Weekly Musing - Marti

…and now, Part 3 of the mind-expanding truths recently learned of 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 pick up where we left off in Part 2, beginning on page 217 of the 2^nd Edition of the novel:…the question from Aidan to John is the same question we ask, "How?""But how could union be related to the crucifixion?"

SUBMISSION – Part 2 (A bit lengthy, but hopefully you stay to the end.)

John paused, his intensity calming, and I could see a gentleness within him. He then turned to me and whispered, "Gather up the fragments; see that nothing is lost---"

…Then it dawned on me… "Sir, are you referring to the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand with fish and bread?"

"Yes, Aidan. Think, now. Think with your heart. … "When Jesus spoke those words, I heard many things in my heart…" His voice trailed off into a whisper, laden with emotion. "All the fragments, the broken pieces, my son… shattered in Ophis's madness! But I did not yet see. It was only as the Lord bowed before their betrayal---" He stopped, scarcely able to say the words because his voice was quivering so. He looked away, then turned toward me again, "As Jesus became a lamb before their treachery and submitted himself…," he said, closing his eyes and covering his mouth with his shaking hands as if to stop himself from speaking of such darkness. "As he allowed himself to be mocked and beaten…and tortured to death---" Once more the great apostle could no longer speak, his body convulsing with a memory so vivid it was breaking his heart all over again.

Silence filled the room as the ancient warrior relived the heinous scene. The moment was so holy for my brother—his emotions so raw in remembering Jesus's sufferings and so overcome by the light shining in them—I dared not say a word. I stood beside him, beginning to feel my own heart tear apart with the strange and unfathomable combination of bereavement and hope I saw in his eyes.

At last, when he was able, John looked at me and resumed. "The light shines in the darkness. I saw the light shining in the world's darkest hour. 'When Jesus had spoken these words,'" he repeated quietly, "'He proceeded forth'. He proceeded forth out of the being of the Father and into the great darkness itself. Do you now see, my son?

… "Do you see his joy?

… "I heard Jesus’s joy in his voice when he prayed. Even in the horror of his suffering. I saw his joy. Jesus knew the way of the lamb was the way of his entering our flesh, our great darkness."

… "As he hung there, his body writhing in torture, I saw his joy shining," John said, his voice resonating hope even as he wiped his nose on his left sleeve. "He knew he was finding his way inside our blindness and that he would bring us to see his Father with his own eyes—as he has with you."

Like a curtain being drawn aside, I suddenly glimpsed a redemptive genius I could barely apprehend. "Submission," I gasped in a whisper. "Jesus had to go right inside our darkness and let it do its worst to get to the rock bottom—and yet he knew our blindness couldn’t destroy him; he knew that only from the inside could he give us his eyes to see, heal our believing. So he rejoiced. Is that what you meant all along?"

The grin that broke across his face set it alight like never before. He nodded. "The Lord knew that all things were coming upon him. His hour at last had come, and he proceeded forth. Such confidence I had never seen; Jesus, bowed in humility before the hatred of the world, to be brutally murdered by the Jews and the Gentiles in collusion with Ophis’s madness. He knew!"

(Next, John speaks of the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane where Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss, and a cohort of at least six hundred soldiers comes to arrest Jesus.)

Page 219:

… "But the Lord spoke two words, Ego Eimi, 'I Am,' and sudden fear fell across the valley. Some knelt instantly in awe; all the others, every last one, fell to the ground like stones."

… "Jesus was letting them know that their murderous mission would only be fulfilled with his consent. 'No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own initiative.'…Jesus bowed as a powerless lamb before the slaughter, knowing it was the way into 'the flesh.' 'The cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?'"

… "but why did it have to be so horrific? The reviling, the mocking and insolence and bitter disdain, the scourging and beating to the point that Jesus was hardly recognizable as a human being? … Couldn’t Jesus have simply died? Why the cross, that ruthless Roman torture machine, and the cascades of violent wrath from everywhere?"

… "'Gather up the fragments; see that nothing is lost,'" he whispered. "The crowd shouted, 'Away with him, away with him, crucify him!' Pilate smirked, 'Behold, your King!' The chief priests blasphemed, 'We have no king but Caesar.' Do you see, Aidan, the gathering of the final, hostile fragments of the great darkness? And Pilate delivered Jesus up to them to be crucified."

Still as a cat, I sat speechless, my heart soaring, knowing that I was hearing from the Apostle John himself the undiluted truth that could set me—and the whole world—free forever. Unimaginable grace whispered all around me, in me, everywhere, but I was still missing something.

The beloved apostle reached up, as if touching a small knob in the air with his thumb and index finger. Then he turned it half a turn and smiled, "What would be left out if Jesus had stumbled, hit his head, and died on the way to Golgotha?"

"Brother John, my heart is overwhelmed, but I’m seeing it now; this is the opposite of everything we in the West have been taught about the cross…I am seeing not God’s wrath, but ours, the wrath of the human race, our anger, scorn, bitterness, hostility and enmity toward God—O Lord Jesus! This is awful!"

"All of Ophis's madness," John said, picking up where all thought failed me. "His madness, as it had poisoned the mind of Adam's race, gathered into one act of terrible iniquity, the complete rejection of the Father's Son. The deepest darkness, the last broken fragment. Isaiah saw it: 'He was despised and forsaken by men, and the Lord caused the iniquity of us all to encounter him.'"

"Sir!" I fell to the ground in tears. "We cursed and damned and crucified the Word of God!"

"And the Word became flesh to dwell in us." He whispered, embracing me with tears of joy flowing down his ancient face. Never had such a quiet voice sounded with such power! St. John's whisper thundered through the cave, through my heart, and probably through the entire cosmos.

Yet I cried out, "But what about the Eloi? Didn’t the Father forsake Jesus on the cross as he encountered our sin? That is what I have always been taught."

"Forsake?" he growled, obviously appalled at the thought, anger flashing in his eyes. "Who could think that the Father would ever forsake Jesus? He was with him, in him, through it all."

"Sir, is that not what the psalm says? Matthew and Mark quote, 'My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?' And even in your gospel you quote from the same psalm."

"Do your people not know how to read?" John frowned, almost dumbfounded yet not losing his joy. "Jesus could hardly breathe as he hung on that cross, but he was able to speak the first line of that psalm in victory. We all knew it by heart. Read the whole psalm, brother, and you will see. 'For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard.'

… "Jesus entered our iniquity by submitting to our insanity. Our blessed Lord made his way into Adam's broken eyes; that is why he cried out, 'My God, My God,' from the Psalm, and as he did his Father held him in his arms. Even as I do you now—yet from the inside. Union with his Father and with us in the darkness. 'It is finished,'" he whispered in triumph, holding me as if he wanted me to feel the truth.

My mind swirled like one of Ezekiel's wheels. I understood what the apostle was saying, but this was so foreign to all that I knew. Then the universe inside me slowed, and I could see a single neon sign flashing before my eyes. It was the title of Jonathan Edwards's famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." … As I looked the words Sinnersand God changed places in the sign. I gasped as "God in the Hands of Angry Sinners" appeared, pulsating… "Oh, God! What have we done?"

At last I could see. "Jesus's submission to our hostile rejection of him was his way into our…"

"Flesh," the apostle finished. "The great darkness. Sarx! Where Ophis had his hold," he shouted, lifting his hands and jumping to his feet. "Oh! Lord Jesus, yes! Amen! Union with us in our sin—the Mercy Seat, Aidan. Jesus transfigured our rejection of Him into the New Covenant where we are embraced in everlasting mercy."

… He drew in a deep breath, then stared dramatically into my heart. "Listen carefully. The Son in whom all things are, who dwells face-to-face with Abba in Ruach HaKodesh, now dwells face-to-face with Adam’s race inside Ophis's madness. Heaven's gate," he called out, raising his hands in worship. "The great 'I Am' inside the violent world of 'I am not.' All will see! This I know. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, you in Me, and I in you."

The penny finally dropped for me. I could see that Jesus bowed before our hatred to enter into our darkness—and he did—but instead of his Father forsaking him at that moment, his Father was in him and in the Holy Spirit. …On the cross Jesus brought his union with his Father in the Holy Spirit into His union with me, with us, with the world in our sin. The divine embrace. Heaven's gate! In that moment all my questions stopped, and I wept at the genius and the stunning humility and the love of Jesus for me, for us all. I in them—I, with my Father and the Holy Spirit—in them and they in me.

Then the great apostle slowly stood as if to conduct a mighty symphony…(his) face was suffused with light as he opened his arms wide in adoration.

…St. John sat down…spent in the joy of the light of life. I went to his side, watching his face carefully as he whispered to himself, his head moving slowly… He lifted his hands in front of his long beard, turning them slightly toward one another as if to receive a treasure from someone standing over him, like a child from his father. Then he began speaking, veneration in his voice, savoring the words as tears of joy flowed down his face. I listened with every fiber of my body and soul.

"The glory which you have given me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as we are one; I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that you sent me, and love them, even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am, in order that they may behold my glory, which you have given me; for you loved me before the foundation of the world, Righteous Father, although the world has not known you, yet I have known you; and these have known that you sent me; and I have made your name known to them, and I will make it known; that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them."

I sat in awe as the beloved apostle lowered his hands, stilling … in the glory of Jesus.