affliction (Isaiah 48:10) to forge a powerful weapon with which we can do battle with evil. In the furnace of affliction, Jesus forged a gentle answer to the brutal evil that we did to him. He forgave us. Our brutal evil served as the midwife who delivered Jesus’s gentle answer from the darkness into the light. The incandescence of his gentle answer illuminates the darkness of our understanding of God in a glorious burst of epiphany. His gentle answer to the brutal evil that we did to him gobsmacks us. It knocks us off our horse (Acts 9:4). His gentle answer is the strongest force on earth. It gives Christianity its magic and Jesus his charisma. The gravity of his gentle answer pulls us into a centripetal orbit around him. It is the blockbuster that changes the game. It is the catalyst of our conversion - the agent of our transformation. It shifts the paradigm. THE EDIFICE OF CHRISTIANITY IS BUILT UPON HIS ANSWER TO THE BRUTAL EVIL THAT WE DID TO HIM. HIS RESPONSE IS THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY.
The Magi saw the potential in the feeble human baby born in the manger. His potential was realized on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection where he participated in the first lopsided transaction under the new Paradigm. The signal of the new paradigm repeats itself whenever a Mass takes place. It echoes from then and there, across space and time, to us here and now. The vehicle that carries the echo is the Mass.
Jesus gave us a glimpse of what we are waiting for as he proceeded through the furnace of affliction (Isaiah 48:10) on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. He did not give us a declaration about God. He gave us a demonstration of God.
What evil will Biden do to our understanding of God? Does he plan to attack the Christian understanding of God? Does he plan to undermine it? As long as he keeps his hands off the Christian understanding of God, Christianity will survive everything else that the prognosticators predict that Biden will do.
The technical, theological jargon of the real presence is only an incidental part of the Mass. The Mass is much bigger than the real presence.
The greatest obstacle blocking us from participating in the new Exodus is our superficial understanding of God
What is the Good News of Great Joy ? Can you give us a synopsis of it? Do you have the words? Is the answer on the tip of your tongue? Do you carry the Good News of Great Joy with you in your pocket always and everywhere? Or is your pocket empty?
The prodigal son will never go back to the pig sty. Neither will we. We are disobedient not irrational
If we erase the errors of the past, we would have nothing with which to compare the truths of the present. Only by comparison does error illuminate the truth - does evil amplify forgiveness. If there were no Crucifixion, there would be nothing for Jesus to forgive. If there was no forgiveness, how could we reverse engineer forgiveness into a high fidelity understanding of the love of God?
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
Psalm 100
The greatest mistake that the leadership of the Church is making during this time of pandemic is that they have dispensed with their congregations as insouciantly as they discard used toilet tissue.
Different descriptions of the same story can be stacked together to give us a better insight into the story itself. Jesus’s baptism and the story that unfolded on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection are two descriptions of the same story. What do we get when we stack them together?
Jesus poured the sweet syrup of forgiveness from the reservoir of love that he held in his most Sacred Heart, through his bloody wounds, and into the Valley of Tears to diute its toxicity in the same way that sugar cubes dilute the bitterness of a cup of bad coffee. Dilution is God's solution to the toxicity of the Valley of Tears.
God's love for us is the magic of Christianity. His power built paradise for us. His love for us, however, makes paradise sweet. Power begets respect but love begets love.
Religious practices keep important truths about God alive. When we encounter a religious practice, it is always insightful to try to figure out what truth it is keeping alive. A religious practice not assigned to a truth about God is a fetish - a superstition.
The show must go on! The congregation is optional.
Our journey through life is a slog through hostile territory.
How do we breed the trait of religiosity out of the children of Adan and Eve? Convince the most religious of them not to reproduce. Convince them that celibacy is a virtue.