The Son of Man

photo: natepyle.com

Jesus Christ. Son of God. Son of Man.

The Bible tells us that He is both these things and simply by the exalted nature of them, these statements carry a lot of weight. I want to understand them, and understand well.

The idea that Jesus is the Son of God seems the easier of the two. After all, the Father Himself declares a number of times that Jesus is His Beloved Son. And I know what a son is. I have two of them.  So, if God the Father has a Son, their relationship and shared common nature make sense. 

Son of Man, not so much. If Christ is the Son of God, how could He be the son of men as well? And why? And yet, in the Bible, He declares that He is. Son of Man is Jesus' name for Himself.

What do men say that I, Son of Man, am?--Matthew 16:13

Well, it turns out that I'm not the only one who wanted to understand this better. Iraneus, the bishop of Lyons from 177-200 AD, had quite a bit to say about it.*

First, he observed, Jesus passed through every stage of human life. As Adam was made from untilled virgin earth never knowing rain, so did Christ begin His human life in the womb of a virgin. That was the beginning. Afterwards, He grew through common years like any man--preborn, infant, juvenile, adult, and even corpse--so that no man can say he has been left behind in his peculiar state. Christ became fellow of us all. He did not live outside human frailty at any time in his earthly life. Instead, He sanctified all stages and states of life by sharing them.

Christ, as Son of Man, was like me, no matter who I am.

Second, by the very act of taking on flesh, by participating in incarnation, Christ reunited man to God. The fact of His humanity made Him mediator between God and Man. 

I think that this is kind of like forgiveness--it happens in stages. The first stage is that in which we forgive an unrepentant sinner to free our own spirit from bitterness and hatred, but in which the complete relationship is not yet restored. So did God come down to unrepentant, clueless man and present Himself, ready and waiting.  The second stage, in which our relationship with the sinner is restored through repentance, Christ lived out in His own suffering and death. That freed all penitents to walk through the now-torn veil directly back to the Father.

Christ, as Son of Man, led the way for all men.

Third, Christ overcame Satan as only a man could have done. From the very beginning of His ministry, He exposed Satan's rebellion when He said, 

It is written: Worship the Lord thy God and Him only shall you serve.--Luke 4:8

So man, through the Son of Man, nullifies the power of Satan that Adam admitted in Eden. By His own obedience and submission, Christ put Satan in his place.

Later, He goes even further by subjecting Himself to disgrace and physical suffering. Had He not done so, God would have asked men to endure the scourge and turning the other cheek, something He Himself had not endured, effectively elevating the servant above the master. This, He could not do.

And then, when He became the first man to die and rise again, He showed Himself to be the Author of Life, who goes before us all to show the way.

Christ as Son of Man shows me what He created man to be.

In the end, if Christ is not Son of Man, I have no way to understand either the nature of God nor the nature of Man. Only through Him can I understand what I am created to become. Only through His humanity do I understand my own. 

*Iraneus, Against Heresies, III

Stuck Between Awful and Awesome

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I didn't know this would be the hard part.

It looked so straightforward at first.
I was a sinner. That was plain. The list of my ungodly behaviors was long and shameful. But God is good. He showed my sins to me one by one, as gently as was possible, and guided me out of the dark place where I lived with them. And I learned to leave them behind, step by painful step, and the horizon cleared. I learned how to live in God's light, for the most part within His commands. I changed. A lot.

And God said it was good.

So, here I am. A new person. Walking in a new light, a new life. I look around and relax into it, nodding my head in agreement with what God has done in me, saying "Yeah. Thanks, God. I'm liking this."
I go to church every week.
I'm kind to children and animals and even cranky neighbors.
I mind, for the most part, my words and thoughts.
I help the people God brings into my world.
I concentrate hard on being a good wife and mother.
I try to work to God's glory.
I've found a rhythm to this life. It's become familiar. What I used to be and do is slowing fading into a shadowy past and this version of me has become my new, redeemed normal. 

And that's the problem. It's normal.
My new life is normal and God isn't. God is awesome. He's thrilling, exciting, beyond imagination surprising.
But if something doesn't change soon, I'm going to be stuck here. Rescued from the awful, but not reaching the awesome.

This is what nobody told me when I started on this way--
God doesn't want us to look like redeemed humans.
He wants us to look like Him.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory--2 Corinthians 3:18

Darn. That's hard.
Harder than following commandments. Harder than changing behaviors. Harder than stopping habits and thought patterns.
God doesn't just want me to be the best I can be. He wants me to be like Him.
And, just for the record, I am not at all like God.

And yet.....and yet. I've nowhere else to go. It's either go back to the old me--no longer a viable alternative at this point--or it's more of the same--which is bogging me down--or it's this next thing, this glory, this transformation into something that's not only not me--it's not even human.

Not even human. That's the reason it sounds and feels so strange. God wants me to become more than I've ever seen in me or anyone else. I can never be God. I can never share all of his power or might or perfection, but He does want me to become god-like. He wants me to share His glory.

He created me to be like Him.
And God made man in his own image--Genesis 1:27
He says I can be holy.
Be ye holy as I am holy--Leviticus 19:2
He says that, as His beloved child, I am one with Him.
You are gods--you are all sons of the Most High--Psalm 82:6
He says he can make me perfect.
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father.--Matthew 5:48, Nehemiah 2:48

If I am ever to get unstuck, this is where I have to go.
Up. More.
He must become greater, I must become less.--John 3:30
I have to aim for what looks impossible.
I have to go to a place I can never, never reach on my own. 
And maybe that's the point.
The further I go, the more I need His help. Until, finally, we get so close that we are never apart. So close as to be almost indistinguishable.
Yes. I would like that.

Beyond the Bandaid

I am concerned about my son.
No--that's not right.
Just say it.
I'm worried about him.

Never mind why.  The reason doesn't much matter because he's a grown man and I can't do much about it.
But that doesn't stop the love.  Or the worry.

In fact, his maturity increases the concern because my ability to influence his situation decreases with his increasing age.
Unlike when he scraped his knee falling off a bike or when little Jimmy took a poke at him on the playground, I can't kiss away his hurt.
I can't fix it.
And parents are fixers.

So what do I do?  God has some advice:
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life, so that you and your children may live...Deuteronomy 30:19a

I want life and blessings for my children, but I can't get them by fixing their hurts and problems.  I do it by choosing God.

Can I bring my sons practical help?  Sure.  In fact, I should.
But that help is only a bandaid in the larger scheme of things.

My choosing God, however--walking with Him before my children and the world--gives God the opportunity He craves to do what only He can do.

How do I know this?  He told me:
Listen to His voice and hold fast to Him, for the Lord is your life.--Deuteronomy 30:19b

Choosing God first will probably alter the kind of bandaid I apply to my son's owie.
Choosing God first may open the wound farther so He can clean it out properly.
But choosing God brings real healing and everlasting life.
And that is what a mother ultimately wants for her sons.

Unbroken

Sometimes, shapes are just perfect.  Take the rainbow.  God made the rainbow with intent, following a pattern, encircling the world with an arc already encircling Him.

Rainbows call to mind the unbroken line that runs from the covenant that God made with the great patriarchs, extending through Jesus directly to us and beyond into eternity.  

The rainbow we see in the sky today is the same one Noah and Abraham and Moses and David saw; that rainbow a delicate echo of the rainbow encircling God's throne in heaven.

Whenever a rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures.--Genesis 9:16
And the one they saw had the appearance of jasper and carnelian.  A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne.--Revelation 4:3

We are connected to God both to ages past and to eternity by bonds even He cannot break.

What He says He will do, He does.  This is why we can know security.

He has made us sons and daughters and will keep us. His promises last forever.  He has drawn an unbroken line in the sky to show us . He has given us the rainbow, a vanishing wisp, to remind both us and Himself of a connection that lasts forever.

The Math of Name and Word: 3 + 2 = Infinity

You told Abraham to leave Ur for Canaan. Your voice burned through a bush in Sinai. You called to Samuel in his sleep. You gave gentle revelation to the crowds on a grassy plain at the foot of Hermon. You ate chatty dinners with your friends. You whisper in my secret thoughts. You know my name. I want to say Yours.

You have made Yourself known from three different faces: as the Father who spoke in fire and smoke to the patriarchs, as the Son who scuffed His sandals beside created men in humble dust, and as the Spirit who remains accessible even now when I look for You. You have spoken to us, and, for the times when we speak back, You have ordained a special place for Your Name.

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His Name; worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness.--Psalm 29:2
I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your Name for your love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your Name and your Word.--Psalm 138:2

You are known as three, through contact with three persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. But how is that contact achieved? I can't touch You any more. The bush no longer burns. The mountain at Sinai rises stern and silent. But other contact points remain--Your Name and Your Word. This is where You speak today, where I can still discover You in Your dwelling place.

You made men with a desire to touch You; it is natural for men to call upon You. But Your Name isn't a label for You, it IS You, like Your Word IS You. They stand as holy gateways through which I can find everything You are.

You command me to treat your Name with reverence because when I handle Your Name, I touch Your Person. You command me to follow what You reveal in Your Word, because when I do, I approach Your throne. The only way to do these things is with reverence and awe. Anything else is blasphemy. Your Hebrew name, still unpronounceable, reminds me. When I say "God", or any of its derivative versions, a glimpse of eternity settles into this poor world.

Thought for today: How do you use the Name of God?

My Father's Orchard

Early evening sun sinks into red western skies. A farmer walks through lush orchards--the harvest nears. Row after long row stretch out before him. He planted them with his own expectant, prayerful hands years ago, when time stretched as far before him as his dreams. Now, he can count the number of harvests that remain to him on his own fingers. He approaches the end.

The orchard will live after him, but he has no son, no child to work what he so carefully built. There were sons, but they moved on to other places. They had their own dreams.

"No thanks, Dad."
"It's too much work."
"I can't make enough money."
"Are you kidding? I've been stuck here long enough."

Without attention, his orchard will sink into unproductive wilderness but, more than that, when his sons reject the orchards, they reject him. Everything he'd tried to teach them originated with these trees.

You do the same.

Yet to all who received Him, to all who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.--John 1:12

To the ancient patriarchs, You reigned as God, great and terrible. They served You, You dealt with their sins, and they knew the terrible weight of disobedience. They lived at arm's length from You, never in Your embrace.

But to me, you offer kinship. I can flourish in Your love and inherit Your favor. But I have to receive what You offer, what You built for me, as my own because it came from You. You gave me life and grew the great trees that You mean to hold it up. You did the planting, nourishing, and pruning, and You hand it to me as a gift. I have only to reach out my hand.

God: Father or Host?

We like to entertain and our guest rooms are often full. Most of the time, guests are not family members, but anyone from sweet friends, to occasional hangers-on, to near, needy strangers. Whoever they are, we believe God brings them and we try to make them comfortable accordingly. Recently, though, as we welcomed our granddaughter for a couple of weeks, I realized something important about guests.

Through Him (Jesus), we have access to the Father by the Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners or aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household.--Ephesians 2:18-19

A chasm of difference yawns between the way I welcome a young unrelated guest and the way I welcome a granddaughter. For a casual guest, I fluff pillows in the same way, and make sure she has toiletries and clean towels in the same way, but do not concern myself so much about whether she brushes her teeth every morning or eats properly or what poet she may prefer so I can plan for her next birthday gift. And I certainly do not giggle at infant resemblances in family pictures or discuss which pieces of my jewelry she may prefer to inherit. Nor does a casual guest ask for advice regarding college choices with an expectation that I will be there later to help. An unrelated guest does not have privileges like these. On the surface, relatives act respectfully and with consideration for one another just as we would to anyone, but underlying expectation and responsibility apply from both sides that we cannot ignore.

So exists my relationship with God. I am his daughter. He has adopted me. Without Him, I would still live in His lovely world, would still see the sun every morning and the stars every night. I would eat the food He has provided and smell the flowers He made and hear a bird call. I could not, however, lay any claim to it. I would be a guest in His world, able to use what He provided, but only for the short time I stay.

As a daughter, and only as a daughter, I have rights and privileges. God makes His guests comfortable, but He loves His children as His own. I know I have an inheritance and bear His resemblance. As a daughter, I have responsibility to Him and He teaches me. As a daughter, I learn the family secrets, the truths, and am invested for the long haul. As a daughter, I do not only enjoy the guest room of earth, I know that the inheritance of heaven is already prepared.

Thought for today: How do you understand your daughterhood or sonship?