In my message this morning I said that Jesus provided us access to God – access into the very “heart of the universe.”
I have had a couple of different people ask me about what I meant by this and that probably means that I did not explain it very well. So let me attempt to clarify.
I believe I read that expression first from C.S. Lewis (but maybe it was Tim Keller). Regardless I used it to refer back to what happens in verse 7 of Mark 9 where a voice comes from the cloud (the Shekinah glory of God) saying, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.”
The heart of the universe is this love the Father has for the Son and the Son has for the Father – this inter-Trinitarian love that is the motive for all that’s done in God’s universe. The Son does what He does out of love for the Father. The Father does what He does out of love for the Son. The Spirit does what He does out of love for the Father and the Son. Everything finds its purpose and motive there. We were created to be a part of this relational love dance.
The problem is that there is a huge gap between humanity and deity – a huge gap between perfect holiness and sinful rebellion. We have no chance to be a part of what we were made to long for BUT God made a way through His Son. Jesus lost His sonship that is displayed on the mountain as He went to the cross (Mark 15:34). He lost being enveloped by the Father’s love that He experienced afresh on the mountain in Mark 9 and instead hung naked on the cross, alone and rejected in Mark 15. He lost so we could gain access – so that we could be adopted as sons – so we could have the sonship of the mountain – so we could be brought into this eternal love of affair that is the heart of the universe.
Because of the substitutionary death of Christ on our behalf, by sheer grace, we get to experience the eternal love of the Father. Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is answered. “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them. (emphasis mine)”
You were made for the heart of the universe! Everything is purposed by it and Jesus gives us access – because of Him and what He has done we are brought into the dance – into the heart of the universe.
Live the journey of the cross in light of that reality!