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)

Luke 17:5-10

How is it that ‘faith’ has come to mean believing something unwarranted, as though faith is intellectual acceptance of a proposition with no proof? This kind of view tends toward seeing faith as irrational. But faith is not groundless. Faith might look at the world differently than those without faith, but that doesn’t make faith groundless. I find Christian faith more rational than atheism. Not only does faith allow me to put reality together differently, it also allows me to have a greater, broader, and deeper view of reality. Faith, in the best sense of the word, is entirely rational. In my opinion, those who think otherwise have shortened their reality.

The other strange thing that has happened to faith is its reduction down to intellectual assent. Human intellect is a beautiful thing, and faith includes intellectual assent, but faith is more than intellectual assent. Take today’s reading about faith (the size of a mustard seed). The disciples aren’t asking for an increase in assent of intellectual propositions. Faith includes the mind, but also the heart; and it includes hope, and love, gracefulness, joy, peace, self-restraint, and duty. I think of faith as more like a way of being human: seeking to become the image of Jesus.

Immediately preceding Luke 17:5-10 (verses 1-4) Jesus tells the disciples that there will be interpersonal trouble in their community, so beware.  (vv. 1-3) And, if in this trouble amongst us, another disciple offends us, we can rebuke that person. And if that person repents, we must forgive. Even seven times daily, we must forgive. (vv. 3-4). And it is then, after this teaching from Jesus, that the apostles ask Jesus to increase their faith. Is this a response to the command to forgive rather than an unrelated saying of Jesus on a new topic of teaching? My reaction to the teaching of Jesus about forgiveness is to feel inadequate to the task. So, it is not that far a stretch to think that the disciples are asking for an increase in faith so as to be able to forgive their brothers and sisters in Christ. Faith is more than intellectual assent. It also about having the strength, humility, and grace to forgive consistently.

And what are we to make of Jesus’ response to the request of an increase in faith? “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed …”  Is his response to be read as affirming that, although the disciples’ faith is minute, it is ample to obey his command to forgive? Probably. Or is Jesus agreeing that the disciples don’t have the faith to forgive others as he commands? (They don’t even have faith the size of a mustard seed!) That is, they do indeed need an increase of faith. Possibly. If we read Jesus’ answer this way, it points beyond the disciples’ current lack of faith to a time when they and their faith will transform them and the world around. And that transformation will come via the cross and resurrection of Jesus. 

Either way, the narrative continues in our reading to the teaching about slaves and their master. What should we make of this? It is almost like Jesus is telling his disciples not to be puffed up with pride when their faith is able to do great things. “If you do end up doing extraordinary things through your faith, don’t expect a reward. You are doing what is expected of you.” In other words, faith is not our doing, something we can take credit for and should be rewarded for by God. Faith, even the size of a mustard seed, is a gift, and as a gift we use it as our master directs.

And finally, the narrative continues on with the story of Jesus healing ten lepers. Of the ten, only one returns to give thanks, and he was a Samaritan. There is, perhaps, a thread of meaning appearing in these consecutive chunks in the story of Jesus. It could go something like this:

 

Luke 17:1-3 

Beware of trouble in the community of faith.

 

Luke 17:3-4

 And remember, forgiveness, even excessive forgiveness is the way of discipleship.

 

Luke 17:5-6

The disciples: “We need more faith to do that Jesus!”

 

Luke 17:7-10

 And when our faith does transform and change the world, don’t expect a greater reward as though God owes you something. Faith is a gift, not a possession.

 

Luke 17: 11-19

A better response when we find ourselves with faith, or are the recipients of the transformation of faith, be thankful.

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.

John 12:1-8 Mary, Jesus, and that Perfume

 “As the best thing is love itself, not the benefits which it confers, there must be no censure of its lavishness as disproportionate.” (William Temple, Readings in St John’s Gospel, p. 191.) 

 Imagine your brother has just died and three days later Jesus turns up. Jesus does miracles. “If you had been here he would not have died.” (Jn 11:32) That’s Mary of Bethany. She then goes off to mourn at the tomb. Jesus follows and raises Lazarus from the dead. 

 When Lazarus died, Mary did not fully comprehend the significance of Jesus, and especially, the meaning of his death. She understands that Jesus has the power to perform miracles. She does not yet understand Jesus fully, though. She will witness the miracle of the raising of Lazarus, and then understand the miracle as a sign pointing to the meaning of the death of Jesus.

 Fast-forward to the anointing, and Mary now understands. She has seen Lazarus raised from the dead. Her brother is alive once more. Later, when Jesus is at table in her house she does not come to him to acknowledge the miracle as such. The miracle is a sign of something greater. She now understands the miracle as a sign, and she is the first to come to this understanding of the death of Jesus in the Gospel of John. This is why she anoints Jesus for his death. The miracle brought life where there was only death, and as a sign the raising of Lazarus points to the life-giving death of Jesus. The death of Jesus will bring life, eternal life, and the Spirit welling up in the heart of the believer. (Jn 7:37) Where there is death, now there is life. (Jn 12:23-24) The cross will not have the odour of death, to be imprisoned behind a stone (11:39). Instead, his death will have the aroma of extravagance and life that fills the house and will not be contained. (12:3 and 20:1)

John 12:1-8 is the gateway from the public ministry of Jesus (of signs pointing to the meaning of his death) into the narrative of the Passion, that is, the death and resurrection of Jesus. It can be read profitably with John 11. (See Jn 11:2) This larger chunk (from 11:1 – 12:8) retains a focus on the death of Jesus throughout. It begins with the raising of Lazarus, and continues with the plot to kill Jesus. (11:45-53)  Ironically and unknown to him, the high priest, in justifying the plot to kill Jesus, speaks the truth about the significance of Jesus’ death. (11:50-53) They will kill him to eliminate him, but Jesus will go to his death as the one sent from God to unite all the children of God. And then there is the duplicitous Judas, who will betray Jesus. (12:4-6) 

 Mapped over this focus on the death of Jesus is the movement of Mary from tepid, half-understood faith, to a disciple who comprehends. She anoints Jesus for his burial, having kept the perfume for this day of symbolic burial. (12:7) She has not anointed Jesus as king/messiah (see Mark 14:3-9), but in a similar fashion to the way in which Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet is symbolic of a total cleanse (13:8-10), this anointing speaks of future embalming. (R.H. Lightfoot, St John's Gospel. A Commentary, p. 236)  This anointing is not a symbolic purification of Jesus. Soon, Jesus will symbolically purify his disciples as he washes their feet, but Jesus does not need purification, he will purify others (cf. Hebrews) and is therefore worthy of this great act of extravagance and love.  “She responds to his self-giving love by giving her all, giving herself in a beautiful, foolish and scandalous way.” (Jean Vanier, Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus Through the Gospel of John, p. 206)

In Jesus we see that God is not a monster of our imaginations

When bad things happen it is easy to say something like, "What did I do to deserve this?" Probably nothing in the sense of the question above. God isn't punishing us when bad things happen. Of course, if we play with fire we get burnt, that is true. But that is not the same as saying that God is the author when bad things happen. This is so important. 'The gods' did bad things, just read Greek mythology! God does not. God dies on a cross for us, we did the crucifying, God did the rising. On the cross God judges human sin by being a victim of sin and raising the innocent Jesus from the dead. The risen Jesus sends out his disciples to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins, not vengeance. It would be wildly inconsistent for the Father of the Lord Jesus to then bring disaster down on our heads. 

People can also have a tendency to misinterpret history in a similar way. An earthquake is not God's punishment. We shouldn't impute to God the disaster that follows the earthquake. People seem to have been (and still are) infatuated with end-of-the-world scenarios. Whether divinely inspired or human-induced, people continue to guess the meaning of events and interpret them as coming from a malevolent or angry god (even secularised people have their own versions of this). In the past people have been obsessed with dating 'the end', and dates still figure prominently in all kinds of secular future dooms. Jesus tells us not to misinterpret the events of history. He knew people would say all kinds of things in his name, and make all kinds of claims. So he explicitly says, don't be fooled by false messiahs, and don't see God as the author of disasters. Disasters, whether human-inspired or not, will come, but don't make God out to be a monster. (See Mark 13:1-8) 

The event to correctly interpret is Jesus, his birth, ministry, death, and resurrection. God's response to suffering, evil, and death is not to make more of it. God’s response is to overcome suffering, evil, and death by surrendering to its power. Jesus, born in a stable, crucified and raised, interprets our history. We are loved, and in Christ our future is secure, even if it doesn't feel that way at times.

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.