4/19/22
The wonder of the Lord’s perfect love for us, so powerfully reflected in the events leading up to the first Easter can be humbling.
We are told:
The Lord never looked for any prize of victory for Himself. His prize of victories was the salvation of the whole human race. It was out of love towards the whole human race that He fought. When anyone fights out of that love he demands no prize for himself, since that love is such as wishes to give away and impart to others all that is its own, and to have nothing for itself. (Arcana Caelestia 1789)
We as a finite organization of fallible human beings are important in continuing the work that the Lord spent His life to achieve. There are many uses in this world that the Lord serves through using our efforts. When tragedy strikes a family symbols of caring, such as delivering food, requires human beings in this world to ensure that this food is provided. It would be possible for a well-endowed church to hire “food deliverers” but this would not have the same effect as the actions of someone with an established relationship with people in the family, even if the relationship is not very deep. One of the challenges of working with fallible human beings is that we are sometimes disappointed, saddened or even angered by what they do. If we didn’t have an investment in what we should be accomplishing, we might shrug our shoulders over clumsy words or actions or what we perceive as even worse than clumsy. However when we care deeply about what “we” should be doing or saying, when we are convinced something has gone very wrong, we don’t shrug it off.
It is instructive to see that the Lord, who could do everything perfectly by Himself, chose not to as in these passages:
The Lord acts both directly from Himself and indirectly through heaven. He acts indirectly through heaven not because He needs their help but in order that the angels there may have functions and duties, and therefore life and happiness in keeping with the duties and services they perform. (Arcana Caelestia 8719)
The Lord takes joy in seeing others achieve happiness through what they do, even though given that they, though being angels, are still limited and fallible. Sometimes problems arise even in heaven. We are told that sometimes an angel listening to a sermon in heaven disagrees with an idea and is obliged to turn away from the preacher (Heaven and Hell 223).
I wish some patience and mercy be broadly shared among us as we try to serve the cause of the New Church on earth. It is a Divine mission and we are most certainly fallible humans.