Déjà vu-updated August 19, 2009

 

If I had ever been here before I would probably know just what to do
don’t you?

If I had ever been here before on another time around the wheel I would probably know just how to deal

With all of you.—David Crosby of CSNY

If I had been here before I would probably know how to deal—with all of you. If I had experience with this situation I would be able to handle it better. Experience is a master teacher. When Jesus sets his foot on the stage of the earth He created in the final climactic act of the story He is equipped in a way that helps Him ‘deal’ with every situation—and every being—including Satan.

Jesus is God with a history.

When He speaks He speaks with an authority that has been born of knowledge. Jesus isn’t born into the world in the way we are born into the world. Jesus took on flesh and entered the world as ‘God with a history’. He speaks with authority about so many things because He has been here before. He enters with a well thought out plan. He has seen it all before.

Pulitzer prize winning author Jack Miles puts it this way, 'Though he is about thirty (Luke 3:21), he seems much older, knowing in the way of a older man, weary in the same way. But if Jesus seems to have been born old, it is only because he was born old. As the son of Joseph, he may have only three decades behind him, but as God Incarnate he has a curriculum vitae three millennia long.' [Jesus: Crisis in the Life of God ppg.41]

Fool me once (in the garden) shame on me—fool me twice (the book of Job) shame on you. Fool me a third time—not on your life. It won’t happen. God will not be fooled again. Jesus is all business on the mount of temptation. Nothing is left alone to chance—there are no wagers—no deals with the devil. No giving of a single inch. No funny business. When Satan comes with His twists and half-truths the experienced God is ready and prepared. His heel is bruised, His reputation wounded, but in the end he will crush the head of the enemy. This is as certain as the foreboding scene in the Passion of the Christ when the snake is stomped down by the heel of Jesus.

This time around the wheel is the last scene.

When CSNY sings, ‘and I feel like I’ve been here before’ Jesus know the lyrics and is familiar with the melody. He knows because He has been here before. Jesus is embodied in flesh and has submitted Himself to the effects of the fall in order to confront His accuser (devil) His lover (Israel) and His enemy (mortality symbolized by death). Don’t be fooled for a moment this ‘Son of man’ has come to defeat the effects of the flesh by dying in the flesh. When He dies death dies with Him.

This time around the wheel He knows how to deal with it all. And He won’t get fooled again. Because 'out on the edge of darkness...'there rides the peace train'. Come take me home again.

This is the place where all the rifles are buried. At the foot of the cross. James Taylor in his thoughtful song Belfast to Boston asks, 'who will say this far, no further' is answered here forever.

Belfast to Boston
by James Taylor

There are rifles buried in the countryside for the rising of the moon
May they lie there long forgotten till they rust away into the ground
Who will bend this ancient hatred, will the killing to an end
Who will swallow long injustice, take the devil for a country man
Who will say "this far no further, oh lord, if I die today"

Send no weapons no more money. Send no vengeance across the seas
Just the blessing of forgiveness for my new countryman and me

Missing brothers, martyred fellows, silent children in the ground
Could we but hear them could they not tell us
"Time to lay God's rifle down"

Who will say this far no further, oh Lord, if I die today.