The Great and Very Humble God

The Sanctuary Downtown / Relentless Love

This is the Christmas testimony of Balthasar Oswaldo Jones, “Ozzie” the Wizard, the third Wiseman. He impressed us with his magic (as he did last time), fixed our unfixable elevator with special wizard powers, and then shared his testimony. Ozzie “The Great and Powerful” explained that he wanted people to like him, but the “him” that he wanted people to like was a lie. He would say, “Pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain.” But he was the little man behind the curtain — weak, scared, rather angry, and very, very lonely. He went to Jerusalem to “do a deal” — to schmooze the Great Silent One, who lived behind a curtain in an immense stone temple in the land of Judah. The stars had revealed that the King of Judah had just been born. “But how do you ‘do a deal’ with someone that great?” asked Ozzie. “If He has everything, and you give Him anything, it is His own stolen something that you have given Him. That is bad schmoozing.” In Jerusalem, a star directed Ozzie to Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem, and not to a palace but to a shack and in the shack behind a curtain, a baby boy. In his sight, the demons fled like darkness before the dawn. “All my terror turned into Holy Terror,” said Ozzie. “I knew that he came from over the rainbow. He is the Great One wrapped in a curtain of flesh . . . baby flesh. And that is when I saw the great Truth, which exposes the ancient lie, which keeps us all in bondage: We think that God is just the most powerful wizard; we think that He is great because He can just blow every other god to smithereens. But our God is not just the most powerful wizard; He is the Anti-Wizard. I was a frightened little man behind a big curtain of lies. He is All-Powerful Deity wrapped in a little curtain of baby flesh. I was proud; He is humble.” The Baby was not impressed with the Great and Powerful Oz. The Great and Powerful Oz was a lie — a lie which kept Him from the little man behind the curtain. And so that night, Ozzie gave the Great and Powerful Oz to Jesus — The Great and Very Humble God. And then, Oswaldo gave the one thing that Jesus desired most: the little man behind the curtain. “The thing I feared most was the one thing I most desperately desired,” said Ozzie. “God is Love; but make no mistake, Love is Fire; Love destroys every curtain. The Great Silent One destroyed the ‘me’ that I had created and liberated who it is that I truly am . . . He saved me from myself.” That night, the Great and Powerful Oz died, and Oswaldo was set free. He went home (to Orient “R”) a different way — no longer schmoozing kings but holding babies and little men and women hiding behind curtains. Thirty years later, the sky grew black, the earth shook, and the moon rose blood red in full eclipse. “Then I knew,” said Ozzie, “He was destroying every curtain; He was breaking down every dividing wall of hostility. He drank my sin and poured Himself into me, no longer a vessel of wrath but a vessel of mercy. That day, the Great One was doing a deal that has always been done, for it is reality on the other side of the rainbow where it is always now, and everything is filled with Love. God is an eternal covenant of grace; that’s the Deal.” You are a temple, and inside of you is a curtain. It separates Truth from lies, Eternity from time, Reality from illusion, and you from home. Even as we tore His flesh, He tore that curtain, such that even as we took His Life, He gave His Life, and from the inside out He flooded all things with Mercy. Give Him the little man behind the curtain, and you will wake up on the other side of the rainbow. For the other side of the rainbow will fill every shadow in the old stone temple that you once thought was yourself and your entire world. “Now, I click my heels together,” said Ozzie, “and I say, ‘There’s no place like Him; no place like home, no place like home.’ And the Great One says to me, ‘Merry Christmas Balthasar Oswaldo Jones. You have always been my home. Welcome home. For now, you and I agree: There’s no place like home. No place like home. No place like Our home.’” You are His home. You are the land that He has always dreamed of, and all of His dreams come true. And so will you; you will come true, for even now the truth comes to you. Merry Christmas.