Falling in Love With God on Good Friday

When love meets sin, the cross is the result. But when love meets sin, the opportunity to fall in love is offered to us. This is why it isn’t so strange to say Good Friday. And not so strange for the cross (of Jesus) to become the symbol of God’s love. And for churches to have crosses in and on their buildings. The cross of Jesus is self-sacrificing love for us. There is no remainder. Jesus, out of love for us, endures the cross for our good. And because Jesus is a victim of what he saves us from – sin - we are loved at even this low point of crucifying the Son of God. Literally or metaphorically crucifying each other is a low point and does not earn anything but condemnation. But God’s love doesn’t just hold at this point; God seeks us out at our lowest point of failure and saves us. (We are saved by the death of Jesus, the low point of human sin.) 

 In John’s Gospel, the opposite of sin is faith. Faith that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son for us. Faith is how we fall in love. And when we fall in love with God because of the cross of Jesus, we are on the path of faith. Continuing down the path of faith will bring more to this initial falling in love (for example, hope), but what is added along the journey will never be contrary to the initial conversion to God’s love. To have faith in Jesus is to be overwhelmed with love. God’s love for us, a love that goes so far as to be sent into the world of sin and be cruelly tortured, crucified, and killed. To have faith is to know that we are loved as we are (even if it seems unbelievable), and to grow deeper into that knowledge and love. God loves you and has poured that love into your heart. Think about that. God’s love for you has been poured into your heart so that you might come to know the depth of God’s love for you. (Romans 5:5) And more than this, God gave the Son for us, as we are, so that we can become more than we are. And if there are times when that might seem unbelievable, and times you can’t see God’s love for you, then look to the cross. And fall in love with God’s love again. 

 Simultaneously, to have faith in God’s love crucified is also to see God’s love for all people. To fall in love with the cross is to be on a journey of opening our hearts in love toward others. God loves me and seeks me out even while still a sinner? Yes. This changes us. Being loved transforms the human heart. (See Ezekiel 36:26) To love God and Jesus is to love all those whom they love. As St John says: 

Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. (1John 4:11-12)

Maundy Thursday Love

 He loved his own who were in the world, and he loved them to the end. (John 13:1) 

 Jesus died for one reason, without remainder. He died ‘for us.” For no other reason. He loves God and us, and died out of love. Think of the washing of the feet at the Last Supper. Jesus washes the feet of the disciples – the action of a slave - not for his benefit but as an act of service, indicating in this symbolic action the meaning of his life, death, and resurrection. Jesus receives no personal benefit from the cross. It is a gift for us. But we shouldn’t misunderstand this. Often, when people do something without receiving any personal benefit, they are less committed than they would be if they had. That’s not Jesus. His death on the cross is entirely for our benefit, and he is utterly committed to this path. If, in some fictional world, Jesus were suddenly offered a personal benefit to go to the cross, there would be no unused commitment, love or heart in Jesus to put into carrying the cross to qualify to receive the benefit. Jesus is 100% committed in love for us and love for God when he goes to the cross. Jesus goes to the cross willingly as an expression of his love for God and us. The cross is love in crucified flesh. 

We see this time and again in the Gospels. His ministry is defined by love. Three in particular come to mind: love of God, love of neighbour, and love of enemies. He eats and drinks with outcasts (but anyone really), he forgives sins, heals the sick, raises the dead, brings freedom to the burdened. And at the Last Supper, Jesus says he is giving his blood to bring the New Covenant. (See Jeremiah 31:31-34) The New Covenant is for us. (Matthew 26:26-29) 

 And then on the cross, still giving his all for us, he says, “Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) And, finally, when his life is expired in love, “It is finished.” (John 19:30) Jesus gives everything out of love, even to the point of death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-11) And this is the beautiful thing about self-giving love. What is our response? To give our lives to Christ, to him who died for us. As St Paul says,  

And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.” (2Corinthians 5:15) 

 And it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

The Triple Revelation of the Cross (Mustard Seeds Poetry 5)

 Poetry by Ann Nadge, inspired by the post (April 17, 2025), The Cross of Jesus: A Reflection on Love, Judgement and Obedience (Part 2).

 

“Behold humanity!". This is what 

we do to each other, and this is what 

we have made ourselves into. Our fall is revealed in the flesh 

of one of us, Jesus Christ. 

 

This is a double revelation: 

God so loved the world 

that he sent his only Son. 

In Christ God suffers and dies 

at the hands of sinners 

to show us who and what we are. 

There is a third revelation: 

In the crucified Jesus, who dies for love, 

we see our true humanity, 

distorted humanity in his wounds. 

His wounds (the price of love) 

reveal to us the love that is 

our true calling. We are invited 

to look at the cross, the revelation 

of love and our need of God's healing love, 

to be set on the path of faith. 

 

 Look and live. We see what we are 

in the broken body of Jesus; 

we see on the cross the true 

humanity to which we are called - 

A faithful humanity, obedient 

to the loving will of God 

for the sake of others.

The Death of Jesus (Mustard Seeds Poetry 3)

 Ann Nadge, a poet I know, has distilled some of the posts from this blog into poetry. She has used my words verbatim, captured the essence of the post, and moulded it into a poet's vision. This is the third of more to be published over the course of the year.

This poem consists of verbatim fragments from an original post on 31 March 2021.

 

 The Death of Jesus

At the last supper Jesus gives 

a portion of bread to his betrayer- 

Is this an act of forgiveness, 

an offering of his body? 

One can't help feel the poignancy 

the moment, Jesus' world collapsing 

and he offers the bread to Judas, 

makes his way to Gethsemane. 

 

He needs his friends as his world darkens. 

They fall asleep. 

 

"Take this cup from me ..." 

The God who has been responsive, silent. 

 

Where will this end? 

On the cross, with loud crying, lament, 

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" 

I feel our common humanity- 

know something of anguish, suffering.

The Wounds of Jesus are Not an Embarrassment

 The wounds of the Risen One are neither an embarrassment nor inconvenient.  The cross was not a mistake that needed Plan B to correct. If the wounds of Jesus were an embarrassment or an inconvenience we would not have an account of a Christophany of the Wounded-Risen One.  It is almost like Jesus wants his disciples to see his wounds.

In popular culture the afterlife is portrayed in ethereal terms with at least the world of suffering and death a past memory, or perhaps even ignored. Think of Dumbledore and Harry P speaking near the end of the movie series in a railway station of sorts. Like an escape from reality, a dualism with the unreal afterlife wholly disconnected from the evil world from which he has escaped. Not so the resurrected Jesus. He is no bodyless spirit or vision. The resurrection takes all that we are, and our histories, into God's future and transforms us. Resurrection has nail holes.

We should be rattled. Imagine seeing a dead man who is so visibly alive as the risen Christ yet has all the wounds of death. The kind of wounds that kill. It isn't enough to say that such a person is alive. It would be better to say that a dead man is alive. And that doesn't make any sense, or at least not in the way we ordinarily think of life and death. It wasn't just a matter of God reversing the death of Jesus, as though death was banished. It is more like God gave life to a dead man who remains dead, except that death has lost its sting, its meaning, and its power. Life and death, as two sides of the one coin as we experience life and death, no longer mean what we think they mean. Christ is risen!

I like that little bit in Colossians where we are told God made a public example of the rulers and authorities, triumphing over them in the cross. (2:15) When the risen Jesus flashes his wounds to his disciples (John 20:20; Luke 24:39-40) he is making a public example of his victory over death and the power of death. Not the public example of a Roman general in a Triumph. Indeed, the evidence of the triumph of God in Christ is exactly what Rome would see as signs of defeat. But, because Christ is raised (not just alive again instead of being dead), death has lost its sting, death has lost its meaning and power, the wounds of Christ are his Triumph.

The Hand and Feet of Jesus

 Jesus' hands and feet were not just anyone's hands and feet, but the signs of his real bodily presence. They were the hands and feet of Jesus marked with the wounds of his crucifixion. It is of great spiritual importance that Jesus made himself known to his disciples by showing them his wounded body. The resurrection has not taken his wounds away but, rather, they had become part of his glory. They had become glorified wounds. (Henri Nouwen)

A Longer Reflection on Forgiveness

 

Forgiveness is important,  as is its lack. But before we talk about forgiveness there are useful spiritual disciplines to mention first. 

So, let us say that we believe/feel we have been wronged. Perhaps we are angry. Here is a discipline that, under some but not all circumstances, may help as we head to forgiveness (or not), and grow into the full stature of Christ.

1. So, who is the person who has done this? I mean really, who are they? Questions to ask: I wonder how they have come to be this person? What have they been through, how have they grown past the difficulties of their life, whether these difficulties are self-inflicted or inherited? Continue with these and other explorations about the person and the incident(s), and what has led to this alienation between you that you are experiencing. Call this increasing our sympathy or empathy for the one you believe has wronged you.

2. How about me? Where am I in all of this? Think about the lead up to 'the incident(s)'. What can I learn about myself? Am I ready to 'die' to whatever has brought me to be so angry or offended? (E.g. pride, self-importance, or perhaps my anger reveals a part of me that I am actually uncomfortable with, a discomfort that has led to my angry reaction and feelings.) This is not a call to attack oneself, but rather, an invitation to self-understanding, or you could call it sympathy for our own particularity as human beings.

I find that this discipline leads to insight about myself and others, and can let me give up some of what is driving my alienation from the other person. Sometimes, because of this discipline, I can forget and move on. 

Not all feelings, not all actions, not every alienation from someone, will yield to the above discipline. Sometimes there is a remainder: I understand something of why they did this, and yet ...

 Indeed, plenty of human history will never and should never yield to the above discipline. No matter how much we understand what lays behind or led up to the incident(s), there is no simple forgetting, no easy moving on as though it 'doesn't matter'. (The discipline above can lead us, in some situations, to say exactly that, "It doesn't matter." And this can be real and genuine. To say "It doesn't matter" is to say I've grown, and it - the incident, action, and the alienation I felt - doesn't matter like it did formerly.)

But when there is a remainder, or when understanding, sympathy, empathy, do not cover the sin, we have entered the realm of forgiveness.

The first thing to say about forgiveness must be its asymmetry. Forgiveness is not deserved, it is not earned, it is not a reciprocal coming down off our mutual high-horses and meeting somewhere in the middle. It is full of grace, if you like. 

Forgiveness costs us. We venture into alienation, and bringing reconciliation where there is human alienation is neither easy nor cheap. Grace is always costly.

Jesus is, if you like, God's spiritual discipline as outlined above. In Jesus God becomes one of us, one with the human condition. God knows human sin (in need of forgiveness) from the inside, as a victim of it, to the point of betrayal, desertion, torture and execution. God knows us and our sin. God understands us and sin. But the Incarnation (God becoming human in Jesus), death, and resurrection of Jesus are more than (to use my metaphor above) a spiritual discipline. In Jesus God overcomes the alienation of sin. This is God and God's way: God becoming what is not God (in this case sin, godforsakenness, and alienation, see 2Corinthians 5:21 and Mark 15:34) and in this complete embrace of what is not divine bringing reconciliation with what was formerly alienated (us). 

And then there is the resurrection. Of course, we should not separate the two, cross and resurrection. The forgiveness that is brought about through God's embrace of godforsakenness (see Mark 15:34) is the resurrected Jesus. The forgiving victim of sin offers forgiveness and sends his disciples out to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

There is freedom in this. God's freedom in embracing human sin, and in this freedom carrying our freedom (misused in sin) so that we can grow into our true freedom as children of God.

And there is grace in all this. Undeserved forgiveness (there is no other kind) that is utterly asymmetrical. Forgiveness is always ahead of us; in Christ forgiveness never catches up to us, but we catch up to forgiveness. That is, even though we seek forgiveness through repentance, and hear the word of grace and absolution after, it is forgiveness that arrived first at that place, and we were drawn to it.

Sinner: Changing How We see God, Ourselves, and Others.

Someone recently commented that, in the Victorian Stage 4 lockdown,  churches and brothels fall into the same category of activity and therefore restriction. Someone else quipped that both accept sinners! (Here.)I like that. Although it is a bit too easy to say compared to its practice. Contemporary society, allegedly, has moved beyond 'sinner' and the judgementalism that follows. However, using the word 'sinner' isn't necessarily judgemental. If you think it is necessarily judgemental then read on because I suggest you might still be stuck in the tight little circle of judgementalism that you are trying to leave. Scared that it might be true, we reject it. Protesting too much, so to speak.

These last few Sundays we have been reading the stories from Genesis about Abraham and Sarah and their descendants. The stories are about their schemes to make God's promise to them come true. (For the original promise, reiterated over and over throughout Genesis, see Genesis 12:1-3.) God doesn't need their schemes to bring about the promise, although God is free to use the schemes. (For example God doesn't need the scheming that brings about Abraham's firstborn son, Ishmael. See Genesis 17:15-22. But God uses the scheming of Joseph's brothers to ensure the survival of the people of Israel during the great famine. See Genesis 37-46:7.) The stories show us a God who is accommodating of all kinds of human shenanigans and failures. The fulfilment of God's promise to Abraham and Sarah, fulfilled in Jesus, is no cause for human pride. God's plan is not accomplished by human (self-)righteousness. It is God who brings about what God promises. But this is more than God just putting a brave face on a hidden resentment toward us. This is not the God of projected human self-righteousness and self-criticism. This is the God who can teach us how to relate to human failure (sin), both our own and the inadequacy and failure of others. This is what God is really like, through and through. God is with the people in promise and fulfilment, in covenant and law, with them, carrying them, loving them, making space for them, and ultimately saving us.

We see this in Jesus, intensely in his crucifixion and resurrection. God with us. Victim of human sin, literally carrying the instrument (symbol) of human sin, a cross. And from within the experience of bearing that sin bringing life and forgiveness. It is this God, with us (Matt 1:22-23; 28:16-20) truly walking our human life with us in the flesh: the life and death of Jesus, the God who makes space for sinners because God is love, it is this God to whom we relate as sinners. But that is not how most people think of the term 'sinner'. James Alison (here) says our language has a different tone than what people might think. (Words like God commands, desire, will, law. And, as I am saying here, a word like sinner.)

But not just our language changes. We are changed. "Sinner" isn't a term to demean, but when uttered in the Christian context, by a God who knows us and loves us, who truly empathises with us in Jesus, sinner becomes a term of grace. Sinner: I don't need to be perfect, I don't need to save myself, I am loved, known even in my human failure. There is nowhere left to fall away from God in Christ. 

The Martyrdom of Stephen

A short reflection on the martyrdom of Stephen here.

God's Preferential Option for the Poor?

This past week I had an interesting discussion on two separate occasions about God’s (alleged) preferential option for the poor. That God cares for those neglected in human communities seems straightforward. But God’s preferential option for the poor? In defence of the statement that God prefers the poor proponents cite a vast array of biblical material that does indeed support God’s care for the neglected and ostracised, and pronounces a fearsome judgment on those who fail to care or even notice. But preferential option? Sounds resentful. But to say so is often seen as politically incorrect in the church. And if you do question this new orthodoxy of God's preference, someone will answer that it is easy for a rich person to say that. (‘Rich’ can also be substituted with western/male/white/heterosexual/Christian/tenured priest, etc.) If I were to use the language of ‘preferential option’ (which I haven’t for years), I might say something like ‘God’s preferential option for the innocent (of whatever they are accused) victim’ without in any way dismissing the biblical affirmation of God’s care for the neglected and ostracised. But I don’t use ‘preferential option’ in respect of God because God is beyond that kind of resentment. The (innocent of what they are accused of) victim gains an epistemological opportunity to understand what we – human beings and our communities and history – are, and this wisdom is given to us through the revelation of the cross and resurrection of Jesus.  The innocent victim has an epistemological advantage that can bring with it transformation, particularly shown in repentance and a drive toward reconciliation. Ministry grounded in repentance and reconciliation brings in the wounded and forgotten, the poor and excluded. Without resentment.

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.

The Gospel and Tragedy

Struggling for an Easter Day sermon at this late stage? Or would like a point of reflection  on the death and resurrection of Jesus? Check out this post from David McDougall.

Luke 13:31-35: A Lukan Passion Prediction

The juxtaposition of the metaphors of fox and chook in Luke 13:31-35 is one of the ways in which this passage is laced with Jesus' impending death and resurrection. While commentators pick up the chook metaphor and mention its protective and caring imagery, it strikes me that chooks are fox food, to put it bluntly. Jesus, the prophet who must die in Jerusalem like the prophets before him, will be the chook who gathers, but will accomplish this gathering by being eaten by the fox. (See John 11:49-52.)

In the Australian Anglican lectionary (APBA) this Gospel is paired with Isaiah 55:1-9 for Lent 3C. Those who are hungry are famished not because they have had their faces ground into the dirt (Isaiah 3:15), but because they have sought that which does not satisfy. The Living Water, the True Bread, Christ crucified and raised. A path his disciples follow, life through death, and not just for themselves but for others.

For our Lent study this year we are reading through Rowan Williams' Silence and Honey Cakes. It is a profound little book, using the Desert Fathers and Mothers as exemplars of dying to the false self built up through the self-justifications and obsessions that keep us from our true self in God and our neighbour. Despite surface appearances, the subtlety of their understanding of the frailty of our human nature and the grace that saves, is beautiful. They lived the invitation from Jesus to find life through dying to self and into God. And I know it is so true, but so difficult to live. It is not that we aren't all experts in loss and loss of self. If it were a simple matter of just experiencing loss, I suppose God would not have needed to send Jesus in the first place. But our losses in life alone are not the path to salvation, even though they can theoretically teach us so much. The problem is that we defend against them and feel them as loss only, and then seek to re-establish ourselves on our own terms. It is hard to accept that life comes through giving up, not filling up (Isaiah 55:1-9), surrender not survival. (Lk 13:31-33) We have to be coaxed to accept Jesus' call to life through death, partly when we get tired of fighting the losses, but mostly by being loved into letting them go.

Jesus the Innocent Victim (Lent Study Week 4, 2013)

Jesus the Innocent Victim

Please read Luke 23:32-49 (or segment)

Notes

Troyes (part) altarpiece

1. The passage is drenched in irony. Those who mock Jesus reject him as the messiah and the points of mockery are exactly why he is the messiah.
2. Even to the end Jesus is faithful to his mission in obedience to his Father. He has preached non-retaliation and forgiveness, invited the sinner to experience God’s acceptance through healing and fellowship, and now he prays that the Father will forgive his executioners and those who mock him. (23:34)
3. The mockery reiterates the charge of blasphemy against Jesus and deflates the expectations that his healing ministry encouraged.
4. The innocence/righteousness of Jesus is recognised by two unlikely characters, one of the criminals executed with him and the centurion (Lk 23:47 cf Mk 15:39) presumably in charge of his crucifixion. (See also 23;4, 14-16) The faithful death of Jesus evokes a change of heart amongst some of the onlookers (23:48 cf 18:13) and strengthens the resolve of even a member of the council. (23:50) The unanimity that bound together all those who condemned Jesus is beginning to unravel.

Some Questions

Have you ever discovered you were part of a unanimity of condemnation that was later proved a misjudgment? (That is, the person was innocent of the charges.)

Can you remember how you were persuaded to join in? 

And how was it that you discovered that the charges against the accused were false?

What happened next?

Where was God in all this?

And can you remember a time you were wrongly accused? Where was God in this experience?

Final Thoughts

1. The resurrection is the vindication of Jesus and the sign that those who judged Jesus, and the judgements made about him, were wrong.
   
   
2. Beware joining the unanimous crowd of condemnation! Beware the tight arguments we form in our own heads that justify our condemnation of someone we are in dispute with.
   
   
3. The resurrected Christ, still faithful to the Father, preaches repentance and forgiveness of sins, not retaliation. The disciples are wtinesses to this Jesus.

The Victim Mechanism

Reading Rene Girard, or the Girardian theology of James Alison, is a converting experience. Girard sees the many against the (innocent) victim as the beginning of everything we take for granted as peculiarly human. Culture, religion, language, community, even the formation of the self and self-consciousness. At the beginning of the emergence of the (recognizably) human the violence amongst us from competition was resolved by pointing the finger in blame at an individual. They are the cause of the conflict (this is the lie of the lynchers); expelling or killing that individual will bring peace. And so it did, and still does. Humankind hid from the truth of our persecution of the innocent victim, but the mechanism did bring peace, at least of a sort. We still hide from the lie. All human culture, every individual's sense of self, is predated by our relationship to the innocent victim. There is no way around this primordial murder and its justifying lie. Religion does not escape. Religion arose, according to Girard, as a direct result of the peace brought through the death of the victim. The god(s) owned/accepted the victim, and sometimes the victim would take on royal and divine epithets.

This means that the victim mechanism, with its lie, is embedded in our societies, philosophies, politics, religions, etc. We are born into the lie because the lie is at the beginning of our culture. We are born into the lie because it is the cause of our caregivers self-consciousness. There is no 'self' that can step aside from the victim mechanism and correct the distortion. Original Sin takes on a new meaning in the light of Girard. There is no possibility of a Pelagian self-salvation by trying harder to separate ourselves from the lie within us. The lie is foundational to who we are. Salvation can only come from outside us, from the victim.

Joy and Peace, and More

The presence of Jesus brings joy and peace to those who experience it. But it never brings comfort without also bringing a gift that we cannot bear as it is so shattering to our pride, and without also bringing a costly demand upon our minds and actions. Jesus being with us where we are means our being with him where he is. If Jesus is with you, what is he demanding of you - urgently - in your actions about poverty, or peace, or race, or your neighbour? If Jesus is with you, he will not let you wear blinkers about your relations with your fellows. If Jesus is with you, your life may be turned inside out. (Michael Ramsay)

Domesticating The Crucified III: Making the Cross Our Own

This is going to sound wrong, but it is dangerous to make the cross our own. There is a sense in which it is essential to be united with the crucified Christ: we can reflect on it, mystically enter into it, and physically follow the crucified Christ. But this also has the effect of making the cross less uncomfortable, even when our embrace of it leads us into suffering. We imitate and emulate and participate and the raw shock of the crucified God can dissolve. That God becomes human and is given over completely to powerlessness in the face of evil and is lifted into the finality of death is truly shocking. The desertion of Jesus is abhorrent to religion, our sense of justice and to the image of God that we use to protect us from the rawness of life. The resurrection to new life does not diminish the repugnance of the cross, but makes it even more frightening: life comes through abandonment and the giving over to death. (Not just seeming abandonment.)

In the Line of David?

The Old Testament sets its hope on the emergence of a messiah in the line of King David (See 2Sam 7:1-17; Mk 12:35-37). The New Testament picks this up and sees it fulfilled in Jesus. (E.g. Mk 10:47) Nothing surprising in that is there? David was, after all, designated by God who sees the heart (1Sam 16:7), and made Israel a great nation politically. Except that David was also an adulterer and a murderer. (2Sam 11:1-27) It is easy to forget this when we read in the New Testament of Jesus spoken of in terms of King David. And Matthew's Gospel emphasizes the fact that Jesus is the product of the liaison between David and Bathsheba. (Matthew mentions Bathsheba specifically, whereas virtually all the other entries in the genealogy of Jesus are solely the males. See Matt 1:6b) What are we to make of this? The importance of repentance? (That is, God can make something of a repentant sinner?) Yes, but there is something more profound going on here. God can use sin and sinners for God's own purposes. Think of the cross, a terrible sin, yet the point of salvation. And Jesus seems to prefer sinful humanity in calling disciples. We like to think of the great saints as above reproach, but they didn't think of themselves in such a way, and when we cut through the hagiography we find grace moulding itself around, and sometimes using, continuing failure. And Jesus, as God in the flesh, is incarnated in a real human nature, and is at one with sinners in his crucifixion and death.

Why would God do it this way? Pride and perfection leave less room for God, and perfection can lead us to give the credit to human beings rather than God. Not so the sinner. God uses the weak to shame the strong and their wisdom. God has more space to work a surprising result through the weakness of the human vessel. (1Cor 1:18-31)

The Offense of the Cross

It is too easy to miss the offense of the Jesus story. Especially if it is familiar. In the weekday Eucharist last week we read from Gen 22:1-14, the near-sacrifice of Isaac, and Matt 9:1-8, Jesus healing a man by forgiving his sins. The first reading is offensive. Even though God doesn't let Abraham kill Isaac, Abraham is praised for being willing to do so. Human sacrifice in the Bible is a pagan idolatrous practice. Be offended.

The second reading highlights for us the closeness of Jesus with God. The whole gospel does this right up to the death of Jesus. The cross is the great shock, the offense of the gospel. (1Cor 1:18-25) How could this Jesus, so close to God, given such authority, die the ignoble death of the cross? Sinner? Or perhaps there is no God?

If we know the story we are then tempted to pull the resurrection in. The cross was only temporary and has been reversed by the resurrection. Our faith in God has been restored. (That is, a pre-crucifixion conception of God.) But notice the language of the New Testament in regards the crucifixion of Jesus. It lifts directly the offensive language of Isaac's near sacrifice. Jesus was given up. With the resurrection the first Christians did not wipe away an inexplicable cross as an aberration corrected in resurrection, but embraced it and its odious character, and proclaimed that in this cross salvation was won. And the beginning of a specifically Christian experience and conception of God.

The Irony of 'Liberal' Theology

One of the ironies of the "liberal" wing of the church is that when it theologises it jettisons Christianity's best resources to achieve what it wants! The identity of Jesus is a good example. In reaction to smug and conservative Christianity 'liberal' theology reduces the messianic self-knowledge of Jesus, making him the prophet who delivers the message, rather than the message itself. It appears to me a kind of visceral counter-reaction to the misuse of the titles of Jesus by conservative forces. But retaining the messianic self-consciousness of Jesus radicalizes Jesus, uniting him even more fully with the downtrodden of history and sinners than "liberal" theology's great prophet.

Two examples of what I mean. First, if Jesus is 'Son of God' in a unique way, bringing the presence of God's reign in his very person, indeed, if he is God's very own flesh, then Jesus' option for the poor and sinner is a stinging critique of the forces of death, oppression and ordinary religion. "Liberal" theology emphasises the solidarity of Jesus with the underside of history; retaining his titles radicalises the solidarity we see in his teaching, ministry and death.

Second, 'liberal' theology attempts to maintain the deep shock of the cross to ordinary religion, and emphasise the solidarity of the crucified Jesus with all the crosses of history. Exactly right, except that by retaining the titles of Jesus and his self-conscious knowledge of them the rupture of the cross is deepened not removed. This Jesus, who has relied upon and utterly defined himself in terms of his filial relationship, is abandoned. That's the end of ordinary religion's god.