Sunday, Dec 2, 2012
Garza County News

Photo by Jim Plummer

Pastor Scott Richards, First United Methodist Church, Post

Spiritual DNA

Published Sept. 20, 2011 @ noon

I had an interesting conversation with another member of our community this morning. My friend is a scientist by nature, loves math and physics, and often leaves me in the dust in his discussion of scientific phenomena.  But all of our discussions center on spiritual truths. We simply come at those truths from two very different directions. 

In this morning’s discussion we began with my friend saying that since Jesus said, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end” then logically Jesus would be able to come many times. While I see the logic my own knee jerk reaction was to say, “No! Jesus only came once and will come again but then completely victorious.” I was of course thinking of those who claim that there are many ways to God and many christs. And there certainly is a sense in which Jesus death and resurrection was once and for all, without any need of being repeated or added to. But then I stopped and I thought about it a minute.

Those of us who have received Jesus Christ are not the same people that we were prior to Jesus Christ. At least spiritually speaking, our DNA has changed. We are, together, One in the Body of Christ, members of one another. There is a very real way in which we can speak of Jesus coming in many forms and many times for Jesus comes into the world through each one who has received Christ’s resurrection. Those of us who claim to have received Jesus become Jesus to the others around us in a sense. I will never redeem the world in my own power but God is redeeming a little bit of the world as Jesus lives through me.

If you are not yet lost then listen to the conversation a little longer. My friend spoke of quantum physics and entanglement theory. As I understand it (which is an extremely simplified understanding) the basic premise is that all particles (matter and energy) in the universe affect and are affected by all the other particles in the universe. I actually have something of a concept of how that works though only in a very limited nature. Still, I have to admit I am quite intrigued and understand how that works with Christian belief.

There is a way to look at Christians as God’s interjection into the entanglement of the universe. In the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ God has created a people of resurrection (energy) through whom God’s Holy Spirit flows and interacts not just with other Christians (who are joined as one in the Body of Christ) but throughout all of creation for the purpose of redeeming all of Creation to God.

This entanglement of Christians into the universe is not something we have to strive for or work at. It is simply part of the spiritual DNA of a person who has come into contact with and lives in the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. Because we are changed/resurrected/made a new creation in Jesus, we are a redeeming influence. This is not something we do. It is rather, what we have become. In fact, looking at in this way we cannot change the world in any other way, really, than by simply being those who have been crucified with Christ and been made the new creation in Christ’s life in the world.

I guess that the end result of the conversation is that when you and I allow ourselves to be filled with and controlled by God’s Holy Spirit God is changing the world through us.

 
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