As a writer I believe words are powerful. In fact I believe words are the most powerful things in the world. As I have written before words are the bridge from the interior life to the exterior world. They communicate something of our true and personal selves to others. The problem of course is that words rely on the receiver to interpret them correctly. It absolutely does not matter what the intent of the author of the words is, it is the receiver who determines what the words mean and then responds accordingly.

One of the solutions to this problem is to take words and put flesh to them that the audience may not have to do as much work in interpreting intangible concepts and ideas because they might witness the words in action by witnessing the author act them out. Such is the case with God and Christ. God, who had revealed his truth in multiple ways and through multiple avenues finds that the word, as powerful as it is, is challenging for humanity to understand and so often we get it wrong. It is one thing to misinterpret one-anothers words. Certainly conflict can arise and frustration too. But when we misinterpret the word of God whole nations are destroyed, whole peoples obliterated.

God in his wisdom knew this and prepared for just the right time (in the fullness of time as it were) to release himself into the world and act out his word for all to see. If we wish to know how to interpret the word of God we look to Christ who is the living word; the word made flesh; the word who tabernacled in our midst that we might come to know the power and love and grace of God and then seek to emulate it in the lives of the people around us and so transform the world.

Still there is a problem. The word made flesh was God incarnate. Albeit this is God who has chosen to empty himself of himself and become a servant like us…still it is God nonetheless and somehow we fall short in our own interpretations even of this.

Why is a word given? A word is given that it might transform the receiver somehow. A word by itself, with no audience, is irrelevant. It is not a word. It is nothing. So the divine word is given to us that we might better understand the will of the one who sent it and be transformed into that which he seeks us to be transformed into. “We love because he first loved us”. It might be further said:

– he forgave that we might forgive
– he healed that we might heal
– he felt compassion that we might feel compassion

But there are things he did that we are not called to do. He died that we might not have to die (though we enter into his death it is only that we might also enter into his resurrection). He judges but we do not (yet). How do we know these things? We are told. We are told explicitly that he died so that we would not have to. We are told that there is one judge and it is God and not us. We will judge (future tense)…but it is not ours to judge now. Once again this is explicit. Judgement infers authority and we have only the authority that God has given us.

So we know who we are to emulate and we know what we are not to do at the same time. It seems so simple so why do we so royally screw it up? More often than not we do the things we are told not to and avoid the things we are called to do. Think about it? We are terrible at dispensing grace, love, forgiveness and healing but simply amazing at judging, shunning, hating, gossiping, etc. I learned a long time ago that we do best what we love most. Sometimes we are brazen enough to even rationalize our evil by claiming to be doing the “will of God”.

It is a real conundrum. A puzzle. How do we unwind it? “Be perfect therefore as your father in Heaven is perfect.” Did he really mean that? Why has he called us to be what we cannot be? Why did he call us to fulfill a law we cannot fulfill? Some have suggested that God has been attempting through history to save his creation in multiple ways and we simply keep disappointing him. He gave us the garden of innocense and life before him and we failed him by proving to be corrupt. He gave us a new earth cleansed in flood and we failed him. He gave us his law and we failed him. He gave us himself and we failed him. We thwart each attempt.

Let me be clear about this idea of God “attempting” anything. It is a stupid idea plain and simple. God does not “attempt” anything. God simply does. He simply is. With this idea before us we come to realize that while the law reflects his character he did not expect us to keep it and thereby save ourselves because he knows his creation. He expected us to look into the law and come to know ourselves as well…and when we come to know ourselves we come to know him better and our need for him becomes crystal clear.

Do not kill.

Within seconds of the utterance we rationalize and determine that he meant “do not murder” and that we can and should kill when the time comes. After all is there not a season for everything…even war?

Do not commit adultery.

Once again we rationalize and claim that our having not slept with our neighbour’s wife constitutes keeping the law and we are proud of ourselves and can stand before the Christ and say – “I have kept all of these laws” and the Christ knowingly responds “I tell you if you have even looked at your neighbour’s wife you are guilty of adultery.” He says to us “sell all that you own and follow me” and we respond by turning away in sadness. What is his response to us then? He looks after us and loves us.

He says be perfect and when you are not I am here for you but – be perfect and again when you are not – I am.

It is in the intentional, desired act that we are transformed and so transform others. It is not simply in the act…he does not desire that we clothe the homeless…he desires that we desire to clothe the homeless while we clothe them. He does not desire a giver he desires a cheerful giver. We must want to be like him and then act within that want.

But…it is difficult. It is difficult for us to try because we know we will fail. We do not like trying things that we will fail at. The solution lies in knowing the mind of God which can be known in the life and actions of Christ. It is in taking the place of the adulterous woman and hearing the words of Christ and making them his words to us – “is there no one here who condemns you?” “No Lord.” “Then go and sin no more (be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect).” The solution is in becoming the prodigal and recognizing that we are welcome home…not only welcome but celebrated when we arrive. It is the heart of the parable, that had the prodigal left seven times, the welcome would be the same. The weight upon us is not in our failures but rather in our desire to return to him.

We must remember that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God that is Christ Jesus. Nothing. This includes ourselves. So often we believe this except when it comes to ourselves. Our actions (or lack) tell the world that we believe this statement only as far as it does not include our own actions. The truth is however that if you believe there is something you can do/think/say that can remove you from God and his love then you are guilty of terrible pride for you believe that your own actions are more powerful then the cross of Christ and his atoning death and cleansing blood. You, in your pride, believe you are stronger than that. The brilliance of his sacrifice is that it is even strong enough to overcome human pride. He saved you in spite of who you are. He save me because of who I am. We must not claim our brokeness is such that we are worthless because it is because of our brokeness that he has saved us…after all…if we were not drowning there would be no need to be saved…but we are drowning and so we must not struggle in the water and not grasp the life preserver thrown to us shouting to the one standing upon the ship’s deck – “leave me to die it is my own fault for standing on the deck in the storm that I am here…I do not deserve to be saved” for it is not up to us to decide whether we deserve salvation or not, it is up to the one doing the saving.

So now we are left with this – we are called as image bearers of the creator God to seek and do his will. Why? That we might be tranformed. Why? Because he is still creating. He is recreating. If we chose the selfish life that fails to attempt his will it is we who lose out in the end and miss the opportunity to be transformed. If we limit his will to a series of formulaic beliefs and acts then we limit his will and miss the opportunity to be tranformed. If we take advantage of his will and rationalize all our evil actions as the actions of those who are forgiven “so that grace may abound even more” we limit his will and miss the opportunity to be trnasformed. If we however grasp that we are simultaneously broken and whole, sick and healed, imperfect and perfect than we can begin the process of transformation into what we were meant to be and will be.

Once we recognize that when we are in Christ and he is in us, his perfection overwhelms our imperfection and it fails to exist. That in his infinite nature our finite nature is lost and we, who are in him, become him in the presence of God. That our sin when compared to his perfect sacrifice is empty and lost in the same way an inch becomes zero in the face of an infinite universe.

When these things become our reality then we will stop losing hope because of our own brokeness and finally understand the joy that Peter, Paul and the apostles understood. We will mourn our failures, get up and move forward again in Christ not as hypocrites but as the forgiven. We will stop saying to others as the elder son in the parable of the prodigal does that our past forever holds us bound and hopeless and we can never return to father. We will recognize such words as the lies they are and instead will join the father with his words “welcome home, let us celebrate your return” and we will gladly make these words ours for the sake of our brethren and say the same thing to the same person seventy times seventy if necessary.

When we find this place we will move mountains.