MATRICULATING AT THE SCHOOL THAT JESUS FOUNDED ON THE ROAD FROM THE CRUCIFIXION TO THE RESURRECTION TO WHICH THE CHILDREN OF ADAM AND EVE GO TO UPGRADE THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF GOD
Discovering the secrets of the lopsided transaction that took place between divinity and humanity on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection
The road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection is the school that Jesus founded in the Valley of Tears to upgrade the children of Adam and Eve’s understanding of God. Its curriculum is limited to a single subject. At the school, the lopsided transaction that took place between divinity and humanity on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection is studied. Nothing else.
Jesus deposited a high fidelity, first class understanding of God into the lopsided transaction for the edification of the children of Adam and Eve. Into the lopsided transaction, Jesus deposited all of the pieces of the puzzle of God. To upgrade my understanding of God, I put the pieces together. It wasn’t that difficult. You can do it too. It is possible for all of us to squeeze the sweet details about God out of the lopsided transaction as juice is squeezed from an orange.
What did I discover? What sweet details about God did I distill? What did Jesus teach me in school?
I discovered that Jesus had written the Autobiography of God on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection in the ink of his flesh and blood.
Jesus told the story of God with his flesh and blood. They were the engines that propelled the story from its beginning, through its middle to its end. Each chapter in the Autobiography of God involves his flesh and blood. Those parts of the life of Jesus not involving his flesh and blood are obiter dicta - important but outside the framework of the Autobiography of God.
On the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection, I did not merely behold a static snapshot of an enigmatic God - a mere, shadowy presence. I beheld the awesome and apocalyptic unfolding of the drama of God right here in the Valley of Tears. It was not mysterious but informative. God had retreated into a mysterious black box as a consequence of the fall of Adam and Eve. "Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour" (Isaiah 45:15). The children of Adam and Eve, by means of the evil that we did to Jesus, cracked open the mysterious black box to expose the sweet details of God hidden within. The light emerged from the darkness (Matthew 4:16) (Matthew 5:14-15) (2 Peter 1:19). An enigmatic God without details sprouted details as a featherless chick fledges feathers. The veil between heaven and earth was rent in twain from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51) and, through the rent in the veil, Jesus gave us a glimpse of our transcendent God from here on earth.
The two sides of the transaction that I studied in the school that Jesus founded on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection were radically asymmetric - antipodal (Isaiah 55:8-9).
On one side of the transaction, we did evil to Jesus. We took from Jesus all of his limited human resources. We emptied him (Philippians 2:7). We left him not a penny for himself. We fed the flesh and blood of our Creator into the maw of the monster of the Crucifixion. The teeth of the monster chewed Jesus up into bits and pieces. The tongue of the monster was as sharp as its teeth. It taunted the God who loves us about the direness of his predicament. “Despair! Abandon hope! You are alone and forsaken. Nobody is coming to rescue you” (Matthew 27:42 - 46). The weight of his dire predicament became heavier and heavier with each bite of the monster. The absence of a savior - the delay in salvation - pushed Jesus to the edge of despair. He cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me"(Matthew 27:46)?
On dark side of the transaction is Jesus’s ignominious defeat. On the light side of the transaction is Jesus’s glorious victory. His glorious victory emerged from the darkness of his ignominious defeat as the dawn emerges from the night (Matthew 4:16) (Matthew 5:14-15) (2 Peter 1:19). The darkness was the foil for the light.
On the other side of the transaction is the glorious victory of Jesus. The glorious victory that Jesus won on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection was that Jesus refused to let evil knock him down. Jesus refused to let our evil reduce him from the level of our loving God to the level of the most miserable and hideous of loveless beast. The evil that we did to him did not extinguish the bonfire of love that burns for us in his most Sacred Heart or reduce its intensity by even the slightest degree. From the evil that we did to him, Jesus revealed that the dial that controls his love for us is in his hands not ours. Moreover, it is set to the highest degree and locked in place. Not even our evil could budge it. Jesus emerged from the dead still alive and still in love with us. Love manifests itself in many forms. Forgiveness is one of the sweet fruits of love. Jesus demonstrated his love for us by forgiving us for the evil that we did to him. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)(Luke 23:34 )(Acts 10:43) (Matthew 6:12) (Matthew 18:21-35) (Luke 7:47). Forgiveness was the gentle answer that Jesus gave us to the evil that we did to him. Forgiveness is the Good News of Great Joy.
Jesus set the gentleness of God against the foil of our brutal and lethal harshness. We baptized Jesus in evil but he, in turn, baptized us in love. The stark contrast gobsmacked me. God’s gentleness in answer to the evil that we did to him surprised me. The surprise knocked me off my horse (Acts 9:4).
Would I were able to pick you up, carry you to the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection, set you down and leave you there until you have made the same discoveries as I made! Would you discover the gentleness of God for yourselves as I discovered it for myself!
Jesus wrote the Autobiography of God in the precious ink of his flesh and blood. Read it! Don’t settle for less. Don’t settle for the mere, shadowy, enigmatic presence of God. Insist on becoming privy to the awesome and apocalyptic Autobiography of God!
P.S. Jesus founded a most unusual school. He equipped the school that he founded on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection with wheels. He made it mobile. Why? The lopsided transaction does not propagate itself. It does not have its own legs. With wheels, the school was able to transport the lopsided transaction from its birthplace then and there, across time and space, to the children of Adam and Eve here and now. Without wheels, the school would be trapped in the boondocks of space and time - in the "backside of the desert"(Exodus 3:1-3), far away and long ago. The wheels of the school are the Mass. The Mass does not just present to us the mere, shadowy, enigmatic presence of God. God spoke to us on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. His tongue was not nailed to the Cross. He was not mute. At Mass, Jesus articulates to us the entire lopsided apocalyptic transaction. He does not just present his mere presence. At Mass, the rabble and its ringleader takes from Jesus the flesh and blood of sacrifice even though his flesh and blood do not belong to us. Jesus, in turn, transubstantiates the flesh and blood of sacrifice into the bread and wine of forgiveness even though the rabble and its ringleader do not deserve forgiveness (Matthew 7:6). Without bread to eat and wine to drink, we die of hunger and thirst. Without the bread and wine of forgiveness that Jesus gifted to us on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection, death is just as certain.
HISTORY IS A SERIES OF FAILED ATTEMPTS BY THE SERPENT TO EXTINGUISH GOD'S LOVE FOR US
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