Wilson!!!

In the movie, Castaway, starring Tom Hanks, Chuck Noland, played by Hanks, washes up on a deserted island after an airplane crash. Presumed dead back home, Noland manages to survive for four years on his own using nothing more than human determination, a photo of his fiance for motivation and a bloodstained volleyball he names "Wilson" for companionship. Late in the movie, as Noland makes an attempt to escape the island on a man-made raft, he loses "Wilson" to the sea as the ball becomes separated from the raft. Since Noland had grown attached to "Wilson," during his time on the island, the loss of this ball equated to him losing a loved one. Faced with the realization that he is unable to retrieve the ball, Noland screams out "Wilson!" in desperation and frustration. The relationship Noland developed with the volleyball is a good example of why man needs companionship in order to maintain his sanity. However, the plight of Chuck Noland is also an example of how God also desires to have a relationship with mankind.

"The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him... So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman, ' for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." Genesis 2: 18, 21-24

I find it interesting that God, after creating a perfect universe and man in His own image, still said that it was not good for Adam to be alone. Adam was the perfect creation, living in a sinless world, and having the life of God indwelling Him. But, in order for Adam to be "complete" in many aspects, God gave him Eve and they became "one flesh." Two people becoming one flesh is a difficult picture to imagine by human standards. We have seen feeble attempts to capture its meaning in symbols like the ying and the yang. But, even that doesn't capture it correctly. We use a ring to symbolize one flesh when two people get married. The circular pattern of the ring represents the unbreakable bond between husband and wife. All these examples, if we think about it, are representations of the relationship God wants to have with mankind. When God created Adam, He breathed His very life into Adam. Man cannot function properly apart from the life of God indwelling him. However, when Adam sinned, the life of God was removed from him and he died spiritually at that moment.

"Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty." A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." John 19: 28-30

We look at the death of Christ as the greatest act of love in all of history. And we should look at it that way. However, we seem to look at what God did for us, in Christ, strictly from a human perspective. We see it only as God giving us an opportunity to have a relationship with Him by removing the sin barrier that was between us and Him. While that is true we must look at the death of Christ from God's perspective. From the time Adam sinned, and God removed His life from mankind, until Jesus died on the cross, God did not have an opportunity to indwell man in the way in which He did at creation. The sin that separated God from mankind for thousands of years had finally been solved by the death of Christ. Now, God had an opportunity to once again indwell mankind by offering His life to us. Offering His life to us solved the real problem that man has when it comes to our relationship with God. That problem is that we are spiritually dead!

"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" "Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world." John 11: 21-27

The one act of love greater than the death of Jesus Christ was His resurrection from the dead. The good news of the Gospel is that God desired so much to reestablish His relationship with mankind that He did everything Himself in order to make that happen. Just like "Wilson," the volleyball, was dead to Chuck Noland on that island, mankind was dead to God for thousands of years prior to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But, unlike "Wilson" drifting off into the ocean, never again to have a relationship with Noland, God restored Himself to us in order to have a relationship with us that was lost in Adam. That is why the thought of being one flesh carries greater significance. I have heard the relationship between man and God described as "God in the man is indispensable to the life of man." In other words, we cannot function the way God intended us to function without His life indwelling us. God in us completes us. God made Eve so that Adam would not be alone. God made man so that He would not be alone. Now because of our faith in Jesus Christ we never die because we have the life of God restored to us for all eternity. That is a life that will remain in us for all eternity because there is no sin that can cause that life to leave because of the eternal consequences of the cross. Not only have we been restored to God, in Christ, but God has been restored to us. Set adrift in an ocean of sin and death, God has reached out to us in love in order that we can all be one in Christ.