I love history - maybe it's a learned trait, maybe I'm wired that way; I don't know and I don't really care. Over the years, when combined with faith, I can see God's story of mankind unfolding in the pages of a book or the wills of nations.
It is as if you're unlocking a mystery - you learn that history is simply the will of a just God unfolding before us to His appropriate and righteous end.
But as He reveals Himself and His will to us in historical movements - it is comparable to finding the Rosetta Stone and seeing reality for the very first time, though it has been visible all the while.
One of the best ways to prove this thought is by looking at Jesus Christ Himself - He is revelation from the Father of unknown truths about God, though they had been evident all along.
In 1996, Joan Osborne had a song which asked if it would make any difference if God was one of us; many found the lyrics to the song quite sacrilegious.
Funny - that was exactly the reaction of Jesus' family and neighbors; yet, today we know God has become one of us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus Himself actually led a very tragic life from the very beginning.
There were rumors of illegitimacy, later He experienced taunts of insanity by His family, accused of being in league with demons as an adult, rejected by most, He was betrayed by two of His disciples - one of which hung himself, the other was restored fully; He witnessed a formerly praising group of people turn into a mob against Him; He experienced a trial that mocks even the crudest forms of justice and He was executed in a way that was designed for humiliation and reserved for violent criminals.
Tragic, indeed; but Jesus did reveal one major thing that mankind had longed to know since Adam fell in the Garden.
Jesus revealed how every person could know God.
And if you asked Jesus, 'How do we know God personally?'
Jesus would respond - 'The same way you know anyone else.'
Jesus revealed something most people of His time could not fathom - an intimate and personal side to God; a God who desired communion with His people and could be approached as 'Father.'
He was never to be thought of or revealed by cold stone objects or those of a metallic glare - but in a real-life person who loved, cried, felt pain and faced the same things we face in life.
We call this the 'Incarnation' - and while God had come near, He had also for the very first time learned what it was like to be a human.
By this new, human existence - God, for the first time - exactly what a newborn learns.
Jesus gave God a face; that face would be streaked with tears as He shared our experience.
If a person looks into a magnifying glass, things are very clear at the focal point. But the further you get away from that focal point, the more distorted they become.
Jesus is the focal point of our faith; yet, we have drifted so far away from the clarity of the center of that point, things, people, faith, most of our knowledge - is distorted.
We hear grand preachers tell us on television that God wants to work wonderful miracles in our lives. If we don't get healed, or find our spouse, or recover from financial ruin, or some other fantastic issue - well, we either have hidden sin in our lives or we just don't have enough faith.
And if all this continues, well - we might just be possessed by a demon.
Funny - God didn't answer Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane in the same manner that He does not answer mine at times.
All those grand preacher and pseudo-theologians prove to me is their spiritual immaturity and lack of understanding about who Jesus is and the the work of God itself.
What bothers us about the planet - crime, injustice, genocide, children with cancer or born with deformities, crooked politicians, or whatever may personally grind against our souls - these things that bother us, bother Jesus as well.
If you want to know how God feels about something - look to Jesus and you will have your answer.
Because it is Jesus who unlocks the mysteries of God the same way the Rosetta Stone unlocked the mystery of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
In Jesus, we understand God anew; which is the entire point of Him coming to us.
Until next time, win one for the good guys.
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