Paschal Spirituality - A Good World
A third characteristic of Paschal spirituality, named by Brennan Manning in this book, is that it sees human nature as fallen but redeemed; flawed, but in essence good. And his idea is that we need to see the world as a good gift which is flawed by sin, not as an evil thing at its core.
The Divine Joy of Creation
Manning quotes Robert Capon's imaginative view of creation: "God was absolutely wild about being. He kept thinking up new ways of being and new kinds of being. One afternoon God the Son came to Him and said 'This is great stuff. Why don't I go out and mix up a batch?' And God the Holy Spirit said 'Great, I'll help you.'"
So they got together that night after supper and put on a tremendous show of being for the Father. It was full of water and light and frogs. Speckled fish swimming in wine glasses. There were mushrooms, grapes, horseradishes, tigers, men and women everywhere to taste them, join with them and love them. God the Father looked at the whole wild party and said, "Wonderful, just what I had in mind! Yeah!”
Celebrating God's Creative Work
And all God the Son and Holy Spirit could think of was to say, "Yeah, yeah!" They laughed for ages, saying things like how great it was for being to be, how clever of the Father to conceive the idea, how kind of the Son to go to all the trouble to put it together, and how gracious of the Spirit to devote so much time to choreography. They told jokes to one another, and the Father and Son drank their wine in the unity of the Spirit and threw ripe olives and pickled mushrooms at each other forever and ever.”
Now maybe you're thinking that's ridiculous, but the Bible says God looks at creation and said it was good. I don't imagine God just standing there and stoically saying “this is good”. I imagine the Trinity having such a celebration as the world came into being, because it was a good, amazing creation.
Redeeming Creation's Goodness
This is a good world that has gone bad because of sin, but at its core, it's a good creation by the good, good Father. As Manning says later in the chapter, "Imagine the ecstasy, the cry of joy when God makes a person in His own image. When God made you, the Father gives you as a gift to Himself. You are a response to the vast delight of God."
And so can you look around you and see a good world today that is flawed by sin? Jesus came and died on the cross, not just so that we could feel better about ourselves, but so that we could recapture the goodness that God made at creation, so that sin would no longer have a hold over us, and we could enjoy the goodness of God's created order again.
And so, friends, come to Christ today because He redeems our relationship with God, with each other, and with creation. Then look at the sky and the birds and the trees and the world around us and think as God does, it is good.
