Tag: New Creation

All Who Have This Hope

Jason ZahariadesLeave a comment

“Look at the remarkable love the father has given us—that we should be called God’s children! That indeed is what we are. That’s why the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him. Beloved ones, we are now, already, God’s children; it hasn’t yet been revealed what we are going to be. We know that when he is revealed we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him make themselves pure, just as he is pure.” 1John 3:1-3

This was the passage I was reading this morning. God’s love is so tremendous that he has embraced and adopted us as his children! This is amazing, startling, almost scandalous, and worthy of all the adoration and worship our eternal lives can generate.

Earlier this week, I was watching a video about the Euclid telescope. This is a space telescope with a 600-megapixel camera that was developed by the European Space Agency. As part of a six-year mission, it has taken images of three small regions of our sky. The image at the top of this post is of one of the areas. And each of those points of light in that image is a galaxy! With only one scan of each region, the Euclid telescope has already spotted 26 million galaxies, of which the farthest is 10.5 billion light years away! The vastness of this universe is mind-boggling!

God easily and joyfully created this immense universe. He now fills and plays within it so that every component and event is within his direct knowledge and control. This God loves us with an even greater immensity, making us his children who will ceaselessly enjoy him and his creation! There aren’t words to express how astounding this is!

But now look at verse 2. We are currently God’s children. But it hasn’t yet been revealed what we are going to be. Wait! What? There’s more? As incredible as it is that God makes us his children, something far grander and more magnificent is awaiting us. All we know is that when Jesus is revealed, we shall be like him. Why? Because we shall see him as he is. We will gaze face to face upon his loving and glorious presence and know him in the deepest, unbridled, unhindered way. And it will transform us into his likeness. We shall be like him!

In light of this inconceivable hope and future, St John states, “All who have this hope in him make themselves pure, just as he is pure.” In other words, since our hope is that we shall be like him in the future, God’s children start learning in the present how to be like him. It all circles back to Jesus’ Gospel, his good news. Jesus invites us to become his apprentices, learning from him how to be like him as if he were living our lives in our place. In this context, we make ourselves pure by learning from him how he is pure. 

Here’s the hint that unlocked my understanding of apprenticeship to Jesus. We can have Jesus’ life – his faith, knowledge, character, and power – only by embracing Jesus’ lifestyle. In a nutshell, that’s what it means to be his apprentice. We learn to 1) know God, his world, and his activity in his world, 2) adopt Jesus’ confident, unhurried and unworried posture toward life, and 3) implement the various practices that shaped his life in God, all under the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit and within a community of other apprentices learning and practicing together. 

I know, that was a mouthful. But this is the Gospel! And it’s completely doable! Jesus’ true apprentices have been doing it successfully for two thousand years and it’s still possible in our world and lives. It’s our hope in the present and prepares us for our hope of the future.

Dallas Willard was fond of saying, “We are ceaseless spiritual beings with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe.” That’s just another way of saying what St John is saying. When I stop and think about our future as God’s eternal children fully formed into the Jesus’ likeness and ready to reign with him in God’s universe, I think about another Dallas Willard quote, “The aim of God in history is the creation of an all-inclusive community of loving persons, with Himself included in that community as its prime sustainer and most glorious inhabitant.”

As I imagine the future, I picture myself and my loved ones who have followed Jesus together as part of this vast community of love with Jesus at the center. We’re gazing upon the billions of galaxies in God’s universe spread out before us, filled with joyful thrill and anticipation. An expectant silence falls upon all of us. Then Jesus says, “Let’s go!” And the real adventure begins!

We Always Live In The Resurrection

Jason ZahariadesLeave a comment

Lately, I’ve been reminded that even though Pascha has passed on the Church’s calendar, we continually live in the Reality of Christ’s resurrection. It’s easy for the deterioration, brokenness, and tragedy of our present world to eclipse the startling Truth that God’s New Heaven and Earth have been inaugurated into our time and space. But God’s mission to renew His Creation, launched at Jesus’ resurrection and deployed by Jesus’ people, is on track and moving forward. To cement the point, here’s St John Chrysostom Paschal homily to refocus our vision on what is truly Real:

“Let no one bewail his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one weep for his iniquities, for pardon has shown forth from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free. He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it. By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive. He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh. And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry: Hell, said he, was embittered, when it encountered Thee in the lower regions. It was embittered, for it was abolished. It was embittered, for it was mocked. It was embittered, for it was slain. It was embittered, for it was overthrown. It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains. It took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

“O Death, where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are overthrown. Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life reigns. Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave. For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.”

AMEN!!!

And now with St John’s word still echoing, read St Paul’s exhortation in Colossians 3:

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory… Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

Heaven & Hell Are Not Places

Jason Zahariades1 Comment

“We are made whole (healed) by the grace of God, and brought into a relationship with Him that is our true inheritance. Heaven and hell are not places created by God for those who were good, or bad, but rather about relationship. The Fire of God is heaven for those who have responded to God’s love, and hell for those who have remained in the darkness of sin (sickness), and whose ego has shut out God, for self. Heaven and hell are not places, but all about relationship.” Abbot Tryphon

I’ve written about this before, but it’s worth revisiting. Our culture’s understanding of heaven and hell is severely distorted. Too often, heaven and hell are viewed as future destinations either to reward the good or punish the bad.

However, as Fr Stephen Freeman is fond of saying, “Jesus did not come to make bad men good, but dead men alive.” What is at stake is the transformation of human nature, which is so fractured, distorted and sick that it’s dead. And in this dead state, we shut out God. That is hell. In our brokenness, we constantly live in hell.

So the issue isn’t ethics or morality. You can’t tell a corpse to behave better. The only hope is Resurrection. For the Resurrection is the inauguration of God’s Renewed Creation. And the power of the Resurrection brings life to all of us who are dead. This is the point of Ezekiel 37 and Jesus’ retelling of that vision in the Story of the Prodigal Son. The son wasn’t restored because he “got his act together” or because he apologized to the Father. He experienced Resurrection. He returned from exile and back into relationship with his father and his household.

When a person experiences the Resurrection, the process of transformation begins. And this is heaven. Heaven is being loved by God and being able to love him back, regardless of circumstance. Heaven is loving and living God’s will regardless of the pain or sacrifice one experiences. Heaven is being transformed into Christ’s likeness from the inside-out.

As Jesus hung upon the cross absorbing the world’s sin and evil upon himself, he was in heaven. In the midst of hell, he was in heaven.

So heaven and hell are descriptions primarily of our relationship with God. But are there future destinations of heaven and hell? I believe so. It’s called the New Creation. One day, God will renew his Creation. He will set all things right. Jesus’ prayer will fully be answered as heaven and earth finally overlap and God’s reign will be on earth (the human realm) as it is in heaven (God’s realm). And in the New Creation, God’s glory will cover the earth as the water covers the seas. This will be the ultimate and eternal experience of heaven and hell.

And on that day when God renews his Creation and drenches it with his undiminished glory, his very love and presence will be like an eternal inextinguishable lake of fire for those who shut him out. And that same love and presence will be indescribable joy for those who have been transformed into his likeness and live only for his will.

So heaven and hell begin now. Each of us is on that journey every day.

All Health Broke Loose

Jason Zahariades1 Comment

Sunday’s Gospel reading contained this passage from John 20, “‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.'”

Shortly after Jesus inaugurated his Father’s New Creation by his resurrection, he commissioned his disciples to continue what he has started. Jesus instructs them to participate in the missio dei with, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” I truly believe this statement forms the core of any missional engagement. The New Creation is implemented by continuing Jesus’ incarnation of God’s Presence and Life into the world.

So that there is no mistake, Jesus summarizes the essential components of an incarnational mission. They must receive the Holy Spirit and they must forgive sins. They cannot engage in this daunting task solely relying on their own strength and strategies. Human participation in the missio dei requires Christ’s likeness and God’s divine energies. This is especially apparent when one reflects on what is involved in forgiving sins.

Jesus means far more than simply declaring to a person forgiven from personal sins. To Jesus’ contemporaries, the forgiveness of sins meant the return from exile. Based on their covenant with God, Israel’s sins had sent them into exile and it would be God’s forgiveness of their sins that would initiate their return. But Jesus offered more than a geographical relocation or deliverance from foreign rule. When Jesus offered the forgiveness of sin, he was offering a new world order from the desolation of death into the eschatological kingdom of God.

And that is our ongoing role in God’s mission. To borrow a phrase from my priest, “All health broke loose” at Jesus’ resurrection. I really like that. At the resurrection, the renewal of God’s creation is launched. As we are sent as Jesus was sent, as we forgive sins and offer the return from exile, as we embody God’s kingdom, all health should break loose in us and around us.

The Lenses Through Which I See

Jason Zahariades5 Comments

I read a beautiful Paschal reflection by Fr Ted Bobosh. His reflection reminded me of how God has shaped me to view life through a few crucial lenses.

First, salvation, as experienced personally, is the entire process of God rescuing me from sin and death and restoring me as his image-bearer. In other words, salvation is the actual process of being transformed into Christ’s likeness. As such, “forgiveness of sins” is the doorway to salvation, but not salvation itself. Forgiveness is a necessary aspect of a far larger process of renewal, restoration and transformation. Therefore, I don’t possess salvation. Rather, I’m on a journey of salvation, a journey toward becoming like Christ in his life and likeness.

Second, God is saving his entire creation. There is a global dimension to salvation. The promised New Creation is this creation renewed and overflowing with God’s glory. The New Creation was inaugurated at Jesus’ resurrection and God is actively restoring his creation, primarily through the renewal of creation’s stewards — the human race.

Third, Jesus’ very being and life saves us. God’s salvific activity cannot be pinpointed to just one event in Jesus’ life. All of the events save us. He saves us through his birth, his circumcision, his baptism, his ministry, his miracles, his teaching, his crucifixion, his resurrection, his ascension, his return, his ongoing kingship, and all the bits in between.

Fr Stephen Freeman summarizes nicely, “The Incarnation of Christ and the whole of His work – suffering, death, burial, descent among the dead, resurrection, ascension – serve the same singular purpose – to deliver all of creation (including humanity) from its bonds and establish it in the freedom for which it was created – manifest in Christ’s own resurrection.”

The convergence of these lenses bring the world into pin-sharp focus for me and have helped me to shed much of the delusion from my past.