Behold I Make All Things New!

April 5, 2011

As a minister and counselor I have had the privilege of leading many people through the process of forgiveness as a part of the counseling and healing encounter. I always take time to help them understand what forgiveness really is. I explain to them that the term really comes from the forensic field of law. It is a judicial term and not a feeling. It is an act of the will and the adjudication of a debt, as well as a transfer of a crime to a higher court. I explain that we are transferring the debt (whether real or imagined) from our court to God's court. In doing so, we are not allowing that person to get away with it, for only God can forgive sins. We are transferring the debt from our court to His court, wherein God can judge with a perfect scale of justice. I also explain that where there is a crime, a debt, there is also a wound and apart from the legal issues involved, those wounds must be healed. So, being forearmed with this understanding they courageously step forward to "forgive" the debt and release the perpetrator into God's hands. The next time i see them they are bursting with surprise at how much the person he/she has forgiven has changed. Perhaps it is a wayward husband, a neglectful partner, an abusive mother or vengeful co-worker which has been changed. I have rarely met a person who reported that "nothing" happened as a result of this work. What strikes me about this, and  why I am telling this story is how genuinely shocked they are, incredulous at the deep change the other person undergoes as a result of this hidden and unseen act. In reality both people have changed and a whole new dynamic emerges, which to say, there are two new people born that day. 

All of this to say that I am having the same experience of Hans, of myself and of us. This day that held no new surprises for me at the beginning, only the expectation of the same old tired bones at the end of the day, has yielded a much greater harvest than ever ever expected. 

It began with a look in his eye that was rather frightening. Frightening because I had never seen this look before. I didn't know if he was delusional from the disease or demented from age. With his eyes widening for emphasis, he would  speak —the way you would in bluffing a child. He would wait patiently for the pupils of my eyes to reach a certain width of confusion and then his entire face would collapse into mirth, as if he had played the greatest of jokes on an unsuspecting friend.  And so he was with everyone who came and went but he seemed to have the most delight at my expense. 

In this final hour of his life, what was there unfolding? What was I observing? Why would I be the special target of his escapades? Because I could dish it back? Had the entire household reached mass hysteria? Were we so tired that we were punch drunk? Including the patient?

Mostly the patient. As I watched him see-saw from true weariness to a simile of divine madness, I realized that what I was seeing was a man completely comfortable in his own skin. And in that moment I began to have a new relationship with him. It was as if a giant piece of pottery had cracked open and a life giving spirit had stepped out.  I was as shocked as my clients who tell me that "something miraculous" had happened to their "mother, sister, brother, or boss and that life was completely and suddenly new. 

But why was his delight so particularly profound with me? Because I have been his greatest enemy. I have been the greatest enemy of his flesh. Woman, ezer, man's corresponding opposite. I have been his greatest helper and his greatest challenge. And today, all of his wit and charm and intellectual powers were aimed at me and with complete perfection of humility,  charity and maleness—he won me over once again and he knew it.  And for a moment, in God's infinite kindness, I saw the perfected Hans... the completed man, having reached the end for which he was created—one of the sons of God.

 "And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.  And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.  And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.  He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son."   Revelation 21:2-7.