Grace

As the Godhead gathered in Heaven, the Father turned to the Son and said, “I love you with the very essence of my being. You are for me the very expression of love itself, and your essence is true love. I delight in you with all of my being and the reality of your being increases and enhances my love, for in you it finds its perfect expression.”

On hearing this, the Son turned to the Father and said, “Truly, truly You are for me a Father. Your heart is overflowing love, for surely I am an expression of that overflow. Your love for me is life for me. To receive your love is to know life, and to love you back is life overflowing.”

The Father, moved by His Son’s words, had an idea. “My greatest and deepest desire is to love you even more, yet within this relationship alone you are limited to only being able to receive my love and the Spirit’s love. Although there is no greater or more complete love possible, yet I desire to love you more. Therefore, I will create for you a universe made of the very essence of our being; not made of us, but from us, as a reflection of us, so that in and through it you can discover even greater dimensions and depths of my love for you.”

The Son was pleased, yet at that moment experienced for the first time something unexpected; he experienced sadness. As the very idea of his Father creating a universe to express his love for him entered his mind, the Son realised that anything made that was not in itself part of their shared being would be inferior to them and would, necessarily, be prone to imperfection and loss. Furthermore, the Son realised that for such a universe to exist it would require creatures with the ability to experience and express love, and for that to be possible, it would also be possible for these creatures to reject love and to turn to hatred.

The Son replied, “Father, if you create for us a universe beyond ourselves, with creatures that can express our love, then surely they might also reject our love. Why would you risk allowing the rejection of our perfect mutual love?”

The Father, smiling, replied, “I will not make this universe from our love alone; I will also make it with grace. Even if the entirety of it, and every creature in it, were to reject our love, grace would still provide a way for love to win through. Grace will continually offer our love, over and over, until one being in this universe finally receives and expresses true, pure, perfect love back to us. Even if no being is able ever to receive and return our love perfectly, grace will still give meaning to my creation.”

”Then let me share in this great creation,” said the Son. ”Let your grace and love flow through me that the universe might indeed be made for me. If there is no being capable of receiving and returning our love, let me be that being, that the universe will always have someone to complete your work. Let your grace provide a way for your perfect love – our complete love – to overcome the very worst imperfections and rejection of our love. If it would fulfil your desire, let me give even my life so that grace might always produce the highest expression of love even at its point of greatest rejection.”

The Father and the Son agreed and sent forth their Spirit to create for them this universe which would fulfil their desire for increased love.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.