I’ve got some bad news: this world has fallen hard.
God offered Shalom. He offered perfect peace, a close and intimate relationship with Him, unhindered by doubt, desires for harmful and hurtful habits and hangups, guilt, and shame. God: maker of the Universe. He spoke, the void listened. It was filled - filled with beauty. Filled with the glory and order of a majestic Creator. The chemistry and physics that baffle the brilliant was instituted. Life was formed. Life that was not meant to fulfill on its own, but to be fulfilled by the One who made it.
Truth, love and morals were instituted - a mere reflection of the character of the one who was and is and always will be: the only constant in eternity.
But God didn’t simply create and leave the world to the creation. He walked among it. He dwelt in it. He made image bearers to represent His being. He gave them the mark of His beauty, the freedom found in unhindered love, the purpose of representing and glorifying Him, and the opportunity to know intimately the One who is everything.
But Shalom didn’t last. Those same image bearers, blessed by the unrestrained presence of God, looked for joy, sought fulfillment and searched for knowledge somewhere else. Instead of looking to the creator of joy, the embodiment of love, and the source of truth, they looked elsewhere. They forsook the relationship, and through them, the Creator and creation were separated.
How are these image bearers now described?
Their works are works of iniquity.
Their tongue mutters wickedness.
They speak lies, relying on empty pleas.
Their feet run to evil.
They do not know the way of peace.
They hope for light, and find only darkness: they grope for the wall like the blind, like those who have no eyes.
Their hands are defiled with blood.
All these things testify against them.
Justice has turned back, righteousness is far off, and truth has stumbled in the public square.
Salvation is far away.
The created failed the Creator. The image bearer failed the image. Their iniquities built a wall, a separation between them and their God. There was no one to intercede. They wondered - they wondered where salvation had gone. Where was Shalom? Where was God?
But the Creator was not far off. He became one of them. The Creator - humbled to the level of His own creation, took the shame. He took the guilt. He took the hurts, the hangups, the doubt, the evil, the wickedness, the iniquity, the empty pleas, the scars, the fears.
He took the darkness.
He offered light.
Each brick that the created had stacked as a barrier between them and the Creator - He tore them down.
His presence: by some, it was forgotten. His hand: by some, it was slapped. His love: by some, it was not returned.
But the others?
They were judged for their sin, but the creator took their sentence.
What was their sentence?
Death.
Separation from Life - from the Creator.
These others? They believed. They longed for the reconciliation of the pure relationship between the Creator and created. They turned - turned from darkness- and entered the light. They exchanged the chaos of the world for Shalom.
And how did the Creator respond?
He had mercy.
He forgave.
He made the created majestic once again - majestic for eternity.
He gave them light - not light of the sun or the moon, but Light Everlasting - the light of the Lord.
He ended their days of mourning.
He wiped their hands clean; He washed their feet; He purified their minds.
He made them beautiful.
And now all that we (the created) can do is glorify the One and only. The One who was and is and is and is to come. We can bear His image - we can fulfill His purpose for our lives. We can talk with Him. We can walk with Him, and He will lead. We can have Shalom. We can have the relationship we were made to have.
You know that wall we made? That separation? That barrier keeping the created from the Creator? The wall we built brick by brick, purposefully stacking them so high we couldn’t see truth, couldn’t do good, and couldn’t feel the warmth of true light?
It’s gone.
Christ destroyed it.
And we can now live in freedom. In Shalom.
In an intimate relationship with the Creator.
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