The Dunghill of Evil

THE DUNGHILL OF EVIL WAS THE DARK FOIL AGAINST WHICH JESUS SET GOD'S PRODIGIOUS LOVE FOR US.

We baptized Jesus (Matthew 20:22) in a dunghill of evil. The dunghill of evil in which we baptized Jesus was the foil not the treasure. It highlighted and emphasized and intensified and magnified and amplified and accentuated and underlined the treasure of Christianity that was displayed against it. It provided the contrast - the counterpoint. A BEAUTIFUL JEWEL, HOWEVER, EMERGED FROM THE SHIT PILE.

Are you privy to the nature of the beautiful jewel that emerged from the dunghill of evil in which we baptized Jesus?

The beautiful jewel that emerged from the dunghill of evil was the gratuitous gift of forgiveness. Even though we did not deserve forgiveness, Jesus forgave us anyway (Jeremiah 31:31-34) (Luke 23:34 ) (Acts 10:43) (Matthew 6:12) (Matthew 18:21-35 (Luke 7:47) (Matthew 5:45). While we were still unrepentant (Matthew 22:10) sinners (Romans 5:8) (Matthew 7:6), Jesus loved us first (1 John 4:19). Our God took the first step of forgiveness in the hope that we would take the second step of repentance. Our God did not wait for our conversion to forgive us. He forgave us to bring about our conversion. Jesus’s methodology of salvation was audacious. It was based on his conviction that only love begets love. Only love melts our stony hearts and depetrifies and fleshifies them (Ezekiel 36:26).

“The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up” (Matthew 4:16) (2 Peter 1:19) (Luke 1:78-79) (1 John 1:5) (Isaiah 60:1-3). The greater was the darkness, the greater is our astonishment at the light that emerged from it.

The light illuminates the darkness of our understanding of God in a glorious burst of epiphany.

The Conversation

Who are you, Jesus? Identify yourself! Friend or foe?

We go astray when we contemplate the evil that we did to Jesus without simultaneously contemplating his answer to it. We lose our way. His answer to the evil that we did to him is the treasure of Christianity.

A divinely choreographed ‘conversation’ between Jesus and the monster of the Crucifixion took place at and about Jerusalem more than two thousand years ago. The ‘conversation’ consisted of our question and Jesus’s answer. The symbiotic dance between our question and his answer resulted in a single unit of apocalyptic revelation that illuminated the darkness of our understanding of God in a glorious burst of epiphany.. We interrogated him with lash, thorns, nails and cross. Jesus answered us. He did not hang mute. He did not take the fifth. His tongue was not nailed to the cross. His answer upgraded our understanding of God.

Are you privy to the answer that Jesus gave to the evil that we did to him?