JESUS CHRIST: A Battle Worth Fighting

We can wander into Renaissance Festivals and see people all made up to be people of that time.

We can watch the news and see how a group of people have assembled to recreate an historical battle, complete with swords and drums and even working muskets.

There was a time when young people liked to dress up as druids and demons just to play a game.

And so the list can go on:  People who put themselves into a Sherlock Holmes story; people who dress up as Antony and Cleopatra; even children in a Christmas play, miniature wise men and a pregnant lady.

In a way I am one of those people.  Except without a costume.

When I am in visions of being back with Jesus, in his time, I am not there physically.  I am not part of the scene.

I am just breath with an ability to see.

To watch.

There are three things that I see as I watch Jesus interact with the people around him.

The impotent God

The Jewish priests, disappointed that this so-called messiah was not a war general, here to defeat the oppressing forces, were not shy in letting Jesus know what they thought of him: he was nothing more than a wandering loud-mouth.

He could do nothing.

And the nothing he did do revealed no God.

If you were really sent by God, you would DO something.

Something that we approved of.

But it wasn’t just the priests who scoffed at Jesus.

How many people that he healed ever thanked him?

I remember the phase I went through feeling that people should be at least grateful for what God did for them, until I was steered toward the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers.

Only one came back to thank him.

And even that act didn’t matter.

God’s job is to serve.

People’s ingratitude, or even their obliviousness to showing gratitude, has nothing to do with the mission of God.

Throughout his life people threatened him, denounced him, insulted him, and did their best to get him out of their company.

Until the end, when even his own men turned their faces away from him.

One, even, became the means to send him to his death.

Why did people hate him so much?

Because to them, he wasn’t enough.

He was a God who failed.

Failed to convince them.

Even though he did exactly what God the Father sent him here to do: to die.

Betrayal

For years now, at the direction of God the Father, I have studied the concept of betrayal in the church.  From the beginning of the church onward.

I just shrugged and thought it had to do with Peter’s three denials of Christ before his Passion.

But Peter was turned back to Christ by the Holy Spirit.

And while many writers describe Jesus as forgiving Peter, these writers err in their terminology.

Forgiveness is a releasing of a debt.

You do something bad against me, and it hurts.  The hurt affects the quality of my life.

You owe me my comfort back.

What forgiveness does is restore you to your original state so that you can tell the offender, in honesty, that he no longer owes you anything.

The debt is cleared.

Peter did no such harm to Christ.

Peter betrayed Christ.

It is of no matter that these betrayals were already known to Christ beforehand, that they were part of God’s Passion Play.

Betrayal is an absolute act.  It may cause harm, but that harm cannot be restored through forgiveness.

Betrayal makes the victim an authority over the betrayer.  It gives the victim the power to grant mercy to the betrayer.

Or not.

The victim is always in choice.  Is always the authority.

Jesus granted mercy to Peter for what he did.

So where, then, is the systemic betrayal that has been built into the very walls of the church?

It is in the Chief Priests.

Who were the ones who paid Judas for his betrayal.

Judas understood that absolute nature of his betrayal, and he took the matter of his judgment into his own hands.

The Chief Priests.

The most important men in the church.

Paid to have God killed.

Doesn’t get any more absolute than that.

Where is the record of the ritual cleansing of the church of this abomination?

Nowhere that I have read.

It strikes me that a church should have a yearly humbling of all priests as they confess their complicity in the death of Christ.

Like in the days of Jesus, though, priests today appear more proud of who they are than ashamed of their lineage.

And, oh, how many of them secretly revel in the idea that they are stronger than God, able to get God killed.

Gods, themselves, it seems.

Gods above God.

Crucifixion

You all must know by now my complete disgust at how the true meaning of Christ’s resurrection from the dead to the church is how it gives the women of the church an opportunity to buy new hats.

And scream, Alleluia! 

Because the words, Christ died for our sins, seems to have the ability to turn the world completely around and make what Christ did, die miserably on a cross, all about us.

And how wonderful we really are.

Not Christ.

Us.

And our SUVs and our natty shoes and those corsages.

Aren’t we just great!?!

And we know we’re great because Jesus died, and went to hell, and whatever else he did, yadda yadda yadda.

Because whatever he did, he did it for us!

The Sacrifice of Christ today is nothing more than fodder for the ego of Christians.

To everything in the universe there is a seen side and an unseen side.

We see the seen aspect of the death of Jesus in scripture.

His purity.  His mildness.  The Sacrificial Lamb.

Giving his life for the good of all.

What we don’t read about, or much about, is the unseen side of the death of Christ.

Of how he was used as bait for evil to come to him.

And to follow him down into hell.

Where it was to be trapped for all time.

I will admit that I know little of this because every time I am given a vision about it I either go into shock and cling to stability with all my might, or just go unconscious.

So very little learning has been had by me on this subject matter.

But I know of its existence.  The intertwining of Jesus with evil in such a way his resurrection was to be his breaking free from it.

We learn in the words of those who wrote after the death of their Lord that the battle is not over.

Not won.

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Therefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day and, having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girded about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, take the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. And pray for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. (Ephesians 6:10-20)

And so on.

Today

The reason I am focusing on the this today is because Advent is just a few days away.  It is time for me to begin to organize my thoughts for how I will change this blog to reflect the season. The season of anticipating Christ’s return.

To Earth.

And all I can feel is remorse.

Will people today be as they were then and just be reaching hands attached to the word, Gimme, without a thought of care for the one doling out the miracles?

Will they kick him aside as they did then when he doesn’t succeed in becoming their Eternal Santa Clause?  The bearer of only good news for them?  One who encourages them in their indulgences, as so many claim?

Will the head priests line up to be the one to bring him down?  To continue their gift of betrayal of him?  So they can hold their heads high and know that they are greater than God?  That God wasn’t much of a opponent?  That God is, in the end, just an impotent little man with not much to show?

And will the people and priests of the Earth allow Evil to make good its two-thousand year old threat to bring Christ down once and for all?

Where is anything in the Earth that will convince me that it would be otherwise?

At this time my plans are to just shut down this blog, to bring it to blackness, because I don’t see any hope for a joyous and caring welcome for our Lord when he returns.

Amen.