Now listen to this most ancient myth of secret knowledge. For this is a story of salvation and redemption and asks the most important question of God and His righteous judgment. Listen now as this is your story too.
We know of Satan the rebellious son. It was his council that tempted mankind to lose paradise. A new kingdom was erected to this worldly lord. New truths were whispered and the seductive veil of oblivion was lowered over our eyes. Each in turn to be enslaved – masters above all others.
Of these new truths we were told that heaven was for another time and in another place. We started to believe these new truths and forgot who we were. This artifice we constructed with our own hands and this became our purpose and our place. Human suffering – indeed the suffering of every living creature – was its very end, but we believed – we refused to call it Hell.
Now know you that the morning star, called the Son of Man, was the first who came back to God’s garden and it is He that would lead us back. He is the good shepherd. To seek the lost, He must tarry until the end. To hold the gate ajar, we need His strength. Alpha-Omega: the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
Is this the end times? That day that Satan appeared before God on one knee and begged for his Father’s mercy with bowed head. This too was our morning star.
Satan uttered his first word before God, “…Father…” he implored.
This too was God’s son…God’s child…. Begotten by the creator of all…well must God bear some responsibility or is it ultimately all responsibility?
So in the end, what is justice? Is this to be a merciful God or the god of angry retribution? He made us in His image, yet we continue to create him – a fanciful him – in our own sinful image. Are we all sinners? Does each and every one of us require His grace and forgiveness? Can we forgive ourselves and how many lifetimes does that take…how much forgetting…how much bad feelings…how many deaths and rebirths?
Much of our pride comes from seizing upon this thing called God’s grace. Call it righteousness. Only we, the elect, are the chosen people. Only we, the elect, are destined for redemption and salvation. Our pride – is it another whispering from the father of lies? Does this damnation to the eternal fires of Hell come from Christ and His love or is the image of His return to the flock carrying the lost lamb the true image of the savior. Is He the savior of just the elect or the savior of all of humanity?
These are the central questions of God the Father. Is He Father to us all and if so doesn’t that mean we are, each of us, given a Father’s love, the mercy of this greatest of love, and ultimately the Holy mirror of self-forgiveness – true and absolute salvation?
Could Christ be in paradise if there were one of us left out? Is that paradise? Do you understand what it means that the first will be last?
This post originally appeared on the Reveille website on November 9, 2016 and has been somewhat modified for publication today.