February 25, 2010

Hebrews 1

I've decided to just plow straight through to the next book (after Philemon, which is after Titus).

It's very different. It's designed to argue with those of the Jewish faith or at least explain how Jesus transcends prophets and even the more supernatural (I hate sometimes how that word has been coopted by ghost stories, I mean that beyond the natural world) messengers sent by God. You have a seed of John's Word of God introduction to his gospel here.

It's all interesting, but the first part that really grabbed me (already ready to cede this point to Paul) was the last verse of the chapter. "Are not all angels spirits in the divine service sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?" Because - conversely, are all who do that angels?

On an entirely different tangent, I am a huge fan of the new series of Battlestar Galactica. I swear I have a point. Especially in the final season(s), the story really played with this. Sent an angel who didn't know she was an angel to guide everyone home and explained Lucifer's Fall in the most coherent and heart-wrenching yet unapologetic way I've ever seen. The later movie The Plan showed how he can be saved.

That's what I want to talk about in conjunction with this. God comes to us in all sorts of forms. It's not every day I spent personal time with these books of the Bible.

Cavil, also called One, also called John once, was furious with his parents and creators for loving the human race more than his own - an important one with its own beautiful biology and history though of the same mold. So he did countless terrible things, hated and tortured them in human form, but when he went to the man who came down from his role as creator and became a human like us for a whole lifetime, he came to understand why his creator loved the humans beyond their grossness and ugliness and flaws and craziness.

Why God created us, to be loved. That, of course, is moving away Battlestar Galactica. And I don't claim to really understand any of it or to know if/how Lucifer could ever return home, but the thing is that it's so easy to get twisted as a servant of God. Because when it's supposed to be all about everyone else, you have to know how to find God's love for you coming right back.

Anyone who works with people who are down, who are broken, anyone who has ever helped heal someone else, knows how full of Grace and Love it makes you. It's competing for God's love that will break you, because it makes no sense. He has infinite love, and He gives all of it to every one of us. It's breathtaking. It's shattering. It's shocking. It's incomprehensible.

It's people who think they're exempt from that - for whatever reason - that fall into the Devil's traps. Either they think they are too bad or too insignificant or too clever and proud to bow and follow, but it's always codswallop as far as God loving you is concerned. He sends angels to hover about you. Because I've always believed that we have all inherited salvation.

Those who are lucky enough to be agents of that love, human and angel, only feel it pouring over them more and more. And if you stop feeling it, it does not mean it has stopped. You've just forgotten how to look. Look around and remember. He is everywhere. His love is infinite.

"Imagine something infinitely loving, that knew all of your sharp edges and your hard bits, and loved you anyway."
- a recap of Battlestar Galactica

God speaks through everything, always the same message. I love you I love you I love you.