Footprints in the Sand Reimagined

This past February in Nashville, Tennessee I attended a conference where someone asked me if I had ever heard of the Mirror Bible. My answer was "no." Since then I have investigated it and what I have discovered I would like to pass along to you.

Franscois Du Toit of South Africa is the one doing the translation of this project. It is a work in progress but he is willing to publish what he has completed. Daily I read his posts on Facebook. At the time of this writing he is translating the Gospel of John. When I received the first five chapters of John's gospel I focused on a familiar passage for me which is the third chapter and particularly the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus. Here is how he translated verses 2 and 3.

(2) "He (Nicodemus) came to see Jesus under the cover of the night and said to him, 'Rabbi, it is clear for all of us to see that you come from God as a Teacher - the signs you perform are proof that God is with you! No one is able to do these signs you do if they are not in union with God."

(3) Jesus answered him emphatically; "no one would even be able to recognize anything as coming from God's domain unless they are born from above to begin with! The very fact that it is possible to perceive that I am in union with God, as a human being, reveals humanity's genesis from above!"

, This and other passages within this translation, have aided me in beginning what I am calling my "theological deconstruction." The idea that John puts forth is that Jesus is telling Nicodemus that he did not have his beginning on planet earth but that he was loved into existence within the fellowship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If this is saying what I think it is saying you and I were born of the Spirit before we were born of water not the other way around. That would mean that when we were loved into being our appearance on earth did not alter our genesis. Then our salvation in Christ is simply waking up to the reality of our genesis. Even the apostle Paul tells the Greek philosophers, recorded in Acts 17 who had never heard of Jesus, that in Christ we live and move and have our being! Can you just imagine waking up to the spiritual reality that the Christ that is in us is in us by God's doing not our doing? This kind of thinking runs so counter to what I grew up hearing in church but when I saw it for the first time it has forever changed my perspective.

My reimagination regarding the footprints in the sand goes something like this: Seeing one set of prints in the sand now speaks to me of the Jesus who has always walked within me!

Blessings on your Journey!