By Hasmik Babayan
Hasmik serves on the SVM2 International Facilitation Team and currently lives among the unreached.
God loved so much the world, that He made the very impossible possible – the Consuming Fire that nobody was able to see and to touch made Himself touchable and visible. The one, who was invisible, unreachable, and unfathomable, has decided to come down and make himself visible, reachable and fathomable to those whose eyes and hands had never seen and touched the consuming beauty of God.
We read in 1 John 1:1-2,
“The Word that gives life was from the beginning, and this is the one our message is about. Our ears have heard, our own eyes have seen, and our hands touched this Word. The one who gives life appeared! We saw it happen, and we are witnesses to what we have seen. Now we are telling you about this eternal life that was with the Father and appeared to us.” (CEV)
God loved so much the world that He decided to come down in person. The Maker of Universe, the God of immense power and force had become a human being, had transformed Himself from eternity into time in order to transform humans from time into eternity. He had left the Trinitarian dance and came down to the earth in order to take humans back to that very dance of love and unity.
The Son of God came down with a message in his heart; He had a message to deliver to humanity.
The Son of God, the Splendor of Universe was born in a manger, in a place that nobody would choose and nobody is still choosing their children to be born. The Son of God was born in a place where horses, cows and other animals live and get their food. The Son of God chose the unwanted and disdained place.
The Son of God chose to leave the Trinitarian dance of love and unity and come down to the earth, to the cursed place, to the place of darkness and turmoil, to the place of war and hate, to the place of lies and deceit, to the place of confusing standards and manipulating rules, and to the place of religion that kills.
The religion that not only killed humans, but also killed God and, on the top of this, killed God in the name of God. To incarnate into human flesh and to live in the society created by humans was to incarnate into human pain and despair, into human suffering and darkness, and into human loneliness and struggle.
The Son of God came into the darkness to transform that darkness into light. In order to transform darkness into light He needed to be in the darkness, to live in a messed up society where humans lived. Without compromising His standards He made Himself extremely flexible for the sake of us. Having the perfection in Him He still agreed to be with the imperfect ones.
For the loving and perfect God, it was extremely painful to see and live in the mess created by humans. For the loving heart, that had the best to offer, was unfathomably pained to see the offer rejected or taken by wrong motivation.
This was the greatest suffering of the incarnation-equal to the one on the cross, or even more! For thirty three years, He lived in a society that was unbearable. Oftentimes we see in the Bible that Jesus gets tired, and goes to His solitude where He can communicate with His Father.
In order to bring light to people, He agreed to live in the darkness. In order to give life to people, He agreed to walk the path of death. In order to bring humans back to their true humanity, He agreed to empty Himself of His divinity. In order to provide humans their true identity, He agreed to the suffering of incarnation, including the suffering on the cross.
Two Options
Now only two options are left, only two choices are left. We agree to embrace the identity that God wants to give to us, or we create our own identity apart from God and without God.
The first one is very costly and a quite painful process. But the latter one is more costly-it leads to destruction and meaninglessness and emptiness, the ongoing and unproductive suffering without God. The first one is for those who want to pay the price to be with God and walk with God.
The second one is for those who want to pay the price to be without God. Both are costly but the outcome is different, the meaning is different.
In this century life is very fast. It makes rules for people and enslaves them. It gets people into the suicidal machine “I want more.” It is said that 21st century offers many options to humanity, but this is just an illusion.
Only two options, only two choices are left-we should choose between God and NO God! There is no neutral ground, this life is not for spiritual survival-either we thrive or we die. We read in Matthew 12:30, “This is war, and there is no neutral ground. If you’re not on my side, you’re the enemy; if you’re not helping, you’re making things worse.” (The Message)
Christ had a message in his heart to deliver to humans, and he did it…At all cost!
