A zealous Christian who was trying to convert a Hindu found himself getting nowhere. The thing is, argued the frustrated Christian, you have to be born again! But I have been born again! Insisted the Hindu. And again and again and again
As we await Pentecost we dream again of rebirth in our churches, our communities, our families and our personal lives.
One of my poems I am proud of as a fledgling poet is this simple Haiku:
Suckling at Mary's breast
Laughing, baptising mankind
Your last gasp echoes still
Humankind is transformed as God becomes one of us. The mystery of Jesus' continuing sacrifice echoes eternally. Theologians struggle with how this event moves through time and eternity.
In "Saved by One Man's Sacrifice" author Ron Rolheiser offers this explanation by Thomas Keating in response to the question: Have we ever really understood how we are saved by Jesus' death more than two centuries ago? By breaking the alabaster jar of very expensive perfume over the whole body of Jesus and filling the house with that gorgeous scent, Mary of Bethany seems to have sensed what Jesus was about to do on the cross. The authorities were set on killing him. What her lavish gesture symbolized was the deepest meaning of Jesus' passion and death.
The body of Christ is the jar containing the most precious perfume of all time, namely, the Holy Spirit. It was about to be broken open so that the Holy Spirit could be poured out over the whole of humanity - past, present, and to come - with boundless generosity. Until that body had been broken on the cross, the full extent of the gift of God in Christ and its transforming possibilities for the human race could not be known or remotely foreseen.
In addition, Ron adds, C.H. Dodd describes how Jesus' death established a point of complete non-resistance to the will of God, and complete transparency to his design: "we are laid open to the creative energy perpetually working to make man after the image of God. The obedience of Christ is the release of creative power for the perfecting of human life."
The Holy Spirit, according to poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, "fathers forth" with "bright wings" through all creation. Our very essence, energy, is stressed with and blessed with that Spirit.
Our obedience, our openness to God's will, effects a similar possibility for the moral good and transformation of ourselves, our families, our churches and the human race.
