God wants us back — from waaayyyy back in time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/051620.cfm
Acts 16:1-10
John 15:18-21

We do not belong to the world. The world does not own us. Not anymore, that is. When we are chosen by Jesus we are “chosen out of this world.” We’re born into the world and then taken out of it by the one who participated in our creation through our parents.

Now there’s a mind-bending analysis of our existential place in creation.

If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own;
but because you do not belong to the world,
and I have chosen you out of the world,
the world hates you.
(John 15:18-21)

This is not to say that the world doesn’t want to love us. It’s just that the world doesn’t own us at all, even though we were born into it. Consequently, we’re in a constant state of conflict.

For Christians, then, did the world once own us, and then not own us when Jesus took us under his wing? This seems like an important distinction, because ownership matters. We do know that we were born into this world. Our parents collaborated within creation and physically brought us into existence, here. At what point does Jesus claim us to himself?

Chapter 15 of John starts out with the iconic metaphor of Jesus as the vine and us as the branches. Unless we are connected to the vine we will bear no fruit. We will not have life in us. Vine and branch look to us like the same thing, but John explains that the vine is the source of all that branches from it. This metaphor clearly distinguishes us from God, in two persons. God the Father is the gardener, and Jesus the Son, is the vine. We are the branches, and are only fruitful if we are attached to the Son.

If we could place our existence properly into the cosmos and our own time and space then we’d feel a whole lot better about things. 

There’s good news and bad news. 

Our attachment to the Son comes from being chosen, as the Gospel of John tells us. Jesus chooses us. All of us are called to come to Jesus. In Jesus, we will see the Father. That’s the good news. Jesus loves us and draws us to him. The bad news is that we have to consider our birthplace as temporary in order to enter into the good news with Jesus. Our attachment to Jesus takes place when we recognize that Jesus wants us “back.”

In the letter to the Ephesians 1:4, Paul, explains exactly when we were first chosen. “… he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him." 

Before the existence of creation, God had already chosen us. That’s sooner than most of us have considered.

The position of the Father and the Son tells us what has taken place. Before creation itself, God “knew” us. He designed us, as it were, to be “holy and without blemish.” Upon the creation’s foundation, this presentation of us back to God changed due to the inevitability of sin. I say inevitable to mean that God knew what he was getting when he breathed the heavens and earth into existence. He did not wish it, but even though we could sin, he loved us into existence. Sin, then death, and then we invoke the mighty disconnect from the “holy and without blemish” idea.

I don’t think scripture anywhere tells us that God had to come up with a solution to sin after creation fell, as if God was unaware of our capability for breaking his heart. God’s plan all along was to be with us “in” creation. He was there in the Paradise with the creation. We are told of Adam and Eve hearing God walking in the Garden. This was his plan. That plan will still take place. 

His incarnation, then, is one of the biggest challenges of all the greatest thinkers. Many, throughout history, have simply tossed that thinking out of the window. Anyone, though, would agree that the creation of perfectly good heavens and a holy wholesome earth is not now, nor has it been in anyone’s memory, “holy and without blemish before him.”

We are not God. 

“Remember the word I spoke to you,
‘No slave is greater than his master.'"

When we do attach ourselves to God, by allowing Jesus to own us “back,” the holiness and unblemished divinity of God conflicts with the sin and death pattern of the world.

“If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”

We are left, then, with a tragedy of a world which moves on its own steam. Even if we proclaim to the world that Jesus has conquered death, and that the Kingdom is within our grasp — right here and now — we will not convince everyone. We will, in truth, anger those who believe the design of creation is for us to live and die, to compete and conquer, and to rule or be ruled. 

“If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
And they will do all these things to you on account of my name,
because they do not know the one who sent me.”

We do know that God who loves us, even though in just the margins, out of the corner of our eye. God chooses us in our unholiness and with all our blemishes, because he chose us before the foundation of the world. Before the world fell into the inevitability of sin, God said he wanted us to be his. Inevitable in the sense of God knowing how free will would work out. We did have a small window of innocence, but the Satan, the snake, took advantage of our desire to see ourselves as good, the pride of the mirror. The purity of holiness was crushed, and all creation, reverberating into the cosmos, and some say even into the past, was digitized, fractured, a mere semblance of its divine design.

Acceding to Satan, giving credence to his claim upon us, the mantle of dominion was handed over to evil. The prince of God ceded his crown to the devil of death. But Jesus conquered death, which still flails in the throes of its assured ruin. A new, solid, divine, holy and without blemish heavens and earth are being created. I say being, because that time is not yet, but as Jesus said, "the Kingdom is at hand."

It’s still mind-bending, but we can be comforted in God’s love. He will not abandon us. Plus, if we keep our branches tied to the vine there will be fruit. We will inspire, awaken, and even bring others to Jesus.