the volume of fathers of living, realizing we should always realize that this is actually caring and caring. Because if we really knew you as father, we would have the peace and confidence, this characteristic of Jesus, your son. Nonetheless, not only did Paulius bother to know you, but yet, it's Victor's son, . I recall that he said one time in class that the significant and novel revelation of the New Testament was the Fatherhood of God.

[01:05]

Now, I remember this because at the time, I thought to myself, what could not be? That's when I did not bear challenges. My dear professor, everyone had the right thoughts. I thought, well, that is so common. Everybody knows Rod's blood. What could that be, that you're radically new to Revelation, even in the Old Testament, David was called God's son. Why I've come to believe and to understand, I think, that break the truth of what he said. The trouble is that we don't, either we don't understand and appreciate majesty of God, sovereignty of God, a Calvinist contribution to Christianity. Therefore, we call easily God Father because it's not the true God that some familiar idol commit to the prayer.

[02:22]

It's greatly part of the revelation of God. but no means all there is to God. Or, we don't really know what Father does be, how much joyous there is in Father, how much creativity, how much fulfillment comes from the ultimate meaning of Father. God as father is God as person. God in his final mystery, in his final ability to survive. It's interesting to know that those first fundamental commandments of God, are concerned precisely with God as person.

[03:29]

You shall have no other gods before me. I delivered you from Egypt. What are you doing with the other gods around? I have earned your loyalty and your gratitude. It means you have forgotten who delivered you from Egypt. It means that you have forgotten that you ever were in Egypt. You shall not forget that. Therefore, the good of the other God, they did not know you were an Egypt as I did. Father, the good of God who looked upon you in your slavery and your nothingness and made you something, made you a free person. Then, you shall have no connections. No idols. No braven images.

[04:30]

And the companion commanded that, we shall not take my name in vain. These two commandments are prohibitions of magic. They have nothing to do with the Holy Name and Desire. The Holy Name and Desire is a wonderful organization. Or are too. Taking God's name in vain is not cursate, really. That may be one manifestation of down the line, but that's a very secondary kind of thing. So taking God's name in vain means using God's name in a magical incantation. And the reason why that is commitment is because that is the ultimate insult to God as person. That does to God what we treat to other people when he manipulates them.

[05:31]

But probably everybody at one time or another has been manipulated. But what doesn't come to you after you are like, I'd like to have this. Trust in you as a person to understand the cause and dialogue. Tell me that pull strings here and push buttons there They don't trust you as a person. But I said, you shall not limit me. You shall not distrust me to the extent that you start pulling strings, using me like a swap machine. You shall not treat me impersonally. Now, There is a rigid parallelism between how we treat persons and human beings with persons in God.

[06:35]

Is it possible to treat God with respect in this big sense, to treat God as a person, to treat him with reverence, respect, awe, and to is respect human beings to a person. That's what said John. You cannot not man whom you see. How can you say that you do not God whom you do not see? Now, we really feel the same way about God we feel about human beings, yet they're personable. We don't respect human beings and are not ready to be surprised by them. and ready to affirm their mystery, then we cannot say that we honor God. So the fatherhood of God is the powerful sovereignty of God understood that being for my benefit.

[07:49]

God giving himself to me. God making himself a father. Now, I would like to pull some of these things together in the presence of Jesus. Jesus did the ultimate word of God. He is God's definitive revelation. There is no other word than Jesus, which is an adequate revelation of God. Every other word, whether scriptural or theological or creedal, is an approximation. It's an attempt to say what God is, what God intends for us. Only Jesus is the perfect word, a completely adequate word. So all our theological efforts

[08:53]

I'm really directed toward trying to say the Jesus word more perfectly in more human expression. Jesus participated in our bondage. This is, I think, the real meaning of the incarnation. He entered our universal teaching, our human condition. The incarnation is not just the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. It is not just his becoming man. You want to press that. You can say it all was over on March 25th. It won't be exceptional. No. He became man from the moment of conception until his death.

[09:59]

His incarnation is his full life. He was becoming man. He was becoming incarnate. He was taking on our human condition, our God. And if you notice in the Gospel, Jesus goes through Palestine. He adopts It takes upon himself. It makes part of his own life. All these classic examples of human body to weakness. How do you do that? By identifying with them. Here's an outcast. He makes himself an outcast with him. A left Jesus. He goes with him. Jesus identified with all these different types. These are all ways in which he takes on our human condition.

[11:01]

He identified with everything that is characteristic of us, same, personal, illiterate sin. That means he takes on the classic sin, too. Jesus was capable of fear. Jesus was capable of anxiety. with expression of the gospel, why hast thou forsaken me? I cannot believe that that is a bloody act. That's the way men feel before death. Jesus wanted to be particularly a man. He took on our bondage. He was bound with the same bonds that bind us. He too feared death. He was liberated. He began to be liberated already in this period of incarnation by God's loving care.

[12:04]

Liberated from God as He came to know God as God. And His discovery of God as Father is summed up in those statements in baptism for death. You are my beloved son. I don't think that was just an episode. March 25th, heard God saying today to my beloved son. March 26th, I think these are summary statements of something that happened in the languages. I discovered Bradley through March and April and May and June. God as Father, I and his Son. Now there may have been a moment in which this was actually spoken. I'm not going to cripple about what that thunder was like, what was in that thunder.

[13:07]

But it wasn't an episode isolated. No, it was God revealing himself as Father, Jesus being freed by that discovery, Jesus as man being free to take on his mission. The ultimate freedom comes in resurrection. But at every step, Jesus is free as Israel was by God's loving will serve. What is the covenant into which Jesus has entered as a result of this liberation? in that final desert, that final future, in God's country? How could we possibly know? All we know about it is that it is a unity which is not possible enough. Father, that they may be one as you and I are one.

[14:11]

Someday. A unity which is ineffable, yet which strangely enough establishes the uniqueness of those who are part of the universe. So Jesus becomes more distinct from the Father the more he is one with him. So this oneness is built upon the love of the Father which is I am happy that you are a father Father is then finally happy that you are Son. So the Father becomes ever more Father, with Son, ever more Son. And as they become more distinct in a certain way, they become more one. Which by the way, of course, is the ultimate harmony of all Christian unity. Real Christian unity does not make people blend.

[15:13]

It makes people more distinct. All the true unique characteristics come forth. because unity is based upon a love which affirms and cherishes that distinction. I love you, I want you to be yourself, not like me. So as our love bring us closer together, we all become more unique. This ultimately is the covenant relationship Jesus and Father in the final liberation. Now, in the life of Jesus, I have to say something about this process by which he comes to final liberation. The synoptic Gospels are centered in three critical moments.

[16:16]

And each of these is very similar. The first is the Baptist, beginning of the public ministry. The final is the crucifixion, the death, and the resurrection. The second Baptist, the final Baptist, I have another baptism for which I yearn, and I cannot wait until so on. Peter calls it another Baptist. But we all know that baptism is Baptist, beginning and end. There is another central point, which is also very much like a baptism. That is the transfiguration. Recall that in the transfiguration, just as at the baptism, and in no other place in the gospel, Jesus hears God saying, you are my son. That alone is sufficient to alert us that this is another kind of baptism.

[17:26]

Now, I don't want to go into detail on this little time, but I'd like to point out some of the significance of this for us. I think what the gospel is doing is showing us how Jesus gradually came to understand the implications of his ministry, and as he understood it, gave himself freely and wholeheartedly to that, with the demands of his ministry. So in the beginning, he stands with Israel, with John the Baptist and all the other Israelites, wishing to be baptized with them for the same basic reason. Baptism, readiness for God. Lord, we are ready. That's what God's baptism meant. We are ready. We hope you're ready. Well, it wasn't.

[18:28]

Nothing happened. No voice from heaven. No response. But when Jesus came and was baptized, heaven opened. And in Jesus, as Israel, what response? I am ready, Lord. When we are ready, we need corporate action. God said, I am ready too. You are my son. Speaking primarily to Jesus with people to all of Israel also. You are my son. The messianic age is here. Oh, I am well pleased. This is a great liberating experience for Jesus and for all men to begin to believe But there's no other way to believe than to that baptismal experience in one way or another. Discover the goodness of God, and therefore one's own value and freedom, which is another way of saying sunshine.

[19:32]

And with that freedom, Jesus assumed his mission. He had to preach what he had heard. The sacred God is here. God is good. He has fulfilled his promises. Good news. And he performed many miracles and was received by the people. And then controversy began about Pharisees did not like the way he performed his miracles. Six days we have a wish to perform miracles. This fellow has to wait till the Sabbath. And so point and close. You know, he began to get resistance. And then finally becomes clear to Jesus that this resistance is not just the dispute, not just the difference of opinion about some messianic question.

[20:32]

It becomes clear that these people are not going to accept him in the way that he is defining messiahship. They're going to make an issue of this. At this point it says, Immediately before the Transfiguration, the Mark's God pulled back to all the celebrities. He says, and Jesus began to tell his disciples, the Son of man must suffer many things, but death. He began to tell him the passion. He's going to die much longer than they thought. Maybe even if he thought. I personally think that Jesus began to tell them this because he just discovered this himself. There's no reason why he put that brother out in the land of the mission.

[21:32]

I don't think Jesus knew at the age of 10 that he was going to do something about it. I see what he I think he discovered it. At a certain moment, at this minute, they're going to talk a lot more than I thought. Early death. They're going to make an issue out of this. I'm going to have to die. Or else deny everything I've been saying. I couldn't do that. Especially after seeing the hope in the eyes of these people. So, he isn't prayer in each sense. And I think you can assume you say, Father, and I'm ready again for this new dimension of my baptism, that it was transfigured before that. And I think the nature of this transfiguration can be reduced from what happened after it.

[22:38]

After the transfiguration, Jesus set the direct course to Jerusalem and crucifixion. It's the middle point of the gospel, the watershed, one author says. I think the transfiguration was not so much an illumination from outside as if the father said, well, the disciples need some encouragement. Father, this is a complete line of Jesus for a little bit. illuminate him, and then they'll say, oh, he isn't Messiah after all. We've wanted for a while there. No, I don't think that happened. No indication with God that there's a light from outside, a ray of light that fell upon him. It says he glowed. And he was glistening and shining like no footer could make his clothing was radiant. That's the same breath, the light came. And if it was for the encouragement of the disciples, it failed.

[23:45]

Therefore, when they fit the confusion before. No, I think that this radiance of Jesus came out with him. And it was an ecstasy, an ecstatic experience. I had a halo. comes from an intense personal experience of discovery. What was this intense, this ultimate discovery? The fact that dying is the way to life. The wisdom of God is centered in this extraordinary paradox. Coming to life is not debating death, human death, not going out or around or over it, but lo and behold, in the wisdom of God, he is dying that gives life.

[24:59]

And after that, he goes straight toward his dying. Directly no detours, almost cheerfully joyful. I think this transfiguration is very much like that little point I talked about to you, which happened on the wall. Critical conversion of faith. Suddenly, I don't have to look behind me anymore for support. My support is in the one who's calling on the enemy of the ultimate teacher. The time is no longer some kind of absurd that I'm going to have to do with you. God knows how. Hold my nose and eat it in this thing. No, it is something I would not want to miss. Something I would not want to miss. I was given my options. I would say, no, Lord, I, my golly, I don't want to miss God. What do you think I came into this?

[26:04]

What the fun of living? Maybe a little radical. I really think that faith is not completely victorious until we can at least in our better moments. You know, there are good times of the day. You know, we have to be Christians. On our high moments of faith, we should be able to say, I would not want to miss time. There's something so pure about the gift, which is in the acceptance of death, that it cannot be anticipated. the only time you can ever do that. So, what's missing? You need experience. Everybody does. Everybody does. But I think what a difference it would make if you really were not afraid to die. I mean, dying in this good sense. I don't mean, you know, I'm more distressed when people always want to die.

[27:07]

I think people don't like this life or like the next one either. I mean, people who like this life still know that dying is good because it leads to a better life. Better if it says, well, life with God, with the planet, with Jesus. Well, This would be, of course, in this experience, Jesus hears God say, you are my beloved son. In the second baptism, the second papillation, in fact, he goes a little farther and says, listen to him. Now that he knows the place of dying, he could be a teacher as not before. Listen to him. And then he talks to the pastor. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is dealing with a whole new reality.

[28:18]

No longer is death something that's going to come early, violently, with rejection. The new reality is that death is tomorrow. No matter how well prepared we are for something completely unique about those last 24 hours. Death is tomorrow. When it comes to this consciousness in their garden of descent and wrestles with it, finding it accepting this final demand, can it not pass away? How about next week? What about next year? What year is nothing with God in his eternal hope and songs? This is what Jesus is saying. If that will be tomorrow, it will be six. With all that time, forget. I know it has to be tomorrow.

[29:24]

Because next week will be the same thing. It will be different. It will be easier. OK, I accept. Tomorrow. Not my will, but I am not. So in every case, we have this readiness, this acceptance. And we would expect to hear the Father's voice again the third time and ask if you're just ready to say, I too am ready. Now you are indeed, finally, definitively, once and for all, my beloved son. You hear nothing? You hear nothing? But as you have to follow me, because you get there like hanging, waiting for it, looking for another page of the scriptures, you know. And then it dawned on me that he didn't say it.

[30:25]

This is what the resurrection is. He didn't say it in so many words because Jesus has already passed out of our mystery when this happens. We can't bear this final affirmation because we haven't died yet. That's reserved for those who die in this final way, ultimate way. But the father embraces his son in resurrection. Welcome home, my son. He acts out the words, you are my beloved son. This is the final affirmation proceeding in Jesus into his home. Now, the implication for us, I think, is that we have to muster up all our courage to our freedom and say, I am ready.

[31:29]

I am ready with men who are seeking salvation. I am ready. Would not that for me should come as he promises it will. that we go out and do what this freedom allows. Knowing, however, that this will lead to new discovery, new demands, we have no idea how much any decision will cost. This requires a new readiness and will guarantee another acceptance and affirmation. And gradually this leads then to the final affirmation approval which is resurrection. Wonderful.

[32:38]

To receive the word God You refer to good news if you're a Christian that believes you need to be ready for and open to the goodness in life. In the different places of life, and other people, especially in those who don't seem obviously to be good. In situations where I'm not promising, in the unknown future, in danger and the circle of death is God, the great unknown one. I don't think there's any person in the Bible that I cheated themselves to illustrate this attitude toward life, which is so much more important than deciding the dream. No other person besides Jesus, your faith is better than King David.

[33:41]

I have to have some David's spirit just to begin to talk about him under such time on a mission. And I have to be extremely optimistic to try something like that. King David is lifted by a thousand B.C. Jesus is called the son of David. I think personally more because he was the great and final David figure, the ultimate expression of the David attitude and David's spirit, far more than because, in some tortuous way, his genealogy can be traced to David. Actually, that's like a pretty good dog to follow this trail. It's a funny turn, that genealogy. But even aside from that, there's no question that Jesus is a new David. And that David had his counterpart, his foil, Saul, Jesus too had his, Judas.

[34:54]

And both of them finished two times. So it's a very serious difference whether one let's see if the attitude of David or Saul or Jesus or Jesus Saul is a pathetic person I recall again by the Justin Keller saying oh poor old Saul but he would be the model of a last location a fail man or fail. Well, when you look at Saul of Michael, you can't have any help having some sympathy for him. He was cutting very severely for sins which had extenuating circumstances. Two major sins mentioned in the Bible are the fact that he took upon itself to offer sacrifice and preparing for salvation when this was not permitted for the king.

[36:04]

Only the But he waited for seven days. For Samuel, the animal didn't show. It didn't show. Seven, four days he waited. But finally he said his men were eating it. He already was breaking up. He was giving a animal. And he sacrificed it no more than did so and So the ensemble appeared out on wood and said, we made another mistake. We never do anything tonight. But then he went down and he thought of the apologites. He was supposed to kill everybody and he knocked by my God and some of the fat cow. To celebrate at home, not to stare at him, but to kill him at home. The ensemble came out tonight and said, did you do what I told him? Good sir.

[37:05]

But what then is that blowing of the cows in my ears? Oh, I want to put a couple of bags and get teeth to pull. Yes, blow again. You shall know more and more of my people, Israel. Well, maybe I'm over at the time. There are these extenuating factors, but I think so attention was basically good. He would know his judgment was towards. And yet, he rejected his king. He becomes better, clear to insanity. Eventually, he loses the normie and fits with a tragic thing. Almost a bottle of tragic. And that's the thing. They could live a real big game. I've got a deep breath in.

[38:08]

planned to get into this little problem with that she thought wasn't that bad but then when he was about to be embarrassed because of what was going to happen and Uriah could not be convinced to do something foolish to cover it up he planned his murder and succeeded Cold-blooded, premeditated, murdered, and out of a tiny spot. That's it. Yep, David. But nothing like that. And so, it seems I'm scared. If you saw, it's snake bit. Everything touches, very gray, bold. Thank you, there's a golden hat. no matter how high you throw me land on the street. He turns sin into hardship.

[39:09]

He repents and he's better off than he went before. Well, I don't think we can compare just what they did. But I think what the Bible is telling us is that these two men have two fundamentally different aspects of their life. Saul believed that God is good. The soul of the troubles and tortured man, filled with anxiety, fear, doing foolish things, swearing that anybody touched food or drink the next 24 hours would die, and that would happen with his son, John. And he was very killed. The people didn't know I can't do it like that. The world has not. And he was always doing, you know, impulsive, irrational things. I think they're speaking to the fact that he was not in touch with the goodness within your life. The attitude toward life was too studied, too rehearsed.

[40:13]

He was not in touch with the reality. He believed that God is good, the proposition. And I think from the vacuum you can see, he did not believe that life is good, that people are good, that situations are good, That Saul is good. That the future is good. He didn't act like a man who believed that. And David did. What they'll almost say, that David could be defined as the man who expected good things to happen. That because life is good and the future is good and God is good, well, good things happen. He permitted them to happen. ready for that. And so, when he sinned, he was ready for repentance and forgiveness when he passed. And in every situation he was ready for destroying it, he had much strife in his life, incest in his old family.

[41:20]

His brother murdered his brother. He was down in Absalom against his old father. And yet that could remain positive, optimistic, hopeful. Now, this is not a story about David and Saul to the sort of figure. Every guy has a David and a Saul in it. And it's extremely important to keep David in the ascendant He gave it up and saw it down. And it's all too easy to fall and gradually take over. What becomes a tiny complaint. Full of bitterness. That he's a little insane once in a while. That he's not talking about it. You know, he can't see reality anymore.

[42:25]

There's so many ways which express itself. The person is ready for which things could happen seem to be locked. But it's not locked. Except that he is ready when the good happens. Father Florian, not as mad as they've been in many, many years. Not yet. Father Florian used to insist on not forgetting the part of fear. He had to insist that the novices play cards again. He wanted to know, to observe how they handled the adversity. The adversity of fear, the irrational fear, which is so much my kind. What did you know? Of course, anybody can face what you do with the two, the three, and the fourth.

[43:31]

That will tell you what you're doing with it all. Another long year. I haven't got to run for January. Don't think of anybody particularly, but you know the type. It's only card playing is no problem, but this unfortunately, it's going to turn over in the light. No, I never get a decent man, but I didn't like to play like the rest, too. Well, you know, the good guard player, the one who knows how to play the fight, how to make the best of imperfect situations. After Dennis told me one time, I didn't see it before they could do it. All of the good with the good, probably, all of the good, fuck me. He said, why don't we do something around here, a big family like this, and all this palace, and we don't do anything, the church has drifted along, and we could, you know, why don't we do something?

[44:41]

And then he said, but when you come down to it, I only have the car that was dealt to me. And I think he was tempted to say, you are a jack. Well, you know, there's so much truth in that. We only have a card that in doubt to us. What are you doing? Complain? Reject them? Make excuses? Or play? Maybe play is caught. We expect good things to happen. Jesus played in the dark. Jesus expected the best to happen in the worst possible situation.

[45:43]

We look into the absolute eternal darkness. That's all right. No resurrection. Now, that is the ultimate in expecting good things to happen. Abraham looked at his body as good as dead, Paul said, well, if you can't have a man's body 99 years old, I used to look at your books almost a while. They grew up with corn. That's how you grew up. He looked at his body as good as dead. You can imagine when they look like all strickled up. And he believed in light, and he considered the womb of Sarah, which was filled with death, that they believed that God could give them a son. In the midst of death, they expected light, like thee. Who's going to deceive light?

[46:47]

Who got a wise resurrection? I don't want to do that.

[46:53]

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