Weekly Musing - Marti

From the mind-expanding truths recently learned from the book Patmos – Three Days; Two Men; One Extraordinary Conversation, (2^nd Edition), written by Dr. C. Baxter Kruger.

This is a time-travel novel where the main character, Aidan, a burned-out theologian, husband, father, grandfather, and friend to many, is swept back in time to the Roman-occupied Greek island of Patmos, where he supernaturally encounters the beloved Apostle John.

As we read Part 2, dare we ask ourselves, “What if some of the things we have taken as ‘the Gospel’ are not accurate, not truth?” What if they were taught to us by well-meaning teachers who had been taught by well-meaning teachers but were totally misunderstood? What about Union and Separation? Can we ask Holy Spirit to help us hear the old, old story and begin to discard some of the erroneous teachings passed down over the last decades, or centuries, to regain the original truths taught and communicated by the Apostles and Early Church Fathers of the First and Second Centuries and beyond?

This next musing will expand on the depth of understanding of what the Incarnation of Jesus Christ meant to humanity, relating to the word “SUBMISSION”, particularly the submission of Jesus at the cross.

I dare not try to improve on the words written by Dr. Kruger, so I will only quote them here and trust God’s light to shine in our hearts through them, starting on page 215 of the 2nd edition of the novel:

SUBMISSION

As I returned to the Room of Revelation with my sleeping rags, the ancient apostle was pacing slowly in prayer.

He motioned for me to sit. I could see in his face that he regarded what he was about to teach me as the linchpin of everything else.

“The Pharisees,” he began, picking up his pace and intensity, “in their snide way, accused Jesus of being a child of fornication and claimed that they, on the contrary, were the children of the Father. Jesus retorted, ‘If God were your Father, you would love me; for I proceeded forth and have come from (ek, ‘out of,’ ‘from within’) God, for I have not even come on my own initiative, but he sent me.’ As I said before, we were dull of mind, but when I heard those words I had a sense that something profound had been said. Later in the upper room just before his prayer, Jesus was speaking to us about the Father’s affection for us, and he said,

‘I proceeded forth from (para, ‘from the side of, from fellowship with’) the Father. I proceeded forth from (ek ‘out of the being of’) the Father, and I have come into the world; I am leaving the world and going to (pros, ‘turned toward, face-to-face with’ the Father.’”

Unsummoned tears rose to my eyes.

“My son, I have pondered those words for years. The best we could understand Jesus, when he spoke them to us, was to say ‘we believe that you came from (apo) the Father.’ And that was true in terms of his mission. But Jesus was speaking of divine mysteries, a much deeper connection between himself and the Father. I use that conversation in my gospel to prepare my readers to hear Jesus’s prayer, moving their hearts to receive his final words:

‘I have made Your name known to them, and I will make it known; that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’”

As he quoted Jesus’s prayer and his own gospel, the air thickened in the room as if hallowing itself. I felt the witness of the Spirit and focused on the last three words–I in them. I knew they were the key. “Why did you end the prayer at that point? I mean to say that in your gospel, immediately after Jesus finishes that prayer, he turns toward the cross. I feel dumb as a post in asking, but were you being intentional, mentioning the one right after the other like that?”

“Everything I wrote was intentional, and everything was also true to how I witnessed it. Jesus's last words to his Father were ‘I in them,’ and the next words in my gospel are ‘when Jesus had spoken these words, he proceeded forth.’” His hands trembled.

I sensed a light beginning to dawn and leaned forward in anticipation. “Sir, what exactly was your intention?”

“To relate Jesus’s, I in them with his crucifixion in the reader’s heart, of course. I in them, our blessed Lord Jesus was finding his way inside the great darkness in us to make his father known to us,” John declared with pride, joy, wonder, simplicity, and hope. "'I have made Your name known to them, and I will make it known…'"

I was afraid to ask but compelled to do so. “How did Jesus do that on the cross?”

“Submission,” he cried out in holy awe.

“Submission? To what or to whom?” I trembled, trusting that pressing was not offensive to the beloved disciple.

“To the world – Jew and Gentile – trapped in Ophis’s (the enemy’s) madness, twisted blind by his dastardly lie.”

“But how? How does Jesus’s submission to us make the Father known to us?”

“Union, Aidan, union. The Word became flesh (sarx) to dwell in us.”

“But how could union be related to the crucifixion?” I blurted out, increasingly frustrated at my own incompetence.

…Isn’t that the question we all have asked when we learn something new about the mystery of God? "How?" How does this work? How does it play out in my life today?