Godforsaken? ... Nothing can Separate us ...

This sermon was preached on Good Friday. After the sermon people were invited to come to the altar rails and leave behind the rock of despair and trouble at the foot of the cross. (Everyone was given a small rock at the door on entry.)

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me. (Mark 15:34)

History is full of times where God seems to have deserted humankind. We know times similar to these ourselves. Times of despair, when we are distraught to the point of collapse, without hope, perhaps feeling as though all is lost. Hell on earth. Godforsaken. We all know something of this, some more than others. But whatever we might feel, because of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, it is simply not, finally, true. There is no hell on earth. There is intense suffering and loss, grief beyond what we can carry. Yes. But Christ suffered godforsakenness so that we can never be actually godforsaken ourselves. Yes, there are times of despair where all is lost. From genocide to loss of family, to exile to becoming a refugee; to poverty, illness, death. You name it. All these and more are times of apparent godforsakenness, joyless times of darkness. Hell on earth. (That's what hell is, utter godforsakenness.)

But when Jesus uttered those words he wasn't just having a (really, really, really) bad day. He was stating a theological fact. God, the one he called Abba-Father, the one who defined Jesus' identity and very life, had deserted him, the Son, on the cross. Jesus was without God. His accusers were right. He was without God, rejected. (Gal 3:13) Godforsaken. This is a deep mystery. But to those who know despair it is a message of hope. God went there before us, so we need never be without God. God will not desert us. Trust God.  Jesus underwent utter  godforsakenness - hell - for us. Hell, if defined as utter godforsakenness, no longer has sway over us. For where Christ the Son goes, even as godforsaken, there too goes the reconciling power of God, and the power of resurrection.  The bond of love between Father and Son could not be defeated.

When we feel bereft, when all has been taken from us, it is hard to hear this truth of the Gospel: God has not deserted us. Christ went there before us, and now God is there waiting for us. Nothing now can separate us from the love of God. All else can be taken from us, indeed even life itself, but God will never be absent.

Let that same Spirit infuse us today. This is not the same as wishfully thinking that everything can be as it was. No, this is the Spirit of resurrection, the resurrection of the deserted. The resurrected Jesus still had nail holes in his wrists. But he was raised.

Soon, I will invite you to take hold of that Spirit of resurrection and come forward with your burdens to the foot of the cross. And there lay down the rock of all that burdens you. Leave it there.

Then, later, come up for communion. Communion with the despair of godforsakenness we see in Jesus, but the resurrection also of the downcast and bereft.

Jonah, Jesus and the Freedom of God

The character of Jonah in the Bible embodies the self-mockery and humility that is central to the Jewish-Christian tradition. Jonah, a prophet who flees from God's commission; who then proclaims the message of destruction to the Ninevehites in a less than exuberant manner; and then, when the Ninevehites repent, and God forgives them, Jonah is so fed up that he wants to die! So Jonah goes out of the city to watch what will happen to the city. God makes a nice shady plant to grow up over him to shade him, but then a worm destroys the plant, and a hot east wind arises, such that Jonah once again wishes to die. And then comes the punchline: Jonah is angry about the demise of the shady plant, a plant for which he did not labour or form. And yet, when God is merciful to the inhabitants of Nineveh and does not destroy them, Jonah is angry. Are not the inhabitants of Nineveh worthy of God's mercy? If Jonah wishes the plant not to die, for which he contributed nothing toward, cannot God spare hundreds of thousands of lives of which all are God's creation?

The answer implied is, "Yes, of course." God is free to be merciful. Many think that Jonah was written after the exile, when the remnant returned from exile out of Babylon. This was a time of a hardening, exclusive and separatist relationship betw Israel and all other people. Jonah reminds the reader that God is not the preserve of a single people, but the God of all, able to show mery even to those not deserving of it. (Nineveh was, after all, th capital of Assyria historically, and it was the Assyrians that destroyed and exiled the northern kingdom in the eighth century BC. For prophecy against Nineveh for its crimes, see Nahum, and Zeph 2:13)

Jesus is the fulfilment of the little parable of Jonah. God is free to bring mercy as God so chooses. Jesus is the active source of salvation for all people. It is too easy to become miserly on behalf of God and make Jesus the point of salvation for just the few chosen ones. Just like Jonah, we might struggle to reconcile justice with mercy, but in Jesus this reconciliation occurs without in any way restricting the freedom of God to bring mercy to the undeserving. Jesus is not just the latest or final way for good, faithful people to show that God should favour them; Jesus is the way in which God will save all people. (Rom 5:15-19) Jesus warns people about the possibility of judgment, and severe judgment at that (the sign of Jonah in Lk 11:29-32 is the repentance and salvation of those people no one expected God to be merciful toward in contrast to the hard hearted listeners of Jesus) but continues to seek out those who might otherwise be lost.

Again, however, let us be careful not to b miserly, albeit oh so subtlely. Many will say that those who do not respond to Jesus, after plenty of opportuity and warning, have condemned themselves. And there is good biblical warrant for this view. But again, it becomes miserly. What if God wishes to save even those whose hearts are so hardened that they do not respond? That is surely what the cross, descent into hell and resurrection is about: God going even to the place of godforsakenness and judgment (hell) to bring the reconciling love of God to those who (according to any reasonable prescription of justice) messed up their salvation.

Out task as a church is not to judge who is in or out, but to proclaim and live the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. This is so even when we wonder if the limits of mercy have been reached. Remember, God is not bound by such restrictions in Jesus Christ.

[The picture above is from the catacombs, and is of Jonah being cast out of the boat.]

Contemplating the Descent to Hell

The Free and Unmerited Initiative of God

It is significant that the origins of God's call of Israel are remembered no further back than the call to Abraham and Sarah. God initiates the call to Israel, and this free choice and initiative of God is always the practical, historical expression of what we call, generally, grace. God chooses, God initiates, and the relationship with God never begins with a movement from the side of creation. It is because God initiates that God is free to be surprising and novel in the relationship with creation, and God's response is never determined by human action (particularly failure). Later Israel's election was set in the broader context of the implied covenant of creation and the covenant made to Noah and all creatures. This is why the covenant through Noah precedes the covenant with Abraham. However, it is interesting to note that Israel never took its election to be a specific example of this wider covenant between God and creation. There is evidence in the Scriptures that Israel did understand her election in a broad and universal context, but as the fulfillment of the general, not a particular example of a more universal covenant. Israel's covenant was particular in itself and unique, related to the covenant with Noah, but not just an expression of it. See Hans Urs von Balthasar, Engagement with God, pp. 13-14.

The Freedom of God's Covenant With Israel

In a previous post I mentioned that in the story of Exodus 32 God's action is not determined by human behaviour, particularly human failure. This corresponds to the free initiative of God in choosing Israel in the first place. God chose Israel not because of its power or righteousness, but out of love. (See Deut 7:7-8) And because God's free choice of love was not determined by Israel's standing, to then break the covenant by destroying the people because of their abhorrent failure would be a denial of God's freedom. In the same way that God chose Israel not for any reason inherent in Israel (that is, God's action was not conditional upon certain human behaviour), so too God can, in God's freedom, bring a surprising word of forgiveness into the cul-de-sac of human failure. This foundation of the covenant upon the freedom of God also corresponds with the purpose of God's election: our participation in the freedom of God. (See Rom 8:21)

All of this continues seamlessly in the story of Jesus, particularly his crucifixion. The cross of Jesus is a low point in the history of human failure, but it becomes the means for a new and final word of forgiveness for all.

For Pentecost 22(A)
See Hans Urs von Balthasar, Engagement With God, pp. 13-18.

The Two Great Elephants in the Room of My Life

I remember reading something from Rowan Williams talking about the two great mysteries in our lives, the mystery of suffering and the mystery of love. Love is stronger, and the two are not hermetically sealed from each other. My less poetic version is that there are two great elephants in the room of my life, and there is no point in trying to avoid them. Julian of Norwich saw the two elephants as well and spoke of them. (Although she didn't actually mention elephants in her Revelations!) In this regard, Julian of Norwich, in her Thirteenth Revelation, wonders about the origin of sin, and why God did not prevent it in the first place. (She includes in this word 'sin' everything that is not good.) This famous answer comes to her from the Lord:

Sin is necessary, but all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

The two great mysteries are necessary, but the mystery of love prevails. Julian also sees that while the pain caused by sin is real enough, sin itself "has no substance of reality and cannot be known except through the pain it causes." But she continues to wonder, why this sin and pain? It is in response to this questioning that Julian receives for a second time reassurance from the Lord, spoken to her in a most "tenderly" fashion:

It is true that sin is the cause of all this pain, but all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

She finishes:

Through these words I saw an unfathomable mystery hidden in God which he will make clear to us in heaven. Only then shall we truly know why he allowed sin to come and knowing that, we shall rejoice in him for ever.

Something in me recoils at this. I don't want that answer. But there is no other answer, other than to reject the possibility of God, and fall headlong into despair and nihilism. But the answer works on one's soul, and meditation upon the enormity of the Christ event brings a different perspective. Perhaps, in the face of sin and suffering, it seems that we are on the precipice of losing everything. But in the cross and resurrection of the Word made flesh we are given everything, and then more, much more than my imagination can fathom. Hans Urs von Balthasar said it well when he wrote:

The joy of Easter after all is founded on Christ's dereliction on the Cross and his abandonment in hell. For his abandonment was like the final testing of the unity of the Trinity, which as such is the fullness of joy. Not that the joy of the Divine Persons is an idle, self-indulgent kind of joy that they share in while the creature suffers; their joy penetrates deep into all the world's suffering; they share the experience of its misery, but their joy proves deeper than all sense of abandonment. For God's action on behalf of lost humanity is so final that every reproach levelled against the providential ordering of the world is put to silence. In the New Testament we read that joy is able to permeate not only the extremes of suffering and situations like the abandonment of God by God but that it is also to be found in the face of the hardest demands, the most remorseless rebuke, even that most tragic of all divisions (between Jews and Christians, who stand divided before the Cross). [Emphasis added.]

Solidarity in Sin to Solidarity in Salvation

And thus whoever simply refuses to shut his eyes to the abyss of hatred, despair, and depravity that can be seen in the life of men on earth, and thus who refuses to close himself off from reality, will find it difficult to contrive his own escape from this damnation through a purely individualistic conception of salvation, and to abandon everyone else to the grinding wheels of hell. Just as God so loved the world that he completely handed over his Son for its sake, so too the one whom God has loved will want to save himself only in conjunction with those who have been created with him, and he will not reject the share of penitential suffering that has been given him for the sake of the whole. He will do so in Christian hope, the hope for the salvation of all men, which is permitted to Christians alone. (Hans Urs von Balthasar)

More Than a Feeling

Christianity disappears the moment it allows itself to be dissolved into a transcendental precondition of human self-understanding (Hans Urs von Balthasar)

The Superabundance of Salvation

This is why Paul (Rom 5:15-21) can say that the balance between sin and grace, fear and hope, damnation and redemption, and Adam and Christ has been tilted in the favor of grace, and indeed so much so that (in relation to redemption) the mountain of sin stands before an inconceivable superabundance of redemption: not only have all been doomed to (the first and second) death in Adam, while all have been freed from death in Christ, but the sins of all, which assault the innocent one and culminate in God’s murder, have brought an inexhaustible wealth of absolution down upon all. Thus: ‘God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all.’ (Rom 11:32) Hans Urs von Balthasar

Reciprocal Conversation

Please forgive the dated masculine language, but a quote from the great man:

“Man is God’s partner, and their reciprocal conversation ends with God himself becoming man.” (Hans Urs von Balthasar)

A Joy Deeper Than Misery

Victory, however, it is, and a real victory. The joy of Easter after all is founded on Christ's dereliction on the Cross and his abandonment in hell. For his abandonment was like the final testing of the unity of the Trinity, which as such is the fullness of joy. Not that the joy of the Divine Persons is an idle, self-indulgent kind of joy that they share in while the creature suffers; their joy penetrates deep into all the world's suffering; they share the expereince of its misery, but their joy proves deeper than all sense of abandonment. For God's action on behalf of lost humanity is so final that every reproach levelled against the providential ordering of the world is put to silence. (Hans Urs von Balthasar)

Living Within the Reality of Love

So to know the Holy Spirit is not to have some third object put before the eyes of our theological understanding but to live within the reality of an eternal divine witness to divine life as the gift of 'otherness'. As Father and Son show us that giving as perfect mutual 'investment' of life and love, so the generation of the Spirit constitutes the mutual gift as open to be given again: there is in God also a free, self-forgetting act of pointing to the free mutuality of Father and Son. The divine life is not taken up completely in a mutuality that is inaccessible to what is other than God. (Rowan Williams, discussing the trinitarian theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar.)