Heaven's Best
Jesus has long seemed an enigma to me. I could fathom heaven, conceptualize God, and relate to Holy Spirit enough to commit to faith and lean thereon as I moved from adolescence into adulthood. But then there was Jesus. What to do with Jesus?
Chronic exposure to cheesy felt board stories about his life and ministry diminished him in my young mind. Jesus was the obligatory right answer to every Sunday School question and yet seemingly powerless to me. His words were archaic and unrelatable when ripped out of their rich cultural and historical context and thrust into oversimplified western renditions. Even in my childhood, it felt childish.
There came a point when I regarded the very name of Jesus as trite. Easter celebrations were little more than traditional cycles laden with cumbersome obligations to feel passionately about a person to whom I could not relate.
By the grace of God, I encountered teachings on Jesus that looked at him in his Jewishness. I began to discover the richness of his life as a respected rabbi, humble leader, and fearless propagator of truth. I saw with new eyes that everything he endured - every slight, every insult, every rejection - he felt with the vulnerability of a real human. He was not granted a lofty position of divine otherness in human form. He was real and my affections for him could also be real.
Inspiring and informative as that journey was and is, recently, God has begun to pull back the curtain to show me Jesus' divinity. Broadening my perspective to include the magnitude of his authority and eternity makes his humanity even more astounding! Through amazing scholars like Dr. Heizer and Dr. Nyland, I discovered scores of evidence that Jesus was active in heaven and on earth before his incarnation.
For example, Enoch is one who saw Jesus before David, the prophets, or the New Testament. He was the grandfather of Noah and remembered in Genesis as the man who walked with God until he went to heaven without ever tasting death. His recollections, while not seen as canonical among Hebrews or Protestant Christians, were still regarded as instructive by New Testament writers and quoted in 1 Peter and Jude. Long before Christian theology on the Trinity, Enoch (having toured heaven in a vision with the archangels as guides) lists the inhabitants of heaven. These include God, a myriad of angelic beings of various sorts, and one who was in the form of a human. Enoch testifies that this singular human was with God before creation, receives glory and honor, and will be a strength for men and a judge to come. He describes Jesus as active with God, equal to God, and yet to come as a like-figured leader for humans on earth. Wow!
Combine the various theophanies in the Hebrew scriptures, extrabiblical texts, and the gospel of John with the post-resurrection descriptions of him in Revelations 5, one sees a convincing description of divinity that is eternal and to be worshipped.
That is the God-man who emptied himself of all glory and took up residence in a human family devoid of notoriety. What humility, what love!
From this place, Resurrection Sunday means so much more to me than ever before. On this Sunday I look at my own human weakness, and pray a new prayer:
Yeshua, you became the sacrificial lamb for me; you suffered betrayal and false accusations from those you created. Humbly, you submitted to self-exalting mortals who regarded themselves as your equal; in fact, greater than you. All the while you exist eternally as the first and the last, the bread of life, and the living water. You were with the Father in the beginning and led the Patriarchs. You were the Angel of the Lord who came to lead and encourage the very men your accusers quoted to condemn you. You were with God when those same men were knit together in their mothers' wombs.
You are worthy of all praise, yet you willingly walked to the cross without resentment as men, no more than vapors on the earth (James 4:14-15), seized you and gloried in their "triumph". Though you command the full force of heaven, you remained silent and defenseless while your children beat and spat upon you. You refuted no false accusations though you are the source of truth! You, eternal with God, lovingly endured as they trumpeted your commands through their own sinful lense to condemn you, the author of life.
How differently I would react if my own children spat on me and falsely accused me in court. After years of nurturing, personal and financial sacrifice, sleepless nights, nursing through fevers, vomit, and ER visits they would turn and viciously attack me both physically and legally?!? Such disrespect and flagrant ingratitude would be nearly unforgivable. But that is exactly what you forgave, AS IT WAS HAPPENING!!
O Lord, yours is an example I fall very short of and yet you love me. Of what worth is my honor when I am accused if you forsook your own? On what grounds can I require vindication when you let your slanderers flaunt their temporal strength in your face?
You are meek, humble, right, and good. Thank you for all the insults and disrespect you painfully endured on my behalf. All the authorities of heaven would quickly bow in your presence. Kings would cast their crowns if they saw you in your glory. We dismissed you as a commoner and fool.
O God, we/I did not regard your highest and most precious gift. What a painful disappointment that must be for you day after day. You extended heaven's very best to those unworthy and, like pearls before swine, we trampled him.
Father forgive us. Holy Spirit move in mercy to open blind eyes to see the extravagance of the cross and open entombed hearts as you once released the entombed savior!
Thank you, Father, for Resurrection Sunday!
