“The yeast of divinity came to leaven the mud of humanity by putting into the hands of the mud a love note. The love note changes everything. It changes the trajectory of the mud. The God who fashioned us out of the mud with his hands put himself into the hands of the mud to reveal to the mud His love for them. His love for them is the sweetness of paradise. The rationality of the mud instructs the mud to seek the sweetness of paradise. It would be crazy to do otherwise.”
God had something to tell us. God had something to say. God wanted us to know that God loves us dearly. Therefore, God sent us a love note. At Bethlehem, Jesus brought the love note to us. Jesus was the love note. He was the message - the word of God. He was the messenger as well. He delivered the message to us. Furthermore, Jesus was the guarantor of the genuineness of the message as well.
Jesus was the certificate of authenticity for the message.
Jesus was the guarantee of the genuineness of the message.
Jesus verified the veracity of the message.
Furthermore, the guarantee was given to us in a manner that was both dramatic and apocalyptic.
A collision was arranged.
At and about Calvary outside the city of Jerusalem in a region of our planet called the Middle East more than two thousand years ago, a collision known as the Crucifixion took place between Good and evil. It was bigger than the Big Bang. it was larger than the Large Hadron Collider.
What survived the collision?
The answer is important because the byproducts of the collision unambiguously reveal the identity of Jesus. The fallout from the collision verified the veracity of the treasure. Jesus did not stay dead. This byproduct proved that Jesus is God. Jesus did not stop loving us. This byproduct proved something more important than the divinity of Jesus. It proved that the nature of divinity is love itself.
We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. Yet, he did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us.
The evil we did to him could have produced different results. We could have pissed him off. We could have triggered his reflex for revenge, retaliation and retribution. He could have ripped up the love note. He could have cancelled the invitation to follow him back to our home in paradise. He could have confiscated the knowledge of God that he shared with us. But He did not. Instead, he continued to love us nonetheless. His atypical reaction to the evil we did to him gave us proof - irrefutable proof - that his love for us is radical in scope, magnitude and intransigence.