Divine life has nothing to do with pixie dust or magic wands. The material revelation of God's Son was not the thing of a moment. It occurred with the Creation, which He made. The Creation always already reveals Him in its scope and every dimension.
Entry into Divine life does not occur suddenly. We do not enter the Kingdom of Heaven simply by believing that Jesus is Lord. "Even the demons believe .... and tremble" (Jas 2:19), writes the Lord's brother, St. James. Nor is there a "born again" moment which flips you from eternal death to eternal life. No, entry into Divine life, as St. Paul has written, is a thing of transformation:
|
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind
that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (Romans 12:1-2) |
".... that you might prove" as silver is proved, as gold is tried, the transformation unto purity is a slow process and often done through fire.
When I think about the great conversions I have known in the circle of my own acquaintance, the pattern is invariable. When God needs a shakeup, He has a shake-up. All things are loosed from their moorings. It is a new and free situation. The lowly of mind might say, "All is lost!" But the noble of mind will say, "All is now begun!" It is through fire that we are transformed into our Divine selves.
Sadly, we live at a time of the instant and the suddenly: plastic surgeries to augment certain body parts, diets that promise instant results, drugs to acquire a Mr. Olympia body in weeks, genius drops. But a brilliant mind is developed slowly through years of praying and reading and writing and problem-solving and by exposing oneself to a wide variety of problem domains. Even a genius IQ lies dormant in a state of turpitude if it never seeks and finds vocation, if it is never stretched out in the sun, where all the genius within can be known.
Whole-cloth transformation, even of body, is a gradual thing requiring devotion and discipline, and, yes, self-denial .... even suffering.
What shall we say then about the great monuments of spiritual transformation? Are they about instant results? So often God reveals what is always already true. Yet, the already-present mysteriously requires a level of devotion and finely attuned attention to comprehend. It requires a transformation of mind requiring years and, in many cases, a lifetime.
St. Paul's conversion is often equated to a brilliant radiance and the presence of God. Artists depict him being toppled from his horse lying blind on the Damascus Road on his back. .... lest we might forget that this was followed by a three-year exile in Arabia. It was followed by the loss of his faculty of sight .... and, we might say, the faculty of speech as he would speak to no one except Peter, but also James. This was no "instant thing." What was revealed was already true.
Jesus was God from the foundations of the world. Saul of Tarsus was blind, dangerously blind. And his speech had been gibberish, unworthy to speak, even dangerous, until he was tutored by the Apostles.
What shall we say about the Resurrection? Was the Resurrection revealed on a Sunday morning? To the many who did not believe, the empty tomb was a very great turning point. But to the Angels of Heaven it was the manifestation of what had always already been true. For the Son of God had always been fully Divine. (We understand the Resurrection equates to Divinity, the victory over death.) His Divine Nature was always about to be fully manifest, always about to break through, as He healed the lame, as He healed the the blind; as He raised the dead; as He fed the 5,000 people with a few scraps of food. His Transfiguration upon a high mountain summit revealed what the discerning mind might always see: His humanity melting away before the Divine radiance of God-self always present just below the surface.
Fully man and fully God. The relation between them is the relationship between man and God. Here is the Resurrection, obvious to the keen of spiritual vision but still awaiting a Sunday morning to awaken the spiritually dead.
What shall we say then about the revelation of the Lord's Passion? Did it begin on a Thursday night and continue until noon the next day? To worldlings it would appear so. But to the angels who grieved on that day (as we certainly do), they would understand the Lord's Passion to have begun the moment He set aside His Divine Glory, captured in the Greek word kénosis (Phil 2:7): He emptied Himself denying Himself the honor of God Who He was appearing to all as a slave (doulós). Did the angels delight to watch this horrible drama unfold?
Yes, they sang Hosannas in the highest at His birth in Bethlehem, for angels are united to the spiritual Glory that is always present wherever He is. But did they delight to watch the Son of God born amongst dung-stained hay and braying donkeys? Did angels delight to see the Most Pure Mother of God denied a decent place to deliver her Child even as merry-makers reveled at an inn a few yards away? Did they delight to see the Holy Family despised as outcasts? Or did they understand all of this to be part of the Passion of the Christ?
What do we mean when we pray from the second-century Anaphora:
| Who when He was delivered to voluntary suffering,.... (Apostolic Constitution) |
Does not this voluntary suffering begin the moment He empties Himself of the Glory which He had before the world was (Jn 17:5), entering the tiny prison-cell of our human dimensions? Small wonder, He should cry out,
| "How much longer must I bear with you?!" (Mt 17:17) |
No, the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ had begun thirty-three years before His exit from our lifeworld on a mean-spirited Cross. It is the Cross which speaks most loudly to an unbelieving world — a world which said, and continues to say, "Crucify Him .... and all like Him."
We exalt the Life-giving Cross, which "is foolishness to those who are perishing," writes St. Paul in our Epistle lesson this morning. But we must also exalt God's Self-offering of a lifetime and for all time — a self-denial so profound that we lack words to express it. To what shall we liken the emptying of God?
"Why do you speak in parables," the Disciples asked Him?
|
He answered and said to them, "Because it has been given to you to know the
mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it has not been given." (Mt 13:11) |
Yet, in the end and through the tender mercies of God, even to those who have rejected God, "to those who are perishing," all is finally revealed. Parables not set aside. All is plainly and vividly revealed.
His Passion is revealed on a Cross. The hatred of God is distilled into one horrible image and moment. And His sovereignty over death and all the elements of earth are seen on a single Sunday morning to those who do not believe. In the end, He no longer taught in parables. For God's mercy is from everlasting to everlasting:
|
Then a voice came from heaven, saying, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again."
Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, "An angel has spoken to Him." Jesus answered and said, "This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself." (Jn 12:28-32) |
All peoples are drawn to Him and raised up as He is raised up on a Cross. The Cross — this most holy sign He has ever after willed to be about transforming and life-giving. He enjoins all who would follow Him to pick it up, for it is the door into life and the imperishable sign of God's love for those who embrace it.
The Holy Cross,
the Precious and Life-giving Cross:
by this symbol God's love and the rejection of the world is signified.
By this sign all will know that we are His servants and His disciples.
By this sign we conquer.
We conquer the world and all its allurments.
By this sign we pass through a gateway from this hateful place to
a place of perfect mercy,
perfect rightness (which we call justice),
and
perfect love.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.