In time of trouble go not out of yourself to seek for aid; for the whole benefit of trial consists in silence, patience, rest, and resignation. In this condition divine strength is found for the hard warfare because God himself fights for the soul.
~Miguel de Molinos (1628-1696)
~Miguel de Molinos (1628-1696)
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
~An oracle from Isaiah, in Chapter 40
Oh beloved, it is true. The war is over. Our King did declare it so at the Cross when He crushed the head of the serpent and did call out the most powerful command across all time, all space, and all of the rest of creation: TETELESTAI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Writers have spoken to the power of this word. It is only used two times in the New Testament, and there, in the same paragraph. First, our L_RD Jesus knew that the work He had come to do had been accomplished. Something within very G_d Himself came to know something even more True than They already were: The Lamb slain before the foundations of the earth had completed the Work within space-time.
And then He spoke it. IT IS FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, this was not to make the truth more real. It was more to fit the final pieces into the puzzle of Grace. G_d, who humbled Himself to become a human man, had completed the impossible work of living a sinless life, and validated the entire mission by giving Himself in payment for the horrendous burden of sin we had built up in our pride.
The very righteous wrath of the very G_d of the universe was poured out upon His Son on our behalf. And this was made even worse by the truth that we (those who were being forgiven) put Him on that tree – and we (read every single one of us) put Him there. Jesus was crushed by the wrath of everything: both Creator and those created in His image.
Only the Love Who is Love His own Triune Self could have done this. Any other approach to the redemption of mankind would have been (and still is) preposterous. We were dead in our sins. And dead cannot make itself alive. Only Life can swallow death, process it, and scream out: IT IS FINISHED!!!!!! I WIN!!!! I AM THE ONE WHO HOLDS NOW THE KEYS TO LIFE AND DEATH. THEY ARE MINE!
And then… any sense that we think we understand this falls away into the tiny little drain of our side-street smarts.
He gave us the keys.
We, as now part of the very family of the G_d (Whom we helped slay in our deadness and sin), are now alive in Him. And the way we are now alive means everything. We have been joined to Him in such a way as to be inseparable. We have not just been given resuscitation – we have been given everything needed to literally participate in His (Their) divinity.
We have been drawn into the Bosom of the One we hated, and given an astounding inheritance of Love and riches and grace and honor beyond our wildest dreams… Stop for a moment beloved.
Ponder this.
Can we see it? Read the passage. G_d did not just take away our sins and save us from the just penalty we deserved. He completely turned wrath on its head. He took the very worst (us), and gave us the very best (Himself). And along with Him comes the entire package. ALL of who G_d is. ALL of what He possesses (read everything, everywhere, at all times) is now ours.
Yeah, this is bigger than we can even begin to comprehend. The apostles and oracles of Scripture try, but their words fall away into gasps of astonished worship, and the use of terms like “unfathomable” and “exceedingly abundantly” and other open-ended superlatives.
So, are you fighting something beloved? Perhaps tonight is the night to stop. You are, in Him, in complete possession of both the victory of the ages, and the entire inventory of the spoils of that fight. The war is over. It is time to live like this is true.
Peace does not mean the end of all our striving,
Joy does not mean the drying of our tears;
Peace is the power that comes to souls arriving
Up to the light where God himself appears.
Joy is the wine that God is ever pouring
Into the hearts of those who strive with him,
Light’ning their eyes to vision and adoring,
Strength’ning their arms to warfare glad and grim.
~Geoffrey Anketell Studdert-Kennedy (1883-1929)
