The Atonement has long baffled me; I don't understand how Christ's suffering saves people. But I have always been able to see his suffering as a sign of God's presence with us when we suffer, which is to say, a sign of God's love. Nothing is lacking in that love, for God has gone the whole way with us. When we weep, when everything is lost or seems lost, our God doesn't send us a greeting card to say he's thinking of us. God is right here with us, in the ditch, weeping alongside us. God knows exactly what we are feeling, having felt it himself.
From May 6, 2009 © Forward Movement (From Forward Movement Day by Day, a daily devotional published by the Episcopal Church
I have always disliked the way certain evangelists make us so separate from God--we're sinners, we're imperfect, we're down here and He's "up there".... And I equally dislike the way many people in the New Age Movement focus on the divinity of humans to the exclusion/ignoring of the human, imperfect side.
I liked this particular piece because it speaks of God made human, that Jesus's experience as a human being helps God relate to us, as opposed to God being an impersonal, infinite force or presence of some sort. I love Jesus, and the good news is that he was the enlightened example of someone who fully integrated humanness and divinity. The rest of us don't quite get it yet. But God didn't just get a taste of suffering or learn to love us through the incarnation of Jesus--God gets a taste of ALL human experience through the incarnations of each one of us, and all cat experience through the incarnations of each cat on the planet, and all tree experience through the lives of each tree.... For God is truly everywhere.
So I asked the angels, "Does God Suffer?" Here is their reply:
God as the infinite spirit, pure divine presence as known to you as "God the Father"--although some also call God, "God the Mother"--does not suffer. In this form, God is pure consciousness and pure potentiality. This is the ultimate divine perfection. Experience demands the experiencer. God in this guise lacks form so God is not an experiencer or anything else. God just IS.
As God takes form, each of the individual experiences that beings have, is being experienced by God. For God is within each being, and each being is a part of the allness that is God. This is not a pantheism that identifies each being with God, but an inclusiveness that sees the presence of water within the ocean, and the ocean being within each molecule of that ocean....
So it is that in form, God can feel the joy that is your experience, and also feel the dejection or depression that is your experience. God is not "above" your human experience, for in that moment, God is involved in your experience.
What is important is to value each of your experiences as something that contributes toward God's understanding of you. The goal is to experience God's experience of your experience, and thereby feel more connected with God. To feel God in every breath, in every sigh, in every step. To feel ever embraced and loved and understood by God, because God is right there experiencing everything that you are, with you and as you, because you are a part of creation--you are a part of God-as-form.
If this is too much for you to contemplate intellectually, then move into your heart. Place your hand on your heart and say "God's love is beating my heart. God's love is breathing my lungs. All is holy, for everywhere God is, is holy."
As you increase your conscious awareness of the presence of God, you will partake in God's view of your experience as an experience, rather than as a judgment about your experience.
***
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