A Great Meeting
I’M diverting from the path taken in the past few postings. Today’s consideration comes from a reading of Bent Knee Time* referencing Phil 2:1-11. What was said on this passage is as follows:
A GREAT MEETING
The extremist extremes meet in Jesus. He came from the highest down to the lowest; then returned to the highest. The Son of God became the Son of man; the purest of men was treated as the worst; the freest as the bondservant of all; the most loving subjected to the bitterest hatred. But he gladly yielded, for so the worst can become purest, the slave free, and sons of men become sons of God.
SO here you have the extreme of two, brought together for a new result, a new outcome.
THERE is much here to ponder in light of the Philippians 2 reference, but what caught my eye was the words “most loving subjected to the bitterest hatred” – particularly the word “bitter” in contrast to “loving.” It brought to mind the word bittersweet.
I DON’T know why, but I have a fascination with words, and bittersweet is an interesting term. The noun form is “pleasure alloyed (or mixed) with pain”. The dictionary says that it is something that is “at once bitter and sweet; pleasant but including or marked by elements of suffering or regret”.
I DON’T know that we can aptly describe this in words. We can know it in experience, in story, song, memories of times past, and of course in taste – like lovers of chocolate, especially those mysterious “bittersweets.” But thinking on this, it is an apt metaphor for our daily encounters and life experiences. I think we experience and appreciate life at it’s fullest when we don’t denying the truth of pain and joy, seeing how God joins together all things for good, both bitter and sweet to accomplish His end. As I never tire of telling the children at school, “gardens just don’t happen,” under the sweat of our brow beautiful things can be made to grow. Only when we understand this are we able to really enjoy the workings of our God both now and forever. Truly Jesus did yield himself gladly to the bitter suffering of the cross so that he might taste the sweet salvation of his own, “for so the worst can become purest, the slave free, and sons of men become sons of God.”
MANY people suffer from deep-rooted bitterness in their lives (Heb. 12:15). The problem may be, they never really tasted the sweet goodness of God (Psa. 34:8), and know not the bittersweet enjoyment of God’s “mercy and grace” and its deep work of sins exposed and forgiven, the two sides of that perfect love of our heavenly Father embraced in its fullest.
MAY it not be so we us, our own, and those we enjoin in our daily circumstances and bittersweet encounters.
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Phil. 12-13
* Bent-Knee Time, by S.D. Gordon
In the wondrous blessings of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa 30:15 & Job 2:10
