Is God a Lemon or an Orange?
"... every tree is known by its own fruit" (Luke 6:43-45). When evil squeezed the truth about God out of him until nothing was left, what did Jesus pour into the hostile desert of godlessness ?
Is God a lemon or an orange?
Asking for an answer to the question, 'Is God a lemon or an orange?', seems like an invitation to play a child's game. Isn't it infantile to compare God to a citrus fruit? Isn't it beneath serious adult contemplation? However, it is not. The reward for pursuing this seemingly frivolous line of inquiry is the perfection of our understanding of God.
An understanding of the nature of God is the treasure of Christianity (Matthew 13:44). Jesus deposited the treasure of Christianity (Matthew 13:44) into an unbalanced, bilateral transaction that took place between humanity and divinity on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. There, Jesus presented God to the children of Adam and Eve in two stages. The two stages form a single unit of apocalyptic revelation. Both stages were needed to reveal the nature of God to us. Either of the two stages alone is inadequate. The first stage was the foil. It began the revelation. However, it did not conclude it. The payload concluded the revelation. In the foil of the unbalanced, bilateral transaction, we put Jesus to the test (Malachi 3:10) (Luke 4:12) (Deuteronomy 6:16) (Wisdom 2: 17-20). We baptized him in the furnace of affliction (Isaiah 48:10). We tortured and killed the God who loves us. We made the God who loves us suffer and die. We impaled the God who loves us on a cross as a fisherman insouciantly impales a live worm on a sharp hook where he hung until death. The foil of the transaction emphasized and intensified and magnified and amplified and accentuated the asymmetry of the payload (Isaiah 55:8-9). In the payload of the transaction, Jesus forgave us (Jeremiah 31:31-34) (Luke 23:34 ) (Acts 10:43) (Matthew 6:12) (Matthew 18:21-35) (Luke 7:47). Out of the sacrifice of his flesh and blood, Jesus released the angel of forgiveness into the Valley of Tears instead of the three-headed monster of revenge, retaliation and retribution. No love for us; no sacrifice; no forgiveness. And the plan that was announced in advance of Jesus's visit fails. "... and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" (Jeremiah 31:31-34) (Luke 5: 17-25). Love -> sacrifice -> forgiveness was the blessed sequence of salvific events.
On the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection, the evil that we did to Jesus squeezed the truth about God out of Jesus and into the hostile desert of godlessness. Evil squeezed Jesus until nothing was left but the truth about God. Did our evil squeeze out of Jesus the sour juice of revenge, retaliation and retribution? Or did our evil squeeze the sweet juice of forgiveness out of him (Jeremiah 31:31-34)(Luke 23:34 )(Acts 10:43) (Matthew 6:12) (Matthew 18:21-35) (Luke 7:47)? What was Jesus's answer to the evil that we did to him, evil both brutal and lethal? "... [E]very tree is known by its own fruit" (Luke 6:43-45). Taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8). In answer to the evil that we did to him, Jesus acted like an orange not a lemon. Through the floodgates (Malachi 3:10) of his bloody wounds, Jesus poured the sweet syrup of love in the form of forgiveness into the hostile desert of godlessness to dilute 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 problem of evil. His enemies tried, but failed, to reduce Jesus from the level of our loving God to the level of the most miserable and hideous of loveless beast. Jesus refused the ignominious demotion. He kept his most Sacred Heart filled to the brim with love for us despite the evil that we did to him.
God’s love for us is real. Only reality is reliable. We can depend on the reality of his love for us. Expect much from the God who loves us! Whom shall we fear? Of whom shall we be afraid (Psalm 27)? Will our almighty lover ever let us down? Will he ever betray us? Will he ever disappoint (Romans 8:31)? What a wonderful God is our God! What a delight! Don’t put your trust in just any god. Put your trust in the God who made himself known to us on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection and, there, showed us that his love for us is immutable. God's love for us is a mysteriously intransigent, inexplicably persistent and radically stubborn love (Lamentations 3:22-23)(Jeremiah 31:3)(Psalm 8:4-8). By squeezing the truth about God out of Jesus, we discovered that the dial that controls his love for us is in his hands not ours. Moreover, it is set to the highest degree and is locked in place. Not even the evil that we did to him could budge it. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? (Psalm 8:4).
Resurrect your understanding of God from the dead. The truth about God that our evil squeezed out of Jesus illuminated the darkness of our understanding of God in a glorious burst of epiphany. Elevate yourself from poverty to wealth by upgrading your understanding of God. Only by investigating the unbalanced, bilateral transaction that unfolded on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection do you come into possession of a high fidelity representation of the reality of God - the best approximation of God available to the children of Adam and Eve who are making their escape through the hostile desert of godlessness (Exodus 13: 17-18), across the Red Sea of death (1 Corinthians 15:26), over the finish line (2 Timothy 4:7) and into the promised land (Numbers 13:27). A low fidelity understanding of God brings friction to our escape. Our escape proceeds smoothly only when our understanding of God is high fidelity.
The revelation about God that Jesus revealed to us on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection occupies the position of prominence in the showcase of Christianity. It is worthy of serious contemplation. How important is it in the larger scheme of things - in the big picture of Christianity? It is unique in importance because the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection is the only place on earth - - - and in heaven - - - where Jesus sacrificed his flesh and blood. CHRISTIANITY IS A TREASURE MAP FOR TREASURE HUNTERS ENGAGED IN A TREASURE HUNT. The Cross marks the spot of the treasure (1 Corinthians 1:17). Grab your shovel. Make haste to the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. Dig up the treasure of Christianity. Make yourself rich (Matthew 13:44).
Be an orange not a lemon. Furthermore, prefer the company of oranges; avoid the company of lemons. Teach the children. Remind the adults. In 2004 at an annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha, Nebraska (Warren Buffet), Warren Buffet said: "It's better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you'll drift in that direction." Hang out with oranges not lemons (Psalm 1:1).
P.S. The greater was the evil that we did to Jesus, the greater is our astonishment at the exorbitant price he paid to give us his apocalyptic answer to the evil that we did to him, at the intransigence of his love for us, and at the gentleness of his answer to the evil that we did to him.
P.P.S. To jump start the process of transforming lemons into oranges (Ezekiel 36:26), God sent us his Son. Jesus was the seed of love that God planted in the soil of our hearts. Watch his gardens grow! He was the Love Note that God sent us to dilute the toxicity of the hostile desert of godlessness in the same way that sugar cubes dilute the bitterness of a cup of bad coffee. He started the process. However, he did not complete it. He was the first drop (1 John 4:19)(John 10:27-30). Our mission is to turn the drop into a flood (Matthew 13:32)(Genesis 6:17). "And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20-21). In the new Eden of our hearts, orchards of oranges grow.
Share This Post
You can share this post with your friends
Leave a Comment
You can leave a comment to start a discussion about this post. God is not dead. Indeed, God is very much alive. However, the conversation about God is dead. Killing the conversation about God is tantamount to killing God. The enemies of the Church know this. The Church does not. Can we devote 50% of the conversation to God? Is 50% too much to ask?
Subscribe to the Sheep’s Perspective
You can subscribe to the Sheep’s Perspective