The Word Must Be Sacrificed
In order to know the meaning of a word, its definition must be sacrificed.
To be what it is
And what it is not
To be what it means.
Without the word being sacrificed, its meaning in the flesh is not realized.
You are left with thinking you know what it means.
Better still, you admit you do not know what it means.
“I thought you meant…”
Has been said in a million misunderstandings.
A thought is not the thing itself, nor could it be.
We must allow the Word to be sacrificed to know what it’s made of.
And in that death
In that surrender
In that letting go
The meaning resurrects in us, rather than outside us.
The Word becomes flesh.
And we know what It means.
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The word “sacrifice” in Hebrew, like many Hebrew words, has multidimensional meaning. It can mean a “drawing near” or a “giving up”, among other things. This beautifully articulates the “both and” nature of God so often experienced beyond the finite limitation of definition. These are living words drawing us to a living reality. To draw near to the meaning of a word, one must give up all other meanings, not because other meanings may be wrong, but because the Source of any word, the life within it, must be trusted in order to understand what a word means. The giving up of what you think something means is the surrender to allow what it means to manifest in your body, not just your thoughts. This is not of your own doing, however, it is of your own allowing God to reveal what you do not know, yet strangely, have always known.
How can you not know and have always known?
Both and.
You can only know a thing because the Source of the thing already exists within you. Otherwise you have no foundation by which you could understand what a thing means. God comes to God in you. God comes to flesh and reveals God dwelling within and among us. God reveals the meaning.
When we do not know the meaning of something that is said, freedom is found in the “giving up” of what we think it means in order to allow the “drawing near” of the meaning within us. “Let it be as you say” said the woman who was to realize the birth of God was going to be within her without the familiar and natural ways of things functioning in her reasoning of how this would work with her body. She allowed the Word to be sacrificed in her reasoning so it could be birthed. The meaning could now come forth freely into the world to bless it, even when she did not understand. This Life in and through her would keep revealing the duo reality of “drawing near” and “giving up” the life or meaning we think we have in exchange for the life we are invited to have. A Life much bigger than our understanding of life and death.
The meaning of it all.
In the practice of Silence, which is not the absence of noise but the ability to listen or be aware, we allow the words and images our mind speaks with what it thinks it knows to die. This sacrifice, this let it be, allows the Word to resurrect in us. This both and of living and dying leads us to the reality beyond life and death, freely given to us from the beginning. All things are yours already but you are not ready to understand this without allowing Christ to be born within you, or rather, to allow Christ to grow from within where Christ has been all along. This is the both and of “drawing near” to the One who has already drawn near to you and the “giving up” of all the ways you resist this by your misunderstanding.
It is a Sacrifice.
“Do not look outside yourselves for the reality of God or listen to people who say, ‘Look there is Christ over there’, or ‘Jesus is coming soon’, for the reality of God is within you.” - Jesus
If we do not understand these words, rather than debate them, explain them away, or resist them, we are invited to allow God to mean what God means. To sacrifice our unknowing or thinking we know, in order for the Word to freely reveal the Word to us from within us. To allow the Word to be what it will be.
Only in this death and sacrifice, will the Word resurrect.
Then we will know what the Word means.
And when we know what the Word means, we’re invited to abide in the meaning as the meaning abides in us.
-PH
“Stop boasting in humans, or even yourself, for all things are yours. Whether the leaders, writers, or people you admire, or the world, or life or death, or the present or future, everything belongs to you. And you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God.” - 1 Corinthians 3:22-23
“But the anointing you received from him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.” - 1 John 2:27
