The Remedy
The Remedy
The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.
—G.K. CHESTERTON
Sometimes I call the Holy Spirit the whisper in the Wind.
The Whisper is the faceless one. Although nameless, his goal is unity. His anonymity provides a greater platform for his primary activity, which is unwavering selfless love. While he is inconspicuous, his work is not. Many have tried to ignore him. Some deny he exists. Others attempt to harvest him through incantation. He has been pigeon-holed to one dimension, epoch or time. But the Whisperer is a flowing force that cannot be stopped. His power cannot be confined. Some have experienced his eternal presence but nothing is quite like when He reveals himself personally. It altars all.
The Whisperer has always chosen to be anonymous. But He does not exist alone. He has existed in community long before our beginning. It was by listening to his subtle activity throughout our human history that the ancients discovered He was pointing to the others the whole time. He exists with two others. Together they are the Lover, the Loved, and the Beloved. And they are One.
This God-community was and is above all else pure unity in diversity. Mutual love of each member of God pores into the other members of the Triune Persons. It was God’s pure relationality in Himself that created an eternal infinity of love that was pored out into our world. Without their relationship, one to another, they would not be. This is how all of the particles of universe came together. This is the origin of passion, of reason, and of being. This is the origin of friendship. This is where love comes from. This is above all else where the longing of kindred kin comes from. Their relationship is a template for God’s relationship with humanity and for humanity’s relationship with itself.
You see God had a conversation within Himself. In a time beyond our time, it was decided in God’s very self that He would have to interject himself into human history. He would do it for sake of all Adam’s everywhere.
And so God reached beyond the outer edge of his Godhood and grasped deep inside Himself. Beyond the reaches of time and space he pulled out a single solitary particle from his very core. Incomprehensibly, He took this particle of his God- code and allow it to fuse with Adam’s life code. And he fulfilled his promise to Eve that her seed would crush the enemy. This would fundamentally alter the member of God who is eternally begotten. His sacrifice would be a permanent change for Him – existing for the rest of eternity not just fully God but also fully man. It would be a rebirth, a reboot of the world. Starting as He had before, it would begin with one. A new Adam. He would be and became the last Adam. He would be the bearer of the Spirit without limit.
You see from the very beginning the He was with God and the He was God. Through the Him all things came into life. There was no life without this first seed. He would bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth once again. The out- of-control creation would get drawn back to the centripetal force– its Creator.
God longed for all Adams to enjoy his company. He loved all Adams before any Adams had had the capacity to love back. As the conversation ended, God delighted that all of his fullness would dwell in Him. He would walk among them in His garden once again. And so the Infinite would step back into time.
Then the remedy emerged. There could only be the only way. This would not simply be a flu shot in the arm but a permanent, unstoppable, final solution that solved, saved, healed, fixed, and redeemed us. We were desperate. We are, and will always be desperate, given our dire circumstance. But this remedy wasn’t simply a short-term fix. Because all of us had addictions, we were addicted to the law, to legalism. We were addicted to ritual; it made us feel better but didn’t change us.
We became addicted to our feelings, addicted to our selves. Addicted to short term pleasure – be it sex, substance, or amusement. We were desperate. We grew hungry from power, money and even fame. But it was empty. No! Nothing was there. We tried it all – and then even when we brought more destruction, dysfunction and chaos we tried it again and yet again. We were broken, totally and utterly lost. And in darkness of our lostness, we hurt others, and we hurt ourselves.
But a remedy emerged – in a place and time – it was really incognito at first. It emerged in a way none of us expected it. The solution wasn’t found in annuals of philosophy or progression of technology. But in the fullness of time, our Architect, who was the originator of our design, allowed the green bud to form on Jesse’s forgotten root. He himself chose to come and be a permanent and infinite solution. The Whisperer brought the seed to the woman. So God fulfilled his promise of vindication to Eve. Her offspring would crush the seeds of darkness.
God condescended and came to form, a man! Abraham’s seeds would birth the seed of incorruptibility. He would be Adam 2.0. Simultaneously God and Man, his combined natures would create a remedy for rest of Abraham’s heirs. That which he would assume he would heal, in life and death and resurrection. He would be the antibody to our sickness, our very DNA he would give new code, the blood that would run down his legs, would become grace to our race. For us and for our salvation, he would become the remedy. It all began as a single soprano echoing across the sky…
Young and poor, a peasant girl is belting out her version of Hannah’s cry. It’s the first Christmas carol. A resounding song, she bursts forth in an explosion of joy. Unmarried and pregnant, her life has been turned upside down. The baby inside is growing. God has done the impossible but questions swirl around. Will Joseph still have her? Will he still love her? How will she support her child? Where will they live? How will they survive?
They are the hopes and fears of all the years. Even still Mary opens her lungs and from her depths the words of the Whisperer ring across the silent Judean countryside. What God is going to do through her, he will do for those like her! Her anthem will echo into the heart of the baby in her womb and throughout his entire ministry. The remedy will lift the lowly and remember the forgotten. It is the radical song of human freedom.
Soon enough cries ring across Bethlehem, the child from her womb has blended his cries with her song. Then north sky is lit and to her amazement the star walkers have join their voices to melody of Mary’s song so that strangers including stargazers from the east join in the King’s coronation.
Mary’s righteous husband, Joseph, was like his ancestor Abraham. He believed the angelical messenger and endured the excoriation of those who sat in judgment. And because he endured judgment Joseph became the adopted father of those who followed the seed. You see Joseph adopted the promise and in a real sense the promised adopted him. The Spirit is always calling out “Father” to all who would be adopted, those who are willing to be grafted into the root of Jesse. And if the root is holy, so are the branches.
It was only fitting that they gave him his name on the eighth day after he had became a full member of the Jewish nation according to mitzvah. So he fulfilled the covenant between Himself and Abraham. As the ancient scroll read, “This is my covenant, which you shall observe between Me and you and between your seed after you.” And so they named him Yahweh is salvation. – Jesus.