VOICES of Lent - Part Eleven

We begin this post with the continuation of a theme begun in the previous Post, Part Ten, "Entering the Week of  Decision". Again we are structuring the Post as a dialogue.

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Good Spirit: Dear Soul, you must ready yourself, for the days leading up to the Cross of Jesus grow fewer. There is an important decision that awaits you.

Soul: Good Spirit, what is the nature of the decision that is before me?

Good Spirit: Will you offer in sacrifice to God, the one true possession you own, that is exclusively yours, to do with as you alone so choose. Will you offer it as a sacrifice and unite it with Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross? 

The possession of which I speak is your "Will", your unconditional "Yes"; to truly and freely take up and sacrifice, give back, surrender unconditionally and irrevocably, to exchange your will for the will of the Father. 

Hence forth, you will forsake the fruit of "The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil", that is, deciding on your own, what is good or evil; rather you will seek out, in all matters, what the Father has ordained as good or evil, and to do so, no matter what the cost to you. Are you willing to unite your voice to that of Jesus as he says, "Father, ...  not my will, but yours be done." Luke 22:42

Jesus' willing acceptance of his passion and death on the Cross, is his perfect "Yes" to the will of the Father. Adam and Eve were given but one thing to which they were to assent, not to be the authors of what was good or evil. God alone would be the author of truth, of what is good and what is evil. But to this, with the seduction of Satan, they said "No" to God. They took with them the fruit of their decision and departed from God's presence. 

From that day on, man's relationship with God was distorted by man's ignorance of the Truth. To win God's favour, man fashioned religions built on offering sacrifices; offering from their possessions, gifts meant to appease what they believed to be God's anger toward them. They took from their crops, their animals, even the lives of people and immolated them on altars in sacrifice. 

But it was in God's plan to send a New Adam, who would reveal to the world, the one thing God wanted from man, his yes to God's perfect truth. The new Adam is his Son, Jesus. God begins his plan by forming a people who are chosen to be the first to experience God's plan unfolding. God chooses Abraham to be the father of these people, from whom this new Adam shall spring.

Soul: Did not God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son Issac on an altar?

Good Spirit: This was God's way of teaching Abraham, and all human kind, that he does want Abraham's unconditional "yes", but that he does not want humans sacrificed to him on altars. (Read Genesis 22:1ff.) Perhaps it is best summed up in Palm 51:16 ... 

Certainly you do not want a sacrifice, or else I would offer it;

you do not desire a burnt sacrifice.

The sacrifices God desires are a humble spirit –

O God, a humble and repentant heart you will not reject. 

Dear Soul, take this passage from Matthew's gospel for your prayer and meditation, as we move forward to Palm Sunday

Matthew 21;33

 "Hear another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey.

When vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce.

But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat, another they killed, and a third they stoned.

Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones, but they treated them in the same way.

Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, 'They will respect my son.'

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.'

They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?"

They answered him, "He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times."

Jesus said to them, "Did you never read in the scriptures: 'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes'?

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Consider from this passage that the:

• ... land owner is God
• ... vineyard, this world of opportunity
• ... hedge, God's design for truth
• ... wine press, God's will for all people
• ... tenants, mankind 
• ... vintage time, judgement
• ... servants, prophets, old and new
• ... son, Jesus
• ... inheritance, to rule the world their way
• ... thrown out, a world without God
• ... killed him, the Crucifixion of Jesus
• ... other tenants, true believers