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Accommodation

A Sermon by Rev. Jong-Ui Lee

“You shall take some of the blood of the bull and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger, and pour all the blood beside the base of the altar. And you shall take all the fat that covers the entrails, the fatty lobe attached to the liver, and the two kidneys and the fat that is on them, and burn on the altar” (Exodus 29:13, 14).

Having a bit of tension and nervousness is always good. While we feel some pressure, we can spend more time and pay more attention to our preparation for performances and tasks. As a result, we can do a better job. Some degree of tension seems necessary to do a better job for our relationship with the Lord though we try to obtain peace. The truth is that His presence is guaranteed. He is always with us regardless of our states. However, there are many degrees and levels at which He can be with us. He can be with us so remotely that we may sense Him vaguely; on the contrary He can be felt closely at some our personal moments. His presence takes place because of His continual accommodation and effort. Our reading this morning make us intrigued with a complicated sacrificing ritual. Yet, in a deeper meaning His instruction on sacrificing represents His accommodation to our external states.

We are very familiar with the Lord. Actually the Lord amazingly endeavors to make Himself familiar with us and to make Himself known to us. He always showed Himself to people in a Human form; He always gave His church the Word where He is described and explained in the literal sense and more clearly in the spiritual sense; and He often sent His prophets who brought His message to people and reminded them of Who He is. When all these efforts failed, He didn’t mind being born on earth to be near to us.

Our Lord is always reaching out us by means of various ways and measures. We are very thankful for His amazing effort. His presence and conjunction require careful accommodation in His part. We can realize the amount of His efforts, considering that our Lord is infinite, but we are finite. Imagine the almost immeasurable gap between the Infinite and the finite. The Heavenly Doctrines for the New Church state, “the Divine Itself is far above the heavens, not only the Divine good itself, but also the Divine truth itself which proceeds immediately from the Divine good. That these are far above heaven, is because in itself the Divine is infinite, and the infinite cannot be conjoined with finite things, thus not with the angels in the heavens, except by the putting on of something finite, and thus by accommodation to reception” (AC 8760:2).

The Lord is shown as the sun in the midst of the spiritual world. This metaphor between the Lord and the sun indicates their same use, which is the source of all life and energy. The natural sun in our solar system is, indeed, the most prominent feature in its size and temperature. The sun’s outer visible layer that is called the photosphere has a temperature of 6,000°C (11,000°F). Solar energy is created deep within the core of the Sun, and this temperature is 15,000,000°C (27,000,000° F).

The Lord accommodates Himself to the spiritual sun. The Divine Itself which immediately encompasses the Lord, constitutes that spiritual sun. He becomes the Sun where His love and goodness is to be Divine fire. From this sun He flows in by means of light and heat into the whole universe, and into all who are there. That heat in its essence is the Lord’s Divine love, and that light in its essence is His Divine wisdom. The Divine good itself is also in itself an infinite flame of ardor, that is, from love, and this flame no angel in heaven can bear, for one would be consumed like a man if the flame of the sun were to touch him without intermediate tempering. In the same way if the light from the flame of the Divine love, which light is Divine truth, were to flow in without abatement from its own fiery splendor, it would blind all who are in heaven (AC 8760:2)

The Lord adapts the light and heat from the sun to the capacity and quality of the recipient angel and man. As the atmosphere conveys the heat and light from our natural sun, by means of the spiritual auras or atmospheres the Lord conveys and transfers them to angels and men. That sun is far off from the angels, as the sun of the natural world is from men, in order that it may be saved from their exposure to the sun (TCR 641). Such careful approach of the Lord to us is represented in His commands about covers and veils in the tabernacle and His comments on cloud. The Lord commanded the Israelites to make veils and covers, saying, “And Aaron [he] shall put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that in on the Testimony, lest he die” (Lev.16:13).

Covers, veils, and clouds are often placed around the Lord, the sun, and holy things when He manifests Himself and His Divinity before the people for the sake of their protection. The Writings teach us that “for the Divine is such that no one can endure it unless he is in a kind of cloud, and thus is accommodated to its reception; for it is like the fire which is in the sun, which if it were to fall naked on anyone, would consume him in a moment” (AC 8816).

Divine light that contains Divine love and goodness is the Lord’s proceeding and immediate extension and is revealed to angels and humans through accommodation. How many degrees are in the Lord’s truth you think? The Lord accommodated His Truth into six different levels of truth. Divine truth in its first and second degrees that proceeds immediately from the Lord is above the angelic understanding. These first two degrees are above any finite comprehension and understanding. They are above the heavens; they are like belts, made radiant by a fiery source, which surround the sun, which is the Lord (AC 7270:2). Perhaps we can compare these to radiant belts around some planets.

From these two levels of radiant belts the Lord’s truth is successively reduced to meet the angels and men’s perception. This is the nature of the consecutive degrees of order down to the heaven nearest to the Lord, which is the third heaven where the innocent and wise live The third degree is the one accommodated to the celestial heaven; the fourth one and the fifth one are accommodated to spiritual and natural heavens. The fifth degree can be perceived in some small extent by people on earth as far as they are enlightened by the Lord. However, the most part of the fifth degree cannot be expressed by human words.

Then the sixth degree is for us who live on earth, and this level of truth becomes the literal sense of the Word (AC 8443). Though the Scripture, since It has been accommodated to our understanding, has some scientific fallacies, confusing statements, and apparent contradictions, It contains all those higher degrees of Divine truth from the Lord and ultimately the Lord Himself. The literal sense serves these inner degrees as the base, container, and foundation, and these inner truths make the literal sense holy.

This external truth certainly has use for us. It brings the simple and children to Him; guides their spiritual growth; and produces some natural goodness from it. These natural truth and goodness, despite of their remoteness from the Lord and His flame and light, are the first step to every Christian. The Lord is present in this stage. His presence and caring are meant by His command to take the blood of a bull and put it on the horn of the altar, and take the fat from the bull. Here blood means natural truth, and fat denotes external goodness (AC 10020). This sacrificing act was commanded by the Lord and was performed as a holy ritual in the Jewish Church because of its spiritual meaning.

The Lord works very hard to reach out us. He reduces His love and truth through various degrees so that angels and human may receive in accordance with their states. However, all these efforts in reaching out, failed because of our sins and wickedness, the Lord reduced Himself to a state where He became the Human-God, and came to the earth. His incarnation to be the Human-God was His accommodation to man to draw us near to Him and to be conjoined with us.

The Heavenly Doctrines teach us three steps in conjunction, which follows in order; accommodation, application, and conjunction. There must be accommodation before there is application; and there must be accommodation and application both together before there is conjunction (TCR 370:3). Accommodation on God’s part was that He became Person; application on God’s part is perpetual so far as man applies himself in return; and so far as this is done, conjunction takes place.

The Lord’s accommodation through several degrees implies that warmer love and brighter truth are available to us, in other words higher conjunction with the Lord. It is the universal Divine law that what flows in from the Lord is variously received with man, namely, in accordance with his quality (AC 5828:3; 6472). He can be closer as much as better we are. The Writings teach us that “For linking is impossible without reciprocity, as is the linking of the active with the passive, if there is no accommodation or application. God alone acts, and man allows himself to be acted on, co-operating to all appearance as if of himself” (TCR 588).

We also need to accommodate our natural man to our internal man. As much as the external man is reduced to obedience under the internal, and faith and charity are implanted; for the external or natural man is the receptacle of truth and good from the internal man. If the receptacle is not accommodated, it does not receive anything which flows in from within; but either rejects, or extinguishes, or stifles it, then there is no regeneration (AC 8351:2).

The Lord’s love is indescribable. Though He is infinite, and we are finite, He is always with us, overcoming enormous disparity, difference, and distance between Him and us. He approaches us in His great effort of accommodation. He, first, accommodates Himself to the spiritual sun, as the natural sun sustains all lives on earth, the Lord sustains all creatures by giving His love, wisdom, and life. He consecutively reduces Himself to affect and enlighten angels and humans so that any simple child, any ignorant person, and even vicious devil in hell could be in the realm of His care and love.

He cools down His flame of love and decreases His dazzling light of truth in order that all angels and people may receive some portion of the Divine in accordance with their spiritual states. For this He made six different degrees of truth to teach whoever to some extent. The Lord’s truth where His goodness lies, can reach those who are completely natural and external. Thus He helps them make something good from their limited understanding of Who the Lord is and what Christian life is.

The Lord accommodates further His religion and Word to those who could not acknowledge and worship Him in the Judaic-Christian context. We read in Conjugial Love, “the whole world, as well Asia with its surrounding islands as Africa and Europe. That all these idolatries might be uprooted, it was brought to pass of the Lord's Divine Providence that there should be inaugurated a new religion accommodated to the genius of the orientals; a religion in which there would be something from both Testaments of the Word, and which would teach that the Lord came into the world and that He was the great Prophet, the wisest of all, and the Son of God. This was done through Mohammed, from whom this religion has its name” (CL 342:3).

Actually accommodating His love and truth is quite a general picture. His accommodation is shown in various areas such as His providence and His Advent. He continually leads and bends our intentions and thoughts toward heaven in every fraction of a moment (DP 202:3, 4). The Infinite Father couldn’t be connected with any angel and human; any wisest angel and any brilliant human because of His infinite and eternal nature. Our loving God reaches out us as much as He can in all His power.

If we step back, He comes forward. If we turn around from Him, He comes to face us. If we fall, He stretches out to help us. While we totally turned away from Him and severed any relationship from Him, He became of Human-God to bring us back to Him. He is always with us wherever we go and while we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Although He reaches out and meet our states, let’s remember our connection with the Lord is reciprocal. We also should accommodate our states and elevate our lives to so that we may see our loving God on high and in depth. We read, “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you” (Gen.28:15). Amen.

Lessons: Exodus 29:10-18; Matthew 28: 11-20; AC 8816