• Contains revelations of the story. Be warned. •
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Paul, by the word of the living Christ an apostle of the Lord to the Wild Things. Peace and love to you in Christ.
My brother Max has traveled to you, and though he was unable to remind you of the Gospel of Christ which I was only briefly able to share with you being driven on by God’s Holy Spirit and so unable to complete my work, I had hoped that, in your folly and sorrow, as if in a mirror, you might all see the love of Christ who has died and been raised again to glory. However, upon his return, Max shared with me the deep wounds and pain that you are suffering, and so, on account of my own wounds suffered for Christ, and remembering the darkness in my own heart when I was a persecutor of Christ’s church, I write to you with great love and great hope. Every day, I thank God for your life and work in your country, though my great love for you brings deep sadness to my heart when I hear of your stumbling through darkness, destroying the houses of faith that Christ has built amongst you.
My brothers and sisters, not with my own voice, but with the voice of Jesus Christ who died upon a cross, I say to you: do not withhold from one another the forgiveness which has been given to you by God through Christ. When injury is heaped upon injury, the only possible result is that the bleeding will continue. We who have taken on Christ have been bound to him through death, full of the promise that though once dead, in Christ we will live. And so, I say to you, not with my mouth but with the love of Christ: forgive one another, and live. Over and over again, you wound one another. So lost are you in darkness that even as you try, playing at fights with dirt-clods, you only hurt each other more deeply. These wounds are not suffered for the gospel, but in ignorance. I weep that I could not be with you longer, and pray that I will be able to come to you soon and teach you again in the love that heals as no dirt-clod fight ever could. You destroy that which you have built, in anger and frustration because you have forgotten how to share your pain with one another, and in sharing, find the healing that has been promised to us.
When traveling in my former life on the Damascus road, I was struck blind by a shining light, and stuck down by the presence and voice of the risen Jesus Christ. In that blindness, in which I could not see to walk, and in which every step caused me only unwonted pain and threatened always to cast me off the way and into the ditch where surely I would have died, alone and in the dark, I stumbled and sought for help. If I had persisted in my blindness, refusing any help that came to me, I would surely have died in my blindness, cut-off from the blessings of light which have been promised to all the nations, wild and tame, near and far, through God’s covenant with Abraham, fulfilled in the passion of Jesus of Nazareth. However, by the grace of the God of my ancestor Abraham, whose faithfulness is always sure, Ananias, a servant of the same Christ, came to me, and he showed me the way, through Christ, out of the darkness, and into the light of the risen savior of the world.
And so, I write to you, Wild Things, and as Ananias came to me, in the faith of Christ, so I come to you. As God sent Jesus, so Jesus sends me, a servant and a guide, to help you out of the darkness of your self-destruction and in the love of Christ out of the death of your terrible divisions. Some of you I baptized, though now as the Lord’s return hastens, among you there have grown divisions and parties, and though clothed in the pure garment of new life, having taken on the clothing of Christ who was crucified, you tear it apart, casting it to the ground, and trampling it into the sand of your country, far from the waters of new life. The time is short before Christ’s return in glory. Prepare yourselves by setting your sights not on things of the earth, which are in the midst of passing away, but on heavenly things, full of grace and love. Because you cannot at the same time set your sights upon the disputes of the flesh and upon the love of Christ, in whom there is no division, no enmity, but only the love which he has from God. And so, I beg of you, follow me in dying to the old life of violence and anger and sadness and broken promises, and in Christ’s gracious love, live in the new life given to you by the same Christ, whose promises are always faithful.
By dying in Christ through baptism, you have also died to your old enmities and feuds, to your painful memories and wounds. Just as I walk through this life bearing the marks of the wounds which were inflicted upon me by those who hate the living God, those wounds which have been made clean by water and new life in Christ, so, too are you called by the God whose children you are to walk in faith. The hurts which we have suffered at each others’ hands do not disappear or fade: would that I were there that I might show you the scars on my body. Wounds heal, however, when cleaned with clean water, and though they ache in this life, in the fulness of life into which we are being drawn through the death and by the resurrection of Jesus, our bodies will be made whole and the memories of past insults and betrayals will be put away, unable to remain within our bodies in the embrace of Jesus’ all-encompassing love.
The terrors of the heart to which we listen in fear which promise only death and darkness cannot stand against the saving grace of Christ Jesus. He goes before us through death, and in so doing removes from us the threat which death and the powers of death whisper in our ears and shout from the hilltops. Cry though they might, declaring that our lives will be saved by obedience to the rules, or by insisting on our own righteousness, or that we will see clearly and in the light by shutting our eyes to the truth that is before us, in truth I tell you that the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord our savior speaks far louder and in deeper silence, saying only, “I love you.” Because God, whose love for the creation was so great that counting the sins of the world at nothing, came to us in Jesus Christ, a servant to all people, to clear the way of death and darkness and lies and fears, making a way for we who would die with him and follow him into newly created life.
I hear that rather than speak with one another, rather than open yourselves in love, forgetting your wounds which have been closed by the wounds of Christ, you seek after false teachers who promise easy solutions in pretty words. Beloved brothers and sisters, I say to you that these teachers are nothing but birds, whose squawks and twitters are nothing but the raving of animals, unable to speak, but only mimicking in ignorance the truth that they see but cannot apprehend. Max has told me how there is one among you who was cast out by you on account of not hearing words in the babbling of the false teachers Bob and Terri. Remember the love that I have for you and that I shared with you in my last visit: follow the example of your brother Carol. Speak only true words to one another, sharing truthfully your experiences in these last days so that when the Lord comes again, you will be prepared, emptied of the deceits poured into you by such teachers of nonsense and filled with faith and hope.
Having been baptized into the death and new life of Christ, we are all of us made into one body. If one of member of the body in anger tears out another, is the whole body not diminished? Max tells me that in the pit of despair, having forgotten completely the self-emptying humility of our Lord, found himself so unable recognize his own wounds, this Carol did what is unheard of among the churches: he struck the right arm from his brother. Like all of us who have been brought into new life by the saving death of Jesus, and I chief among them, Carol is a broken instrument of God’s love. Fleeing from the false teachers he runs closer to the light of God, but still in darkness, he stumbles, wounding a brother and diminishing Christ’s body in the world. But perhaps through God’s loving mercy, this wound can be a sign for you. There is no way that the hurt done can ever be hidden. No power of this earth until the return of Christ in glory can return to our brother Douglas his stricken arm, and so until the resurrection of the dead, he will bear himself as a testament to the sufferings of Christ and to the promise of new life in him. Look, then, to your brother Douglas, and remember the Gospel that I brought to you. In his woundedness, remember your own wounds which Christ has healed in you.
With my own hand I write this, in letters large enough for you all to read! The grace of God which is always far greater than we can ever desire or conceive has already come to us in the person of Jesus Christ, who died that we might have new life. We who have died to our former selves, to the wounds which we bear now not as scars to be hidden but as blessings from God which remind us of the many ways we have been saved by God, must always remember that even though we are saved, we are not made perfect except by that grace. We cannot claim for ourselves the title of King or Savior, because they already belong to Christ. We cannot pretend that by words or wishing that we will be saved from ourselves and the wounds that we inflict on one another. Instead, we are given the gift, unasked-for, of being invited to rely on the overflowing love of God through Jesus Christ. There are those among you who would only see the darkness with which you have been surrounded. There are others who would only follow them into that darkness or away from the church into the nonsense and squawking of false friends and teachers without wisdom. There are yet others who would, by fleeing from the arms of those who love them, seek a new land where there is no pain, only to find that in this fallen world which is being saved by Christ’s love, there is always pain, though it is pain which is being healed by the pain of Christ, being brought into new life by the death which Christ suffered. And so I say to you, do not lie to each other or to yourselves, whether with words or in silence. Rather speak your hearts to one another in love recognizing in one another the marks of Christ and the healing that Christ is already working. We have all died to death, and so I pray that in the love of Christ, we may awaken to that love and awakening, rise from death for ever.
My greetings I send to Carol and Douglas and Alexander, to my brother Ira and sister Judith, to the silent Bull and KW peace through our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.
If anyone would say to you “awk, awk” or fly away without a word, he is not from God. Rather, live in the love which was given to you in Christ.
My love is always with you, and all peace and grace be with you through Christ Jesus our Lord.
