Note: I don't like to call Easter by that name, because it was named after a false god by certain Christians with anti-Semitic intents who wanted to distance themselves from the Jews and Passover. Then again, I still call Thursday "Thursday," despite its being named for Thor, and I still call Mars "Mars," and so on, yet God in His rich mercy does not hold it against me. Not withstanding, I prefer "Resurrection Sunday." Anyway...
Whether intentionally or not, we often perceive God and Jesus as not only two different Characters of history and creation, but two different Gods. We see God (the Father) as the angry One who grants wishes, and Jesus (the Son) as the nice One who did nice things and commanded us to do likewise.
The problem is not that we prefer One over the Other, but that we go to One depending on our specific needs. When we cry out for vengeance and justice, for wrath to come upon those who do wrong, we pray to the One we call "God." When we want to remember and teach kindness and love, we cite the One we call "Jesus."
But what is often missing in our perception of the Creator is the fact that the Two cannot be separated. The same God who destroyed Pharaoh's army, who rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, who struck many a wicked man with blindness and leprosy, became flesh and bone, grew inside and exited a womb - a Son. God, the Son. The feet of the Almighty wore sandals, were covered in dust and sweat, and were cleansed with the tears of the same kind of sinner on whom He had executed wrath at Sodom.
This was not two different Gods, but a different covenant the one God made with His creations. But this New Covenant, sealed by His blood on a cross, was not a "plan B" - He told us from the beginning, from the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, and through His prophet Moses, that for years man would strive under Law and punishment, but a time would come when He would do away with the rigorous and fearful tastes of this Law, and open our hearts and eyes to the love and mercy with which it was written, so that the Law would taste sweet as honeycomb.
The angry invisible God cannot be set apart as a different Being than the meek and gentle Jesus. It was after all this precious Lamb of Nazareth who, on a cross, became the very object of the wrath of that distant, gloomy, stormy God, so that we would now see Him as He is and always truly was - present, close, abundant in love and the desire to know we who consider Him so baffling, so far away.
Whether intentionally or not, we often perceive God and Jesus as not only two different Characters of history and creation, but two different Gods. We see God (the Father) as the angry One who grants wishes, and Jesus (the Son) as the nice One who did nice things and commanded us to do likewise.
The problem is not that we prefer One over the Other, but that we go to One depending on our specific needs. When we cry out for vengeance and justice, for wrath to come upon those who do wrong, we pray to the One we call "God." When we want to remember and teach kindness and love, we cite the One we call "Jesus."
But what is often missing in our perception of the Creator is the fact that the Two cannot be separated. The same God who destroyed Pharaoh's army, who rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, who struck many a wicked man with blindness and leprosy, became flesh and bone, grew inside and exited a womb - a Son. God, the Son. The feet of the Almighty wore sandals, were covered in dust and sweat, and were cleansed with the tears of the same kind of sinner on whom He had executed wrath at Sodom.
This was not two different Gods, but a different covenant the one God made with His creations. But this New Covenant, sealed by His blood on a cross, was not a "plan B" - He told us from the beginning, from the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, and through His prophet Moses, that for years man would strive under Law and punishment, but a time would come when He would do away with the rigorous and fearful tastes of this Law, and open our hearts and eyes to the love and mercy with which it was written, so that the Law would taste sweet as honeycomb.The angry invisible God cannot be set apart as a different Being than the meek and gentle Jesus. It was after all this precious Lamb of Nazareth who, on a cross, became the very object of the wrath of that distant, gloomy, stormy God, so that we would now see Him as He is and always truly was - present, close, abundant in love and the desire to know we who consider Him so baffling, so far away.
John 8:37-58
