My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian witnesses and writers in reflecting on life, encounters, and various situations, in a desire to enhance our understanding of what it means to be a missionary disciple of Jesus Christ at the service of the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.
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A thumbnail sketch of what God is doing in our universe, from the clues He has given us in the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures, called the New Testament.
From the beginning....
Before the universe existed, from all eternity (which we mortals cannot imagine or understand) God alone existed and lived - the Most Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - in perfect union and harmony of love; complete in themselves.
At some point beyond our knowing, God created angelic beings, pure spirits, out of his love and generosity; granting them to participate in his work of creation which He was about to do. When He revealed to the angels his plan of Creation, that He would create mortal human beings capable of friendship with Him; some angels rebelled out of pride, not wanting these mortals to rise higher with God than them.
Between 13 and 14 billion years ago, God created the universe. Only this past century, astronomers have discovered that it all began in a powerful point of light called "the big bang" or explosion; from which developed stars, galaxies, planets, and all the other phenomena now obervable in the universe. In the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Torah, God testifies that God said: "Let there be light!" His all-powerful word brought the universe into being as his Creation.
In time, some 4.543 billion years ago, according to astronomers, our Planet Earth came into existence: with land, oceans, and living things on the earth, in the seas, and in the air. When the time was right, God created human beings with spirits and freedom capable of entering into God's friendship; which was his freely given gift. As we all come to know on approaching adulthood, our freedom needs to be put to the test; so that it may not remain automatic but become truly chosen and authentic.
What exactly happened to the first human beings?
God our Creator therefore allowed the human beings recently created to be put to the test, and He allowed the rebel angel leader to bring the test; which took the form of a temptation. This having happened before recorded history, we don't know exactly what form the test took.
However, again in the Book of Genesis, God revealed to humanity through the inspired authors that our first ancestors were blessed by God with all things good. God told the man, whom He created first, that he could enjoy all the fruits of the garden except the fruit of a single tree: the tree of the "knowledge of good and evil". In biblical language, knowledge means the full and complete experience of a thing; such as a husband "knowing" his wife, as a result of which she becomes pregnant with a new life. Simply put, God told the man that if he insisted on having experience of anything evil, he would die. Fine; no problem.
Then, Genesis relates, God created woman because the man felt lonely with no other creature like himself. He was dazzled when God presented the woman to him, and they were happy with each other's company and friendship, and in God's friendship; which was expressed by Genesis in them walking with God in the garden everyday. Then came the test. The rebel angel leader took a deceptive form as a serpent. As a clever generail on the field of battle, he approached this first human couple and brought to bear his attack on their weakest point.
The tempter did not consider the woman the weakest point because she was woman; we all know that women have strength that men don't have. No, she was the weakest point because the man had heard directly from God the warning not to experience anything evil; that is, not to eat the fruit of the tree of the "knowledge of good and evil"; or they would die. The man told the woman about this; so, she knew, but only indirectly from the man, not from God Himself.
First round - the tempter: “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”We don't know what "evil thing" the tempter proposed to the woman, but we do know she put up a valiant defense: "God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” Round one goes to the woman. Second round: “You will not die; 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,[a] knowing good and evil.” Thinking it a good thing to become wise, she went for it and experienced that evil thing; whatever it was. Round two went to the devil who overcame the woman.
Round three: Wanting to share her discovery with the man, the woman brought to him this "evil experience or knowledge"; whatever it was. This was the man's test. Did he act to protect and defend her and remind her of what God had said? No, he did not; he simply went along with that evil experience; whatever it was. Round three went to the devil who overcame the man. Round four: As a result of their first experience of something evil; the man and woman suddenly found themselves ashamed of their nakedness. This had never been a problem for them before. When it was time for their daily walk in the garden with God; they hid themselves. They could have gone running to God and confessed their error and asked his forgiveness, but they did not; they tried to hide it instead. Round four went to the devil as they both failed.
Round five: Of course, God noticed their concealment and questioned them, beginning with the man, then the woman, and finally, the devil in the form of the serpent. Sadly, the man didn't stand and take responsibility for his behaviour - for going along with the temptation and for failing to defend and protect the woman - instead, he merely passed the buck and blamed her. In her turn, being "thrown under the truck by the man", she too passed the buck and blamed the devil / serpent. We can imagine the devil being quite pleased with his performance and showing no regret or remorse; fallen angels seem to be incapable or unwilling to regret or repent, which puts them well beyond the possibility of being saved.
There are always consequences....
There stood the man and the woman, unrepentant, before God our Creator. There was norhing for it but for God to explain what consequences would result for them; which they would not be able to avoid. Since they had broken trust with God, in effect believing the lie of the tempter that God could not be trusted; the man and woman were out of sync not only with the Creator, but also with his Creation, and with each other. We all suffer these consequences throughout our lives, but in Genesis God told the consequences in a symbolic form for each.
The man, being particularly robust and equipped to cultivate the earth, with a propensity to make plans for the cultivation of the garden entrusted to him by God our Creator; now found himself out of sync with the creation, with nature. This natural world would resist his efforts to cultivate it. He would earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, and instead of producing lovely fruit, the earth would put forth thorns and thistles. The man would ever be frustrated in his work and be insecure with respect to the world, work, and his ambitious plans.
The woman, being more alert and designed to cultivate relationships, to give and nurture life; now found herself out of sync with her partner, with the other being like herself. As a result, she would have doubts about herself and about her relations, and in her insecurity, she would grasp or cling to the man; but being insecure himself, he would react badly and quell her outreach or even dominate her. The woman would be ever insecure within herself, with respect to her relationships, and her ability to give and nurture life.
God's problem and challenge....
As a result of the test put to human freedom, God our Creator had lost the humans' trust, and they / we had lost their / our willingness to trust in God. How could God our Creator possibly win back the humans' trust? All of human history, and God's sacred history with his People as shown in the Jewish Scriptures, makes it clear that the only strategy that actually works is: "one person at a time". No grand schemes to win back our trust have ever worked.
1st Covenant - the Garden: with a human couple - Adam and Eve - that didn't go well... their son Cain murdered his brother Abel out of jealousy because he seemed closer to God.
2nd Covenant - the Rainbow: with a family - Noah and his wife, their three sons and their wives. It went well enough with this first generation, but the successive generations did not know God personally, or were not interested; so this didn't go very far either. Their descendants built the Tower of Babel in their proud ambition to reach heaven without God and instead rival God, compete with God, by their own efforts. This turned out badly.
3rd Covenant - Circumcision: with a tribe - Abraham and Sarah, their son, grandsons, and great grandsons and all their wives and children. God always keeps his promises: from Ishmael came the Arabic peoples, and from Isaac came the Hebrew people of the Covenant. This Covenant went pretty well until after a few centuries in Egypt; when their prosperity turned into slavery at the hands of the Egyptians, who became afraid of the Hebrews.
4th Covenant - the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments: with a nation: Israel. By now, Abraham's tribe through his son Isaac had become a nation, and it was time for God to make a new covenant with this nation, which had in prosperity lost its way, lost its relationship with God. They had even lost a sense of right and wrong in their struggle for survival under the bitter yoke of slavery. For more than a millennium after Moses, the people of Israel went on a roller coaster ride - from generation to generation - with one generation knowing God personally and loving Him and walking in his ways, but the next generation not knowing God personally and getting lost amid the other nations and cultures in the world around them.
During this millennium - from sometime between the 15th and 13th century BCE until the coming of Jesus of Nazareth - the People of Israel experienced different stages: (1) Period of the Judges: The people followed the leader chosen by God: Moses and then Joshua, and a series of Judges; (2) Period of the monarchy - The First Temple: This was when the people demanded a king like the other nations around them; (3) A kingdom divided: God warned the people that demanding a king was a rejection of God, a refusal to trust and obey Him. As a result, bad kings caused the kingdom to divide in two: Judah in the south and Israel / Samaria in the north. (4) Period of the prophets: God sent his people prophets to guide them, but the people resisted, the kings refused to follow the prophets' advice. The two kingdoms were conquered by nations from what is now Syria, Iraq, and Turkey, and the upper class were taken into exile as slaves. (5) Period of the Exile and the return - The Second Temple: God raised up a pagan king / emperor who released the Hebrews, the People of Judah and Israel, from their slavery and allowed them to return to their land and rebuild their Temple. (6) The Greek and Roman Empires - a period producing more wisdom literature and the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek: The Jewish People now had two cultural centers: Hebrew in Palestine and Greek in Egypt. (7) Persecution and messianic hopes arising, beginning with the Macchabees: A nunber of devotional movements arose, all looking forward to the coming of the Messiah to be sent by God to save his people.
God's long-term plan....
At this point, it's good to remember that from the beginning, all that God our Creator ever wanted, was to extend to human beings his friendship; having created us capable of friendship with Him and endowed with the authentic freedom which, alone, renders true friendship possible. As God went through the various Covenants: a couple, a family, a tribe, and a nation, God's aim was always to reach all of humanity. He wanted his Chosen People to be a Light to the Nations. Here is a passage from the Prophet Isaiah 42:5-9.
5 "Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: 6 I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, 7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. 8 I am the Lord, that is my name; my glory I give to no other,nor my praise to idols. 9 See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them."
In some ways, they were and are a light to the nations - like the unique gift of the Ten Commandments, but in other ways, not so much. After all, we are only human and mortal.
Then came Yeshua, Jesus of Nazareth....
5th Covenant - the Cross and Jesus the Risen Lord: with all of humanity: Matthew in his Gospel records the following words of Jesus of Nazareth: Mt 5:17
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill." At the age of 30, Jesus launched into preaching in public, and by the grace of God, accompanying his preaching with signs and wonders, miracles of healing and even raising the dead. In short, Jesus claimed to be God's own Son. At C.S. Lewis, the English author put it: Jesus was either crazy, or a liar, or he was exactly who he claimed to be." Those are the only logical possibilities of interpretation of his claims. So, God is still wanting those who know and love Him to bring his divine light to the nations, to all of humanity.
It is possible for all human beings to be attentive to the Spirit of the living God whispering within their own spirit and guiding them, and to obey this guidance and live as authentic human beings: caring for the Garden of Nature, our common home, being kind and generous to others, caring for the poor, the sick, the injured, and the exploited. Some people, who claim to be atheists or agnostics, do in fact rise to this level of philanthropy.
The reason we baptized even infants is in obedience to Jesus' call to make disciples for Him who will come to know God personally, love and serve Him, and become beacons of God's divine Light to the nations. We join their parents, godparents, and their whole blended family in praying to God for the new disciples; that they may grow in the knowledge and love of God as they grow and develop in humanity and become a fully human person in all that they will say and do.
Matthew 28:18-20 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
In what ways may God our Creator shine his divine Light in us?
to be continued soon....
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My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian witnesses and writers in reflecting on life, encounters, and various situations, in a desire to enhance our understanding of what it means to be a missionary disciple of Jesus Christ at the service of the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.
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© 2004-2025 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2004-2025 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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