Week 18—Saturday Galatians 3:27-28
Galatians 3:27-28
JESUS GOES BEYOND OUR DREAMS
We ended yesterday by saying that the Deed and the deeds were one in Jesus. This has not always been true in the attempt to create a divine figure. “Do these frescoes on the walls, the doings of your gods, help you in your worship?” I asked a man in charge of a temple. He replied: “You have to be very strong if you come to this temple, otherwise you will go off and do what the gods do.” Revealing. We feel that we will never be as good as our Savior. And in him we feel that these divine qualities are not imposed on him—they are exposed out of him. They come from within. And we can detect at once what is imposed on him by later centuries and what is exposed out of him. One is artificial, the other artesian. For instance, the Gospel of Thomas, discovered in Ethiopia and recently translated the “Gospel,” closes with words like these: Peter says to Jesus, “Send Mary away, for it is not befitting that a woman should inherit eternal life along with the men.” “No,” said Jesus, “she need not go away. I will turn her into a male and she can therefore inherit eternal life.” That is what people will do when they impose divine qualities—they produce a monstrosity. This kind of thing makes me feel more than ever the wonder of the inspired record in the New Testament.
If ignorant fishermen created Jesus out of their imagination, put suitable and deathless words to his life, suitable deeds revealed through his life, and made the whole into the most beautiful character that ever lived—well, if the fishermen did that then the creators would be more astonishing characters than the hero. Bad persons could not have created Jesus, and good persons would not have created him.
“All that Jesus began to do”—his doing is exactly what we would expect God to do, except that it is beyond our imagination, goes beyond our fondest dreams. Our surmise has become a surprise!
O Lord Jesus, we thought great things of God, our Heavenly Father, but we never thought This—This that we see in you. You surprise us by the wonder of it all—we are lost in wonder, love, and praise. Blessed, blessed, Jesus, Jesus—that is all we can say! Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: When I stand before Jesus I know he is not my creation, but my Creator and Re-creator.