(Leeloo here... the content below is from Seb's friend Fred who has friends and
sponsees in prison that he regularly writes to. Fred shared one of his
latest letters he wrote to a friend in jail and I thought it shows the
degree with which Fred and Seb are tracking the Spirit of Jesus together on
this issue. Hope it blesses you like it blessed me.)
Well we made it through Easter and boy was I blessed this year. I hope you were too.
I think I came to a deeper understanding about Jesus death and resurrection than I have before…. I don’t know, I’m still kind of processing it.
It is the whole HORRIBLE idea that God the Father was ticked off about sin and had to take his wrath out on someone and so to spare us he took it out on his own son!! Who would want to serve a horrible Father like that, seriously!?
But that is exactly what I was taught in many terrible sermons down through the years. Turns out this false notion has been popular and widespread since about 1200 AD…
I am so Happy that modern preachers and scholars are coming back to the BIBLICAL truth that shows that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are ONE - they are UNIFIED!!! The Father cannot take his wrath out on the son any more than he can take it out on himself! In fact this notion of God being so ticked off at us humans is just wrong… God’s wrath throughout scripture is actually quite a different notion…
In fact, the big thing that comes out is that God is HOLDING back the wrath of Mother Nature trying to self cleanse (in other words ‘wipe us out’ like a Momma dog eating a deformed pup)… God allows about one 10 billionth of the bad things to happen to us that should happen because of our own stupidity and stubbornness. His mercy is a trillion times bigger than the natural consequences of our own idiocy that he allows to squeak through once in a while to get our attention and draw us back into his arms.
There are MANY images in Churches that would fix this whole notion of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit’s unity at the cross. They are unfortunately almost all in Europe and overseas in older Churches. The images show God the Father with a grieved and pained look standing behind the cross holding it up with his hands and God the Son on the cross and God the Holy Spirit hovering over God the Son by God the Father’s shoulder. They All THREE suffered together, they are ONE!
WHAT did they suffer? OUR Violence. OUR Hate. OUR selfishness. OUR need for a scapegoat.. OUR need for someone other than ourselves to blame it on.
 |
| In some sense, The Father and the Holy Spirit suffered with Jesus on the Cross |
WE KILLED GOD… OUR sin killed him…
And wait for it…
HE just absorbed it on the cross.
Then he came back alive and the first things out of his mouth were NOT I’m going to get even with you.
No, his first words every time he appeared were SHALOM. Peace be unto you.
Yeah, you killed me with your spitefulness and hate, I was your ultimate scapegoat, WE were your ultimate scapegoat, my Father, myself and the Holy Spirit ABSORBED ALL your violence and meanness and we are not mad at you.
In fact we used it as an opportunity to TEAR OPEN the abode of the dead and free the prisoners there and OPEN up paradise to whoever wishes to enter.
So with that to chew on, I’m going to turn again to my good friend Sebastian O’Donal’s journal and let you read some of his conversations with Papa (Father God) and some of his thoughts on this subject.
______________
Jesus Cancels Scapegoating
Good morning Papa!Good morning son!
Papa, thanks again for Bishop Barron, he nailed it again today I thought.
You’re welcome son, yes, I’d say Jesus nailed it to the cross, scapegoating that is ;D
Exactly and thereby cancelling out the whole scapegoat mechanism on the cosmic level… granted, most of us never received the memo about this and still go right on scapegoating everyone and everything. But that old tired and violent way was nailed to the cross and a new way of resurrection and life rose from the ashes in a very real sense… it simply is taking its time sinking into the entirecosmos but it will take over. It is inevitable. Those who resist will feel it as fire, those who embrace the new way of love and forgiveness will feel it as warming rays of the life giving sun/son of God.
Exactly, you’re tendency to blame and scapegoat went all the way back to the beginning as you remember and is highly linked to pride. Both must be completely uprooted if true healing is to happen, but the cosmic groundwork has been completed. You are all invited to join in that triumph of the way of forgiveness, love and overcoming evil with good. But it wouldn’t work if I forced it on you would it… that would be using the same old method of violence to overcome your violence. This is an invitation to humanity to marry our divinity and it is not a shotgun wedding.
Indeed Papa, and I fully embrace it and pray that everyone will. Of course, I cannot do it except in, with and through you though you. Jesus I trust in you.
__________
Bishop Barron’s Gospel Homily for today:
JOHN 11:45–56
Friends, in today’s Gospel, the chief priests and Pharisees unite in a plot to kill Jesus because he raised Lazarus from the dead.
The Crucifixion of Jesus is a classic instance of Catholic philosopher René Girard’s scapegoating theory. He held that a society, large or small, that finds itself in conflict comes together through a common act of blaming an individual or group purportedly responsible for the conflict.
It is utterly consistent with the Girardian theory that Caiaphas, the leading religious figure of the time, said to his colleagues, “It is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.”
In any other religious context, this sort of rationalization would be validated. But in the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, this stunning truth is revealed: God is not on the side of the scapegoaters, but rather on the side of the scapegoated victim.
The true God does not sanction a community created through violence; rather, he sanctions what Jesus called the kingdom of God, a society grounded in forgiveness, love, and identification with the victim.
__________
The Unity of the Trinity
Seb wrote this to introduce some articles they were going to read and discuss in one of his recovery groups:
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father… I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Jn. 14
“For it is love I desire, not sacrifice…” Hos. 6:6
Because of these words, when I’m able, I gaze at the Crucifix during the “Our Father”. I do this to remind myself that God the Father and Son are not independent contractors that go about their own business, touching base via a phone call occasionally. They are two persons that are deeply intertwined on every level by the Holy Spirit of Love. When the son decided it was high time to take on flesh and go rescue us lost sheep, the Father did not hold him back from that great mission and in fact supported him in every way, though it pained him to do so. They both knew what it would cost.
Gazing at the crucifix, I’m reminded that in a very real sense the Father actually experienced bodyliness vicariously through his son. In the movie “The Shack”, Papa (the Father character) reveals the nail prints in his wrists when questioned about why he ‘abandoned’ his son on the cross. In fact, as Cardinal Cantalamessa aptly points out, Western liturgical art is rich with images of the trinity showing the grieving Father intimately present at the crucifixion and holding his dead son (a fatherly pieta of sorts) afterwards always connected by the Spirit of Love in the form of a dove. I’ve included a sampling of Trinity images at the end of this document.
Cantalamessa uses deft and expert strokes in these two good Friday sermons (see his book: The Power of the Cross) to set the record straight. Far from being cruelly demanded by the Father, the rescue mission to save our souls was the Son’s idea and it was a perfect offering of love to the Father in the Spirit of Love to woo and to win humanity back… to bring home a bride to the heavenly court. This is a main theme in the Theology of the Body which is why we are reading these two sermons this lent. May it deepen our understanding of the loving intimacy between the members of the Holy Trinity.
______________
I hope this all makes sense to you and at least one thing in this blesses you brother,
God bless and feel free to write back with any questions and I’ll try to explain it better.
Your brother in Jesus,
Fred
Fred
