God is Personal

Something got it all started

In an article in the National Geographic entitled "The Incredible Universe," scientists Kenneth Weaver and James Blair describe the vastness of our universe.

The farthest object we can see in the universe is perhaps ten billion light years away. Imagine that the thickness of one sheet of paper represents the distance from the earth to the sun (93 million miles or 8 light minutes). The distance to the next nearest star would be a stack of paper 71 feet high (4 and 1/3 light years). The diameter of our own galaxy is a stack 310 miles tall (100,000 light years).

The edge of the known universe would be a pile of paper 31 million miles high, a third of the way to the sun.

What are the odds that all this came about by accident?
It would be like covering the whole state of Texas knee deep in half dollars, all "heads" up - but one. Imagine that you are set free to wander around the whole state blindfolded. You stop, stick your hand down into the pile and somehow pull up the one coin that is "tails." The odds that this could happen are absolutely unfathomable.

No, Something got it all started.
The great divide in the spirituality of all religions is whether this "Something that got it all started" is personal or impersonal. Is this a God who has a will, a purpose, a plan, a direction, who can communicate with mortals, or is it merely an energy force that permeates the fabric of the universe? Is it a conscious entity, or a natural life force - really an unconsciousness (because consciousness would involve having some type of self-knowledge)? It is a being that I can have some type of relationship with or an anonymous energy that is incapable of any kind of relationship?

Personally, I cannot believe that this Something is less than human. Any being that cannot think, decide and choose is less than a human being. As human beings we can at least imagine, dream and love.

• How is it possible that this Something is incapable of these functions?
• How could personality come from something impersonal?
• How could love arise from something incapable of love?
• How could creativity come from something incapable of creativity?

No. This Something -
This God - must be more than just a cold energy force.
Even more to the point, Jesus taught that this mystical God could be known and experienced in a personal way. Imagine that. The God who created one sextillion stars desires to be known...desires relationship with his created creatures.

In fact, Jesus went so far as to say that life can only make sense when we have experienced this kind of personal relationship with the God who created us, who got it all started.

We cannot appreciate the tremendous change Jesus brought in how human beings approach the idea of God. In most religious traditions the primary emotion one was supposed to have in approaching a deity was fear. Fall down on your face, tremble, offer sacrifices hoping to appease the anger of the gods! Don't get the gods upset or they will get even with you (some people still labor under this idea). But not Jesus. Jesus' main message was "God loves you." God is not an angry hostile enemy. God desires to be your strongest ally, your biggest supporter, the one who has your best interests at heart.

This comes across most clearly in the way Jesus talked about God. The word Jesus used most frequently in talking about God was Abba, the ancient Hebrew word for "Father". But father is too stern a translation. Abba is the familiar word for father - it really should be translated Daddy! Abba is what Hebrew children said when then fathers came home after a long day at work. Daddy! It is a word of intimacy, familiarity, safety, closeness, love. And this got Jesus into a lot of trouble with the religious establishment of his day.

Why would this message of love and closeness with God get Jesus into so much trouble?
Because even in religion there is a strong tendency to keep God separate from real life - to make it stiff and formal and distant. From the get-go people were trying to kill Jesus, not because of the compassion he showed to people, or how he helped the poor, or healed the sick, but because of his teachings about God and his own relationship with God.

In the story of Jesus' life in the Bible called the Gospel of John, chapter 5, verses 17-18 we get a glimpse of this:

"Jesus said to them, 'My Father (Abba) is always at work to this very day, and I, too, am working.' For this reason they tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God."

The radical nature of Jesus' claim was two-fold: not only was God personal and loving, but that Jesus actually was this God in the flesh.

Remember Christmas? Angels announcing the birth of the Messiah? That is why Jesus' birth was such a big deal. He was called "Emmanuel" which in Hebrew means "God with us - God in the flesh."

This was a totally radical concept. Even though the idea of God coming to earth as a man (Messiah) was supported in the Jewish religious tradition by a thousand years of prophecy and expectation - they said he was blaspheming God by making such an outrageous claim. Jesus committed the worst crime anyone could commit in that culture. If he was lying he deserved to die.

What does this mean for God to become so personal in our world? Could it really be true?
My friend Carl has a large aquarium in his living room. To the fish Carl is like a deity. He is too large for them to understand. His actions are simply too incomprehensible. He is completely different from them. But he takes care of them. Their lives depend completely on him. He filters their light and water, he checks for antibodies. He lifts the lid to put in food. You would think that in view of all the energy and care he expends on their behalf the fish would be grateful! No way! Every time he stands over the tank they dive for cover. He cannot convince them of his concern for them. To convince them he would have to learn fish language...he would have to become a fish.

This is what Jesus said God did in him. In a sense it is as though God said, "I'm not getting through to these people. I've sent prophets, the Ten Commandments, the Old Testament scriptures, but nothing is working. I'll have to go down there myself - but I'll have to become one of them so they are not afraid of me."

And a human being becoming a fish is nothing compared to God becoming a human being. Imagine the God of one sextillion stars becoming a human being? That is the outrageous claim Jesus made. And it was far from being a sidelight of his teachings. This was the central teaching Jesus repeated over and over again.

Look at a few of his claims in these Bible verses also from the Gospel of John:

John 10:30 " I and the Father are one and the same."

John 10:37-39 "Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father.' Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp."

John 14:6 "I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

John 14:9 "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father."

This was Jesus' claim over and over again. You could see how this would infuriate people! He can't be just a good moral or religious teacher if the main thing he taught was that he was God in the flesh if that claim is false. If the main thing that he taught is false then calling him a good religious teacher is not an option. If his claim is false he should be dismissed as a charlatan, a fraud, a madman. Put him on the shelf with all the other false messiahs, the cult leaders, the David Koresh's of the world. Put him beneath Mohammed, who at least never claimed to be God, only God's prophet. Put him below Buddha who saw himself only as a fellow struggler on the path toward enlightenment.

But, if his claim is true...think of that. If he really was God in the flesh...if what he taught and lived was the truth about spiritual world then we'd better pay close attention to him.

A God who is personal
A God who wants to know you and who wants you to know Him - not from a distance but as the most intimate part of your life.

Jeff Ebert
Senior Pastor
Jeff@pcnp.org

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