Radical Transformation ...

If you knew the end from the beginning, you wouldn’t choose it any other way.  This assertion will be verified in heaven (look me up, if it turns out I was wrong 😊).  But because we don’t know: it feels much more like a rollercoaster doing 90mph and its just certain there is some track missing up ahead.  Roller coasters at high speed are dangerous enough when guided by the flimsy track we all realize was built by a team earning minimum wage dying to get home for the weekend.  But if track is actually missing, if the ride itself is frankly incomplete: then the ride is not only dangerous, it is certain death.  And nobody here is looking for that outcome.  After all we signed up for this, we bought tickets, we chose to be here, wait in line, do whatever it takes to ride.  If you told me however, that the “surprise” of this ride, was missing track, I would tell you – thanks, but no thanks.  That kind of “radical” is just way out of my league.  And yet here I sit waiting in line, really close to my turn to ride.

The basic problem with transformation of any kind, is that the future me, is just not going to look anything like the current me.  No, I am not talking about physical body alteration of any kind.  I am talking generally about what it means to have character or personality “one” today – and through a series of events I cannot predict, anticipate, or sometimes even understand – finding myself down the road with personality “two” instead of who I am today.  The promise of God, is that what He will remake me into, will be something I would love to be.  But what is that?  He offers no road map.  He does not set any time limits on all this.  It could take minutes, or it could take decades.  Perhaps the timing is something I directly influence.  He does not even tell me what “I” will look like in that future model.  I have no idea what features, strengths, or weaknesses I will have.  It may even be possible weaknesses will have left my vocabulary.  God tells me He will put His love inside of me.  Just like He does for literally everyone else.  So while some of the outcomes are known, the parts that make me unique from everybody else are not known.  Will I still be able to play the violin (goes the old joke)?

And more to the point, will the parts of me I lose in this process, be parts of me I will miss in the future?  That is kind of the most burning question that crosses my mind when I ponder transformation of any kind, let alone radical transformation.  I am kind of fond of some of who I am today.  Even if those parts are perhaps not the best things for me, or anybody else really.  Then comes the scariest part of all.  When you read scriptures about radical transformation, it tends to use language like “having to die” to achieve it.  I foresee the missing track right there on this roller coaster.  “Death” words are never very comforting for any mortal.  Even if they only refer to my personality or character, they are still very frightening.  And for a marketing campaign, this is probably the worst one I have ever heard.  Who cares if it is truth in advertising, it is not a truth most of us want to hear.  You start telling me that the end of the rainbow lies behind the death-door number one, and I start wondering if there is a door number two, or three to choose from.  That’s just human nature.  And it is human nature God intends to redefine in me, even if some sort of death is required to do it.

So my first response is … you first.  Ego crazed, selfish creature that I am, choosing to be blind to the infinite glory God is offering – and in this state, I demand He does it first – to prove that it works.  You would think a Santa Clause version of God who doles out rewards and punishments (emphasis on punishments) would just strike me down in my arrogance.  But our God is NOT any version of Santa Clause.  He is a saving God.  And instead of debating with me, He leads me to scriptures to show me where He ALREADY has gone first.  Talk about missing tracks on the Roller Coaster.  Matthew chronicles how real radical transformation begins, not just ours, but our God’s.  He writes of experiences the author of Life should have never known.  But to save us our God did way more than He would ever ask of any of us, in order to see what future me could see.

Matthew picks up in chapter 27 in verse 45 saying … “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. [verse 46] And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  There will be pain in our transformation.  Pain brought on by sin, and its consequences, and the choices others continue to make while bound to sin like the strongest cocaine addiction the world has ever known.  How do I know radical transformation is not a recipe for a pain-free-life – look what sin did to God.  Jesus sits atop a Roman cross, and for three hours He writhes in agony, nearly deprived of all His blood.  The Creator is to experience death first.  The Author of life is to experience its ultimate opposite, in order to save us.  And for those three hours, nature refuses to look upon what is happening.  An eery darkness covers the land.  This is no normal thunderstorm, no normal cloudy day.  This is a thick blackness like the plague that once covered Egypt.

The Romans assigned to this detatchment must light torches to see; when usually the sun is high in the sky.  No stars can be seen.  No moon.  No Sun.  No reflections of light anywhere but from the torches the soldiers must light in order to see.  And humanity is now terrified.  Radical Transformation is anything but predictable.  How could anyone have prepared for this?  But what Jesus says reveals a pain infinitely greater than the pain His body suffers from.  He has never known a millisecond without absolute unity with His Father.  It is the light of the Father, that has sustained Jesus throughout this ministerial tour through torture-ville.  It is that harmony, that unity, that keeps Him submitting to God, deferring His own will, in order to show us what we need to do.  Jesus is to be our living example.  But now, near the moments of His death, He can feel no Father God.  He is now truly alone.  He is now experiencing what separation from the Father feels like.  And folks – that is the very definition of HELL.  Hell is NOT about the flames.  Hell is not even about the eternal consequences.  Hell is the infinite torture of being separated from the source of all life and love even if only for a moment.  To endure that separation, is to endure HELL, and Jesus has been dealing with it for a while now.

I am sure in His darkness, Jesus must be asking Himself, what good can come from this?  Is it possible that having carried the weight of the sins of this world upon Him, He will forever be stained with it?  If so, might He ever have to endure separation from His Father?  Jesus is walking through the doors of Hell, with zero exit strategy.  Even after He is resurrected, He might still be stained, and forever driven from the presence of His Father.  Our sin could easily be that great.  Mine alone perhaps that great.  Talk about death wording.  Jesus is going to die.  But perhaps Jesus will endure a fate worse than death.  And from this side of the cross, He cannot see past it.  The risk is real.  The risk is overwhelming.  And so He cries out in agony, to mark this extreme pain.

Matthew continues in verse 47 saying … “Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. [verse 48] And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. [verse 49] The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.”  The priests have fled the darkness back to Jerusalem.  Only the soldiers, the curious, and the faithful remain here.  Those listening misunderstand Him, how typical.  They prepare a pain dulling sponge for Him, to see if Elijah will come to save Him.  Another sign that could not happen, perhaps no matter how bad Elijah wanted it to.  For Elijah, Moses, Enoch, and any other human translated into heaven, must now sit in silence witnessing the price of God’s love for us.  There was no adequate road map for any of this.  When Father and Son, plan all of this out in heaven 4000+ years ago, it is different knowing it will come, than being now in the middle of it, unable to see past the fog of our sins, to know if redemption is even still possible.

We complain about what might be required of us during a radical transformation.  But we have endured nothing next to our God, who did go first.  We may even lose the life we have in this world of sin, but like the theif on the cross, we will surely see our loving God in the next one when it comes.  What Jesus did was risk both lives.  The human one on the cross.  The divine one from being stained with our great sins.  It might have been planned.  But it was here, and unexpected.  All radical transformations are unexpected.  If we knew about them.  We would defer them.  They happen to us, in spite of us.  And Jesus will die with those in attendance still not understanding what He was doing for them.  Those onlookers meant no sympathy with the vinegar to dull the pain.  They meant to extend His life by dulling the pain long enough to see if Elijah would descend out of the darkness all around them.  Radical Transformation often happens to us alone.  When comfort does not come from those around us.  It is just between us and our God.  Here Jesus must endure it, even without the comfort of His Father God.

Matthew continues in verse 50 saying … “Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. [verse 51] And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;”  The agony is too great.  The separation too intense.  Jesus cries out in a blood-chilling cry of a heart physically rending in His own chest.  And He dies.  No escape.  No alternative pathway for our salvation.  He does what must be done.  His death not only before our own, but in place of our own.  Our transformation will now be possible because Jesus did what He must do to save us.  Even if He does not know it yet.  His sleep begins.  He knows nothing for now. 

But radical transformation is not just meant for people.  It can and just did happen to a belief system.  The most holy place was where the mercy seat sat atop the Ark of the Covenant.  This most holy chamber was hidden in the Temple at Jerusalem behind a 20ft curtain insolated with three different kinds of heavy materials & colors sown together, and embroidered with gold angels throughout.  The curtain weighed several hundred pounds and took many men to hang it.  It was not intended to be moved offering only a slight possible opening at the center base where a man could pass from one chamber to the other once a year.  To look upon the most holy artifacts, was to see the presence of God, and be struck dead from the intensity of our sin, and purity of His love by contrast.  No Jew ever dared to do it.  They knew the consequences.  They tied bells on the hem of the High Priest, and a rope around his ankles, when he entered this sanctum only once per year, in case the bells went silent and he died, they pulled him out by that rope, never daring to look in. 

And now on the day of atonement, with hundreds of worshippers packing the Temple site, and the high priest making ready to go in – the curtain is torn by an unseen angelic hand from top to bottom.  It falls away revealing not only a small passageway, but the entire Most Holy place sanctum, Ark of the Covenant and all.  The mercy seat is empty; the One who normally occupies it just gave up His Ghost over on Calvary at that moment.  The entire crowd stares in to the most Holy place in terror and amazement.  They are all still alive.  And their faith has just undergone a radical transformation.  No longer will Jerusalem be its center.  No longer will any Temple building be where God is found.  He will be found with each of us who seek Him, where we happen to be.  And the cornerstone of the faith, Jesus Christ, who was cast aside by the priests charged with building the base of believers, will become the very foundation of the new faith that emerges from the Old faith that has met its fulfillment at the cross, on the Day of Atonement.  It is also the year of Jubiliee, all the slaves are to be set free.  A symbolic representation of what Jesus will do for us if redemption worked.  The timing of everything is perfect.

But this is not just a silent event.  At the death of her Maker, the earth trembles as you would expect it to, when the Creator God is put to death.  The earthquake is felt here and hundreds of miles away.  It tears rocks into pebbles.  It rips great holes in the earth, though preserving Jerusalem, and the cross site where He has laid down His life.  But there is purpose in this quake.  It tears deep into the earth, to reveal graves that have been covered over by ages of shifting sands and sediments.  Matthew continues in verse 52 saying … “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, [verse 53] And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.”  The graves of many sleeping saints were exposed by the quake.  When Jesus would come forth, they would arise as well, a first fruits offering for what was to come.  In addition to the sightings of Jesus after His own resurrection, would be sightings and encounters of saints long asleep in the earth, who would come forth and testify in full body form about their risen Lord.

Radical Transformation, that follows death.  Radical Transformation none can deny, and none would oppose.  Those sleeping saints were not disembodied spirits wandering the halls of a heaven forced to see their loved ones continue on in their absence in a world of sin.  They were instead asleep as scriptures describe, knowing nothing, not the passage of time, not the decay of their bodies, nor the conditions that occurred after their sleep began.  Until now.  They arose in full body form, not as spirits.  They emerged from death, as we all will also emerge from death.  Radically transformed into new creations, even if that process began before our sleep did.  Future them, is radically better than past versions of them.  Their characters are not burdened with the addiction to sin, but are completely free of it.  They are made pure by our Savior, and are now able to ascend with Him when He ascends into heaven.  But whether their influence was witnessed for three days, or for forty days, it was undeniable, profound, and radically different than what ANYBODY expected, including them.

The reaction to all of this by those who least believed, and were most responsible for the cruelty of all of this was the admission believers seem so reluctant to admit.  Matthew continues in verse 54 saying … “Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.”  You will note these pagan men made no reference to pagan deities.  They proclaimed Jesus as the Son of God, the Jewish version of who the Messiah would be.  This statement affirms the Jewish version of who God is, and does nothing to support any kind of previous pagan belief.  And it comes from the most cruel, military men, who are bound by orders to witness all of it.  But then, Radical Transformation was meant to occur in the Roman soul, as easily as it occurs in the Hebrew one.  It does not matter who you are now, who you can be is so infinitely better.  You do not need to worry.  Even if death comes, so what.  Death comes to us all.  But real change to so few.  Real change, from real love, makes real life so much better.  Future you will never dispute this.  But to encounter future you, you must be willing to let current you, go.  It might sound radical, but some missing track is just what this ride was supposed to have.