Advent 2023 part 10

Only the cherubim saw the Living God pass through the Door and into the visible realm, there to freely wander the corridors of time.

The Lord raised his hand, and suddenly the ancient past appeared. The Lord stepped into the Garden of Eden.

The beauty of the Garden was breath-taking. For a few moments he roamed its verdant meadows, absorbing its floral wonders. He breathed the purity of the air of that bygone era as it had existed before the planet had fallen. Finally, he paused and spoke to the Garden.

“Once the glories of earth and the glories of heaven met and joined here. The best of both realms touched, and you, O Garden, were the meeting place. It was here, primordial Garden, that angels played together, and all the joys of earth and heaven were one. Then came that tragic day. It was necessary that I seal off the heavenlies from the earth. Man was cast out of you, and angels returned to their own realm.  You, O Garden, disappeared from view.

“But my Purpose was not thwarted! I will yet join the highest glory of heaven with the highest that earth affords. And I will do so in the coming hour! But on this occasion, it will not be you, a garden, that will gather the two realities into one. I shall be the joining. I, the Light of the heavenlies, will become man. I, a man of earth, and I, the God of heaven. I will be the coming together of the highest of two realms. I will be the oneness.”

The Living God raised his hand again, and yet another scene from the ancient past appeared. The Lord now stood before a mound, a sculpting of clay. The clay began to stir. Dirt was becoming a living being. Indeed, clay was becoming man!

The Lord watched as the glowing sculpture trembled in n its change from humus to human, from soil to soul. The Lord knelt beside the naked creature and spoke.

“Man, once you were the joining of two realms. I formed you out of the very elements of this planet’s sod, but then I gave you a spirit that came from the very heavenlies. You were, therefore, a creature composed of elements from both realms. The two creations joined within your bosom. A man made two realms one.

“Alas, fair creature, the bond did not hold, for the last ingredient you needed, the highest element of the heavenlies, was never added to you. My life in you. You chose not to partake of my life. What tragedy that you refused to take my life into you. And there followed hard on a tragedy equally as great. You fell. You so dreadfully fell. But that Fall did not thwart my Purpose, my Eternal Purpose.

“The fullness of time is here. Now. Today it will not be man who weds the two creations into one. On this occasion it will be God. Yes, the two creations will join again, this time not in a garden nor in a man, this time the two creations will be joined in God. The highest of all things in heavenly places and the highest of man’s high reaches shall become one, in me.”

The Lord stood and raised his hand. The scene changed once more. What emerged was not something from the ancient past, but the present. The site was an encamped caravan.  The hour was late. All had gone to bed except a desert wanderer and a much beleaguered rabbi who had made the mistake of engaging this bedouin tramp in a religious discussion.

“How can you not believe in God?” exclaimed the rabbi “Look at all there is around you.”

“I did not say I do not believe in God, but only that there is no evidence of him. I say to you, if he does exist, he does not work hard at letting us know it. There is even less evidence that cares for us.”

“But the Scripture says. . .” sputtered the rabbi.

“The Scripture! Forget what is written. If there is a God, then let him come down here where we are. Let him live in this filthy place where we live. Let him smell the stink, let him feel the poverty, let him know pain, let him see the hunger, let him feel the hunger. Let him know what it is to eke out an existence in wretched poverty. Let him see a friend die, feel the agony of loss, the unfairness of death. Let him know what it is to watch a little child die and see him taken from his mother’s arms for burial. Let him see our diseases, the twisted feet, the sockets of blind eyes. Let this God of yours be hated, jeered, cheated, robbed! Let him lose everything he owns at the hands of the wicked. Let him be dragged before a court of law, as was I. Let him discover firsthand how unjust justice really is.”

The bedouin's vehemence grew as he continued. “And sin! He is so interested in whether or not I sin, let him feel my temptation. Let him experience my weaknesses. Then let us see how he feels about all the rules and commands he has put on me, rules I cannot live up to, yet if I do not live up to them,” the bedouin snarled, “he will not like me anymore!

“Let him feel what I feel, here in this miserable aching, decaying body of mine! And then, let him die! Yes, let him die the way I will probably die, like most wanderers die, out here alone. Homeless, uncared for, forsaken, forgotten! If he wants to impress me, let him become like me. Then maybe I will believe in your God, but not until then!”

Though the bedouin did not hear, he nonetheless was given a most astounding reply.

“Bedouin,” said the Lord, “you are wiser than you know. Yes, far wiser than you know.”

The Lord was about to step back into time’s corridors, but paused instead and addressed the desert wanderer once more.

“And, bedouin, we shall meet again, on a high hill. And together we shall die.” He paused again. “And together we shall rise!

“Now I must go, for the hour has come for me to become one with my creation.”

The Lord raised his hand once more. This time he lifted off the planet and rose high above the clouds. For a moment he paused midway between the two realms and viewed the fallen creation.

“My enemy! Sin! Death!” he cried. “You have had your short day! Soon those whom I shall redeem will become one with me. Your frail efforts to thwart my Purpose will end. My ultimate reason for creation, to gather my chosen ones and make them one with me, has never been in jeopardy.

“Soon I will come for those I have chosen in a way that will astound even the angels. Soon I will begin to bridge the chasm that keeps us apart.

“Divinity and humanity, one in me. I will walk the earth. I will live in my creation. I will become visible, for all to see. Nothing now living, or that has ever lived, has seen what is about to be. One who is wholly man and wholly divine.”

With that, the Lord called across the universe. “Come time, come eternity, come spirituals, come physicals, lose your separation and meet in me! Now beyond all thought of man and wildest dream of angels, now in my Eternal Purpose.”

As he stepped back through the Open Door, the Most High God called out one word.

“Recorder!”