"The Creation, Biblically Speaking"

   Loving your enemy, and being kind to those who do you evil has been lost, and so has the true message of Jesus… the love of God for the Creation.

     There is a Source of all creation that from which all things have and will come.  By emanating from the Source, all in creation are made of the substance of the Source.  Therefore, all creation is a particular manifestation of the Source. 

     Man is created in the “image” of God, in that man is a visual and living manifestation of God.  God is created in the “image” of the Source, in that God is a conceptual representation and living manifestation of the Source of all things.  Jesus is created in the “image” of God, in that Jesus is a visual model representation and living manifestation of God.

     Mankind “created in the image of God” was not Adam and Eve, but the process by which mankind is being transformed (from its beginning to its end) into the perfect human image of God.  Pre-religious and pre-believers, non-religious and non believers are all part of the process.  Even evolutionary scientific evidence does not refute this process; it simply reflects earlier parts of the process, such as, a turkey roasted to perfection.  

     Consider the thought of the sex act by the turkeys prior to the act itself, then the act, the conception and the zygote, from the pre-birth formations and birth, from young fowl to full grown, to killing, plucking, cleaning, packaging, purchasing to and from the market, cleaning again, seasoning, cooking, preparation after cooking, and finally serving the perfect masterpiece. 

     Biblical scripture speaks of a potter’s clay having no right to challenge why it was formed a certain a way, given that the potter has power over what he creates “…of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor.” (Romans 9:21)  Honor and dishonor are perceived as good and bad… by the clay.  All parts are substance of the Source.  The Source being eternal, the parts are eternal.  Parts seeming corrupt or insignificant are eternal and necessary to the perfection of the whole. 

     What about Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler (or, Christopher Columbus)?  If God is eternal and we are eternal, the significance we put on individual situations in this very small piece of eternity (as heinous as certain acts may be), cannot be that serious in eternity’s scheme of things.  Children dying, masses killed, disasters… all are minimal and probably catalysts in the processes to perfection.

     From the turkey’s very limited viewpoint, his little life ended in tragedy.  But, there is more to the process of perfection than simply between the birth of the turkey and its death.  From a more superior viewpoint the process of the turkey’s perfection far exceeded the turkey life… both prior to, and after.

     From an eternity perspective Biblically and spiritually, Jesus was like leaven for planet earth.  “…Father forgive them for they know not what they do…” was Jesus’ prayer for the whole of mankind.  From an eternity perspective Biblically and naturally, Israel was the leaven for planet earth into its own lineage and the fulfilling of God’s promise to Abraham, “… and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen 12:24).

     Israel was a chunk of the human population used like leaven to assimilate the world’s population into wellness by both Biblically natural and spiritual laws.  From a revelation to Abraham that all of the nations of the world would be blessed through his seed and the processes of many events, the people of Israel (whose patriarch, Israel was Abraham’s grandson) came to be.  Israel was introduced to an image of the Source… Yahweh (Jehovah, or God).  Given a sense of their own frailty, they embraced this image of the creator as best as humanly possible.

     Through hundreds of years of events Israel became twelve large tribes, patriarched by twelve sons of Israel.  They eventually split into two kingdoms, Judah and Benjamin referred to as Judah, and the other ten tribes referred to as Israel.  From a Biblical perspective the Kingdom of Israel rebelled against Jehovah.  Through migration, wars, captivity, and slavery they were scattered throughout the world.  Thousands of years of intermingling with people who were not of Israel, fulfilling the promise of God to Abraham by eventually assimilating the population of the world into the lineage of Abraham through Israel. 

     Of course, assimilation began in the region of the Middle East.  Wars and migration throughout Africa quickly began assimilating that continent into Israel.  Wars from and with Europe began the European assimilation into Israel.  There had always been tremendous trade with China throughout the Middle East and Africa.  As Chinese merchants and travelers often settled, intermarried and raised families along trade routes… more assimilation into Israel.  The slave trade into the Americas began assimilating the indigenous people of those lands into Israel.  And, the irony of the slave trade was that while slave owners in the United States were attempting to assimilate African slaves into their society, they were actually being assimilated into Israel through their slaves.

     The process of assimilation utilizes Jesus not only as the perfect model by which the community will conform, but as well a particular “kinsman redeemer” sacrifice made to satisfy the natural part of the process.  A kinsman redeemer can only redeem kinsmen.  Jesus is of the Tribe of Judah, while the world has been assimilated into Israel.

     The message found in scripture is a message of acceptance of all people regardless of religion or life circumstance.  The offspring of European Christianity were birthed in America from a misrepresentation of the teachings of Jesus.  It exploited the weak, enslaved the vulnerable, and would proselyte converts at the point of the sword, all the while appropriating their lands and resources for the underwriting government or church.

     In America, consider the Native Americans who once inhabited the entirety of what we now call the United States.  Introduced to Christianity by Europeans, and lost everything of value… including their lives.  The selfish desires of men have led them to exploit the weak and vulnerable for personal gain.  Religion has been a tool to propagate the exploitation of scores of nations and countless people over time.  Religion has justified, genocides, slavery, and theft of lands.   All of these attributes are contrary to the way in which the relationship that all men have to each other (emanating from the Source) should dictate.

     In recognizing that the Creation is more the substance of the Creator than a child is to its mother (in that the child is a product of a union between a mother and father, while the Creations total and pure substance is of the Creator) the almost humanly unimaginable love the Creator has for creation and the love we are to have for each other begins to become at least fathomable. 

Amen.