The Great Pursuit

In the beginning  God, a Spirit, created the vast world o mater. Of all God's remarkable works, only human beings possessed a likeness to Him that could be called " the likeness of God." It was at once a great gift and a great burden, this image of God. Man and woman, spiritual beings, could commune directly with God. But of all species they alone had the freedom to rebel against Him.

Rebel they did,and something died inside Adam and Eve that fateful day. Their bodies lived on for many years, but their spirits lost the free and open communion with God.

The Bible tells of God's efforts to restore that fallen spirit. He worked with individual families: first Adam's family, later Noah's, and finally Abraham's family, the central focus of most of the Old Testament. Sometimes the Bible portrays God as  a parent raising a child, sometimes as a lover in passionate pursuit, but always it shows Him seeking to "break through" to human beings in order to restore what had been lost.

With a few glowing exceptions, the Old Testament recounts failures. But the New Testament opens with a radical move y God: an "invasion", the birth of Jesus. Jesus represented a whole new beginning. The second Adam he was called, the leader of a new species, He at last tore down the barriers and made possible a truce between God and humanity.

After Jesus had left, at Pentecost the Spirit of God descended and filled individual human beings. Thus their fallen spirit was finally restored. More than walking in a garden with human beings, God has now living inside them.