by Ted Dekker
For a moment, my vision was filled with blinding light.
Then I could see again and I saw a man’s foot, still bloodied and pierced, crushing the serpent’s head in one blow.
His foot…Yeshua’s. Yeshua stood before me now, foot planted on that serpent’s head as its body quivered for a moment before going still.
“It is finished,” he said, staring at the dead serpent.
Then he slowly lifted his eyes and they met mine. A knowing smile formed on his face as he stared at me through tangled locks.
“The Father put mankind in the garden,” he said. “Now…he puts the garden in you. And so he glorifies his identity once more, in you.” He stretched his hand out, down into my grave, and seized my hand. “What you were has died with me. Now arise with me and glorify the Father’s name once more.”
Immediately I felt myself, the ancient one, being pulled up. Light flowed around me, into me, through me. I was there again, in the Garden of Eden with grass under my feet and a warm breeze in my hair, standing before Yeshua, who was smiling.
He had undone what I had done! I was restored into the Father’s realm. I was whole once more, swimming in his love there in that garden.
I was weeping with gratitude already, desperate to throw my arms around him and fall at his feet, because that dream felt more real to me than any waking moment.
I dropped to my knees and leaned over to anoint his feet with my tears where he stood, but then he spoke.
“Wake up, Daughter.” He slowly turned to my right. “Saba.”
And with that command, the world changed again. Because this time I knew his voice wasn’t from my dream.
Startled, I sat upright and gasped. Saba jerked up from the sand beside me, breathing hard, and I knew that he too had heard Yeshua speak his name. And now we saw more.
It was already morning. The fire crackled five paces away.
There, squatting on one heel, tending to that fire, was Yeshua.
In the flesh.
Chapter Thirty-Two
MY HEART POUNDED.
It was him, I knew that it was, even though he looked somehow different. Not different in his body, but transcendent. Yet there in the flesh, five paces away from me, squatting by the fire with a stick in his hand. He had been stoking the fire.
He saw through me, and his gaze embraced me with the same bright eyes I had longed to look into at every opportunity. His smile was gentle, knowing, worn by one about to reveal great secrets to beloved friends.
Neither Saba nor I could move. For a moment, I dared not believe, afraid I was still dreaming. I had seen his tortured flesh on that cross. I had heard him give up his breath. I had watched the Roman soldiers shove a spear into his side. I had stood by while his friends sealed his body in a tomb.
And yet I was seeing him now, six or seven weeks after his death, alive as any other man. With new breath.
I must be delirious!
But no. Saba was seeing him as well. I knew this because he was seated beside me, rigid except for a tremble in his always steady hands, breathing hard.
Yeshua dropped the stick by the fire and stood, brushing his hands together to wipe away the ash.
Saba scrambled to rise, and I as well, pushing off the ground with my right hand, trying to get my feet underneath me, and then I was up, clinging to Saba’s tunic.
Yeshua walked toward us, chuckling. So now I heard him as well.
“I did not mean to frighten you, my friends. Only to show you.”
Saba rushed forward and flung himself to his knees.
“Master!” he cried.
I was too overwhelmed to speak or move, and without Saba to hold on to, I thought my weak legs might give way.
“I now call you friend, Saba. Rise.”
But Saba did not rise. He was too overcome, sobbing now.
Yeshua looked up at me and for a long moment, we held each other’s gaze. His presence had touched me deeply in Bethany, but now I could barely remain standing in the flood of love and awe washing over me.
He stepped forward, cupped Saba’s chin, and kissed the top of his head. “Rise, my son. That day has come.”
Saba grasped Yeshua’s fingers with both hands and stood with his back to me. He kissed Yeshua’s hand. “You have overcome death.”
Yeshua offered him a nod. “As have you, my brave warrior.”
“We were dead?”
“Are not all? But no longer.”
He stepped past Saba and approached me, smiling. “Daughter,” he said, extending his hand.
I dared to take it. To feel the warmth of his flesh against my palm. And when I did, I could restrain myself no longer. I stepped into him and wrapped my arms around him, laying my forehead on his chest. And there, I wept with gratitude.
His hands rested gently on my shoulder and the back of my head. He said nothing, but I could feel the rise and fall of his chest, filled with living breath. This, not his words, was what I so desperately needed in that endless moment.
When I finally stepped back, he was still there, in the flesh, fully alive.
Yeshua had been raised from the dead. All of his promises were suddenly and unshakably true to me.
“You…” I said dumbly. “You’re…” How could I say what was so obvious?
“Alive?” He took my hand, nodded at Saba, and walked toward the fire, eyes on the flames. “But I did not die, Daughter. Only this body, which I surrendered willingly as the atonement for all. I am not of this world; neither are you.” He released my hand, crossed to the other side of the fire pit, and squatted again, picking up the stick he’d dropped.
Tears marked Saba’s dusty face. He looked like a boy stunned with wide-eyed wonder.
Yeshua poked the fire twice, then gestured to the stick in his hand.
“One day they will learn that this stick is as much the fire as it is the wood.” He tossed it into the flames. “Both can be here and gone at once. But love”—he looked up at us—“love never ends, because God is love.”
How long had he been alive? I wondered.
“The grave swallowed me for two nights,” he said, looking directly at me. “On the third day, I was raised from that death.”
So long ago! Did the others know? Surely they must.
“They have all seen me. More than five hundred.”
All of my thoughts were bare to him!
“They fear death no more.”
“What of Stephen?” Saba said. “He’s…”
Yeshua laughed, delighted. “Stephen is like a child overcome with revelation and joy. My precious brother knows no limitations. Nor do the others.”
“Mary?” I asked, thinking of the women.
“Like so many of the women, she was among the first to understand and embrace truth. She lives from the heart, as you know.”
He looked between us, one to the other.
“But now,” he said, standing, “I came to tell you what I told my disciples, and what others will one day write, because it’s true. Do you have ears to hear?”
A glint of daring lit his eyes.
“Would you move the mountains, Saba?”
Saba’s voice was ragged. “I would.”
“Would you walk on the troubled seas of this life, Maviah?”
“Yes.”
To both of us: “Would you give sight to the blind, and trample on serpents?” He slowly swept his arms wide. “Would you find joy in all that my Father has created for you here on earth, relishing each breath while you still live?”
I thought of Talya and I blurted my answer even as Saba whispered the same. “I would! Yes, I would.”
“Would you walk in eternal life while you still draw breath on this earth?”
I was too overcome to answer aloud. Yes! Yes, I would!
Yeshua lowered his arms and winked at me.
“Then know what will be written.”
An eagle screamed from the cliff high above us, but he paid it no mind.
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sp; “To see me is to see the Father. I and the Father are one. You know about me, but do you know the Father? Do you know me? This is eternal life.”
He was talking of my experience of him.
“At times,” I whispered. And I knew that when I did know him, I experienced eternal life, but when I knew only myself, I suffered, and deeply.
“But have joy, Daughter,” he said, smiling. “Even when you are blinded and feel forsaken, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate you from my love.”
Memory of having eaten the fruit filled my mind. But he was saying I would never again be separated…
He dipped his head. “The first Adam, son of God, became a living being. Even so, the last Adam, I, became the life-giving Spirit. And just as through one man sin and death entered the world, in the same way through one man, me, life was restored to all men.”
“My dream,” I said, astounded by his decree. “You undid the fall of the first Adam, which filled us with the knowledge of good and evil. You did this by dying and rising in Jerusalem…”
He smiled at me. “I was slain before the foundation of the world. And even before the foundation of the world, you were already chosen in me. Because I redeemed you from the curse of the Law by becoming the curse for you, my daughter.”
His eyes twinkled.
“But there is more. Your old self was crucified with me.”
With him. What seemed impossible suddenly made sense, because I had experienced it all in my dream. I—the old me who had eaten the fruit—had died with the innocent lamb, Yeshua.
He grinned at Saba. “And there is even more. You were raised with me, and are now seated in the heavenly realm in me.”
Saba’s attention was fixed on this mystery.
“How is this possible?” he asked.
“It is no longer even you who live, but I who live in you. For you to live now is me.”
“Then…” I was grasping for truth, and it rose from within me. “I am no longer Maviah?”
His brow arched. “Are you?”
“We are in this world but not of it,” Saba said with wonder. “Like you.”
“Like me,” Yeshua said. “Because of me. In me. I am in the Father and the Father is in me. In the same way, you are in me, and I am in you.”
His words sank into my mind, but they made no sense.
“How can I be in you and at the same time, you be in me?” I asked. “How can milk be in a bowl and the bowl be in the milk at once?”
“In the same way you are risen and seated in the heavenly realm even now. This truth is revealed to infants but hidden from the wise and the intelligent,” he said, tapping his temple. “Instead”—he put his hand on his heart—“may the eyes of your heart be enlightened to know.”
He lifted his hand, finger raised.
“Then you will know that I have given you the glory that the Father gave me, so that you may be one even as we are one.”
Even as…In the same way…
Yeshua used his finger to demonstrate, pointing to himself and to me. “I in you, and you in me. As I said, Maviah, for you to live now is me. In this the world will know that the Father sent me and loves them even as he loves me.”
His proposition staggered me. He was saying that I had been crucified with him and been raised with him and was even now seated in the heavenly realm, I in him and he in me, in the same way he was in the Father and the Father in him. Like a bowl of milk in which the two were one.
That for me to live now was him so that I could love even as he loved.
As him? Was I then his body?
The voice I’d heard from heaven near Jerusalem echoed again in my mind. I have glorified my name. He’d glorified his identity by making man in his likeness. Like him. But then he said more. I will glorify my name again. By remaking me in Yeshua’s identity. The Father restored me to his likeness through Yeshua.
Now restored, I shared in the Father’s identity and he shared in mine. This is surely what it meant to believe in his name—to join with his identity.
“When the Spirit of Truth comes you will know that I am in you and you are in me. Only through the Spirit can this be known,” Yeshua said. “Only then can you love as I love. Only then will you know that it is no longer you who live, but I who live in you. That in me you are a new creature, that old things have passed away, that all things have become new.” He paused. “Would you hear more?”
“Yes,” both Saba and I said as one, drinking in his truth.
“As such you have already been made complete. Is there any more completeness that can be added to what is complete? There is therefore no condemnation for you. You are now clothed in me.”
He was feeding us with news too good for the common ear. And yet he was alive, in the flesh, so it was true. All of it.
Yeshua spread his arms wide, lifted his smile, and cried to the sky. “Oh what great love the Father has lavished on you that you should be called the son and daughter of God!”
He pointed to us. “Do you hear me, my friends? He has sent forth my Spirit into your hearts crying, ‘Abba. Father!’”
He lowered his arm, eyes fired with zeal and wonder. My pulse was pounding in my ears. I was taken back to the dream of Eden. A smile as wide as his was fixed upon my face.
He paced now, thrilled with his own news.
“The kingdom of God isn’t coming with signs to be seen, here or there, because the kingdom of God is already here and within you. And now all of creation groans inwardly for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed.”
We stood rooted to that ground, unable to speak in the wake of such earth-shattering good news. This is how and why we would ask anything in his name and see it be done. This is how and why we would move mountains and find perfect peace in the midst of the storm.
This is how we would turn our cheek to the evil man and return love to any enemy.
And yet…And yet we were still here, on the sand, dressed in cloth…
“You see, Maviah,” he said, smiling at me. “You see how the accuser already whispers, demanding to know how you can be clothed in me if you stand there clothed in a tunic. Yes?”
I felt exposed, but without shame, because I only wanted to know how to reconcile this truth with my flesh and bone.
“Have hope,” he said. “Have faith even when this isn’t apparent to you. Now you see through a glass dimly, but then you will see face-to-face. Now you know in part, but then you will know fully, just as you have been fully known.”
Saba sank to one knee and looked up at Yeshua. “I saw all of this in my dream, master. I saw how you came as the light into all darkness and undid the fall of the first Adam by taking him to the grave and rising in glory. I saw how I rose with you and am now in you even as you are in me, as one.”
He took a breath.
“And yet I find myself in this body walking this earth. Tell us, then…How can we walk this earth free of fear while being the sons and daughters of the Father?”
This was the question that had battered both of us. But now he offered us a soft chuckle.
“Yes…Yes, this is the question, Saba. You would move the mountain without fear and walk on troubled waters and see peace in the storm as the sons and daughters of the Father—on earth as in heaven. You would walk this path that so few find, much less follow, and find joy even in your suffering.”
Saba blinked. “Yes.”
Yeshua gave him a single nod and spoke with utter resolve.
“Then have this mind in yourselves that was also in me, who, although existing in the form of God, I emptied myself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Then must I too take up the cross? Must I too empty myself?
And which self? The one clothed in him or the one clothed in a tunic?
“You know already,” he said very quie
tly, looking directly into my eyes. “Deny yourself.”
My old self, I thought.
“How can you see who you truly are when planks of offense blind you? How can you see that you are clothed in me when you clothe yourself in a world that masters you? You cannot serve two masters.”
Like a thunderbolt, the truth hit me. A soft hum filled my mind as that truth took voice.
The only way to identify with myself as a new creation was to surrender all other identities.
My breathing stalled. But of course! How many different ways and times had he said as much? This was Stephen’s obsession as well.
My judgment of myself and others, my offense, my grievances, even against an enemy who persecuted me—all of these were the knowledge of good and evil consumed by the woman in my dream. All of these were like planks in my eye that blinded me from seeing who I was in Yeshua.
In truth, I was safe already in the Father’s arms, complete and without need of anything this world might offer to protect or please me. All these things had nothing to do with who I was—they were only gifts for me. But if I put my faith in them, I would suffer when they failed me, as they must.
I’d known much of this two years ago as one who followed him, but grievance had blinded me to it, so I had forgotten what to surrender.
I had taken on my old way of thinking.
So now I would surrender again. Not to appease a god made in man’s image in order to be accepted by him, but so I could see who I was. I would surrender all that blocked my awareness of who I truly was. I would surrender my old identity to become aware of my new self.
Even as I thought these things, Saba marveled over them.
“And so we must surrender our identity with the whole world—even as body and self—in order to see who we truly are while yet in this world,” he said.
In the Way of Yeshua, I was not a mother. I only played the role of mother in this life.
In his Way, I wasn’t even a body. I was only living in a body that would soon return to dust. Yet I had turned my life on earth, even my relationship with my son, into a god that mastered me.
So then, my path in this life was to surrender all that I thought I was to find and experience who I truly, already was.
