Encyclopedia of Spiritual Theology

The Lord’s Encounters with His Creation

On the occasion of the appearance of the Lord Christ to His disciples after the Resurrection, we would like to speak about the many appearances of the Lord, their multiple reasons, and His encounters with people.

The Lord’s Encounters with His Creation¹

The Lord appeared to many and spoke with them mouth to ear… since Adam…
Undoubtedly, it was humility on the part of the Lord to condescend to appear to people, to speak with them, to listen to their words, and to descend to them Himself…
God descended to Adam in Paradise and spoke with him, and He spoke with Eve as well. He even spoke with the serpent, with Satan (Gen 3).
It is a wondrous humility from God to speak with Satan and to allow Satan to argue with Him, as in the Book of Job (Job 1, 2)… It is another form of self-emptying, prior to the Incarnation…!
God spoke with many human beings on various occasions. Here we would like to review some of them, and we find that He spoke with some for the sake of calling.

+ Encounters whose reason is the divine calling:
A calling to service, to divine fellowship, and to communion with the Lord… For this reason was the Lord’s encounter with Abraham, Noah, Moses, Saul of Tarsus, and others…
God appeared to Abraham to call him to His friendship and to live with Him, away from the dwellings of the wicked. He said to him: “Leave your people, your kindred, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you. I will bless you and make you a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you” (Gen 12)… An encounter with an agreement and a covenant… Thus was His encounter with Noah as well.
We do not know when the Lord will meet us, or where. But we know that the Lord has an appointment with us… How? When? Where? We do not know.
God called Moses from the burning bush in the wilderness, in an unexpected way… He conversed with him, granted him grace and power, brought him into His service, and treated the reasons for his reluctance…
Another person whom the Lord called to His service, with a tone of explicit reproach…
That was Saul of Tarsus. The Lord met him on the road and said to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” Who is it that can persecute You, O Lord?! You are able to make the earth swallow him up, or send down fire from heaven to burn him…! Yes, I am able to do that, but I want to win him by love, by friendly dialogue.
“It is hard for you, Saul, to kick against the goads.” My love for you is stronger than your hostility toward Me. And the blessing that I want to give you is stronger than the persecution you carry out against Me and against My Church. Therefore, My love will triumph over your persecution…
And so it was. We saw Saul of Tarsus as soft clay in the Lord’s hand when He appeared to him. And with wondrous speed he was transformed from a persecutor of the Church into a preacher and evangelist who offered himself for her sake… The Lord’s love melted all hardness in his heart. He became a chosen vessel, and repaid love with love. He said, “I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ,” and “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”…
There are people—like Saul—whom the Lord met to call them to Himself. And there are others whom He met in their afflictions, to relieve them…

Encounter in afflictions:
Many in their afflictions met the compassionate Lord Christ who says:
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest…”
Among the most beautiful, wondrous, and powerful of these encounters is the Lord’s meeting with the three youths in the fiery furnace. He walked with them in the furnace, and they were not burned, nor did the smell of fire cling to their garments. His walking with them was no different from His walking with Adam in the Garden of Eden.
Truly, if God enters the fiery furnace, the furnace is transformed into Paradise. If God walks with us in tribulation, tribulation is transformed into grace and blessing…
We, O Lord, want to walk with You and want to meet You. It does not matter whether in the Garden of Eden, or in the fiery furnace, or in the belly of the fish like Jonah. What matters is that we meet You—and that is enough…
And God, on His part, says to us: Do not fear tribulations and troubles.
I will not prevent the fire from you, but I will walk with you in it.
I will not prevent troubles and afflictions from you, but I will bear them for you.
Therefore, God allowed Daniel to be thrown into the lions’ den, but He sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths. He allowed Peter to be thrown into prison, but He sent His angel and loosened his chains and opened the doors. He allowed John to be exiled to Patmos, but He appeared to him there and revealed to him what no one else saw.
He who walks with the Lord does not fear, but says with David: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”
The children of God do not care about the kind of road they walk on. All that matters to them is that God walks with them on it. They do not choose the road for themselves. The Lord is the One who chooses, and He accompanies them on it. Jacob fled from the face of his brother Esau, but God said to him, “I am with you, and will bring you back to this land.” He met him in his distress and comforted him.
All this makes us understand the serious principle that God has set:
I will not uproot evil from the earth. Evil will remain, but I will protect you from it. The tares will remain with the wheat until the day of harvest, and they will grow together, but I will protect the wheat from the tares…
Thus, we see from the beginning of creation that God did not say, “Let there be no darkness,” but rather said, “Let there be light.” And there was light, and darkness remained, and God separated the light from the darkness… The power of darkness attacked the Lord Christ, and Christ was unjustly judged, insulted, scourged, crucified, and died. But the light triumphed at last by the Resurrection. So what should be our stance toward injustice and darkness?
The Scripture says, “By your patience possess your souls.” Be patient; do not resist evil. On the day of harvest the Lord will send His sickle and remove the tares from the earth.
“Do not resist evil.” “Do not avenge yourselves.” Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two… And what then? “The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.” Do not resort to human schemes, and do not rely on your human arm… In the midst of tribulation, I will meet you; I will walk with you in the furnace as I walked with the three youths…
When the man born blind bore witness to Christ, they cast him out of the synagogue. And while he was outside the synagogue, Christ met him, revealed Himself to him, and granted him faith.
Do not grieve, my son, if they cast you out of the synagogue; they will also cast Me outside the camp… Endure, and carry your cross. I too will carry a cross. I will carry all your crosses. I will take all your troubles and burn them under the sun…
Elijah fled from Jezebel, and the Lord met him in his fear, comforted him, and strengthened him.
Elijah said to the Lord, “They have torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets, and I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” The Lord comforted him: You are not alone, for I have seven thousand knees that have not bowed to Baal. As for Jezebel, the dogs shall lick her blood. But you—wait for the Lord.
All that stands between us and evil is only the factor of time. Evil must finally be defeated. But what matters is when it will be defeated. This time is in God’s hand, under His rule and His providence.
God will burn the tares and destroy the darkness. The Lord has war with Amalek from generation to generation. As for us, let us wait for the Lord. However long He delays, He must come and establish justice on the earth. God meets those who are afflicted to deliver them. But He has another kind of meeting with sinners…

+ The Lord’s encounter for punishment:
The Lord met Cain, not to give him grace, but to pronounce punishment upon him. And He met the foolish rich man to say to him, “This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?”… There are many encounters for the worldly; therefore beware and take heed to the words of Scripture:
“Lest He come suddenly and find you sleeping.” “The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect Him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in two and appoint his portion with the unbelievers.”
He will come again for judgment, to judge the living and the dead, to give each one according to his deeds. He comes in His glory on the clouds of heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. They will say to the mountains, “Fall on us,” and to the hills, “Cover us.” The mountains will melt like wax before the face of the Lord… And truly, as the Apostle says:
“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb 10:31).
However, I do not want to end the article with this encounter of judgment, for there are encounters of blessing, and others of love.

+ Encounter of blessing:
Like the Lord’s encounter with Solomon. He blessed him and blessed the house he built, and the glory of the Lord filled the house, like the Lord’s dwelling upon the Tabernacle of Meeting above the Ark. And like the Lord’s first encounter with Jacob the patriarch, and His first encounter with his grandfather Abraham, which were both for calling and blessing together.

+ Encounter of love:
Just as He used to enter the house of Mary and Martha, filling the house with love and joy; a single look at His face was enough to gladden the heart. It is an encounter of love, in which the Lord says to the human being, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” Thus He stands at the door of the human soul and says, “Open to Me, My sister, My love, My dove, My perfect one.”
Another example of this is His encounter with Abraham when He visited him with two angels…
Abraham hosted Him, and then He granted Abraham the grace of having a son, and as a friend He discussed with him the matter of Sodom… in wondrous understanding, as one of His chosen ones, conversing with him about the destiny of a nation and a people…!
Among these encounters of love are those that took place even after departure from this earth… namely, the Lord’s encounter with Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration…
How did Moses and Elijah appear with Him at that time? And how did they disappear? And by what appointment? Was it merely by a will in His heart that they came instantly? I do not know… But it is an encounter between the Lord and His beloved ones… And there is a similar encounter, I mean the eternal encounter.

+ The eternal encounter:
Concerning this encounter, the Lord says to His holy disciples:
“I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”
Shall we call this an encounter?! Rather, it is a permanent fellowship. An encounter that begins and does not end. The encounter of the Head with the body… We are in Him, and He is in us, and we abide in Him forever…

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¹ An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Sixth Year (Issue Twenty-Three), 6-6-1975.