And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. (Hebrews 9:22-26 NASB)
It's late and my brain is tired, yet I am wired with thoughts of my Master. They are my thoughts, and seek to reach out for His face. I have seen a movie made by people (the ones made by monkeys are to be avoided), and it sought the highest form of humanity attainable. In it, a man, exceptional in that he bridged two worlds, to bring peace to both, sacrificed himself to destroy the evil that would destroy them both. Yet, he was not a "perfect" sacrifice, just an exceptional one.
This is the best we can do. We can hope for an exceptional one to do what we cannot. We know it as beings of the same species, yet we deny it in so many ways. In the movie, the one on the brink of victory in the war had to admit that a common enemy was too great even for them. They didn't want to, but in the end, they decided to compromise, and withdraw just as they were to win. The exchange was that this exceptional human would allow himself to be used to defeat the common enemy.
God dreams much greater than we do. We cannot imagine perfection, yet He is. We can't imagine His holiness, yet He is holy. We cannot imagine limitless power sacrificing without an exchange, without the necessity to compromise. Yet my Master is limitless in power, and without compromise defeated the common enemy, which ironically, we had created. Call it death or call it sin, it amounts to the same thing. Death is separation from our Maker, and sin is missing His target. Either way we miss Him.
And yet I still rage against my impotence, my inability to control what I can see and experience. I am still in the Garden grasping the role reserved for my Master. I still want to persist the illusion that I am in control of something real and tangible, and is what makes me safe. I deny in so many ways the truth that the only thing I control is my choice of my Master. I deny that once I choose Him, then He gifts me the self-control others around me perceive in me. I deny so often that my purpose on this earth is so very different from what I think I want, what I think others around me want, or what I see.
So after the credits rolled, I glorified my King. I raised my head to heaven and acknowledged that I need a PERFECT Savior. I need Jesus. I need One willing yet PERFECT sacrifice to fix my wrong. I have an enemy which I created by choosing anything beside my Master. I picked the fruit, I ate, I desired the knowledge of good and evil, and I wanted that role and throne reserved for my King. I need the PERFECT sacrifice only able to come from the One against Whom I rebelled. I chose the sin, and yet He chose to provide the salvation. I chose to rebel against His authority and rule, and He chose to rescue me from my choice.
But my Master guides a large boat through waters filled with those drowning in their own choices. He wants to fill it with His creatures whom He has given the perfect sacrifice to own. I cry out not about myself, or even of the boat, but of the Master of the ship. It is His guidance of the boat that saves, a boat He created as well. He made the silly drowning people, and the means by which they might be saved. Now the swelling humanity within the ark of salvation must cry out to the drowning victims of self-righteousness and declare the salvation from the Ship Master.
And yet, not only do I continue to rebel, I continue my silence. I will have much to answer for when I appear before my Master in His final Kingdom. But I also have opportunity tomorrow to be a noisy klaxon of my Master. There's still hope; for me and for them.
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