On the Road to Emmaus » cross

Two Short Prayers for Lent

Richard — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 06:28:34 +0000

J.M.W. Turner, Throwing Overboard the Dying and the Dead

Holy God,
our lives are laid open before you;
rescue us from the chaos of sin
and through the death of your Son
bring us healing and make us whole
in Jesus Christ our Lord
Amen.

Almighty Father,
we languish as lost children in a world forlorn,
finding it hard to trust anything or anyone.
By your tender compassion
open our hearts again to your love,
that we might follow in the way of the cross
and in returning and rest be saved
through Jesus Christ our Lord
Amen.

Do not Weep for Me…

Richard — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 01:45:34 +0000

In his gospel, Luke tells us that as Jesus was on the way to Golgotha, a number of women followed Jesus mourning and wailing for him. Remarkably, he turns to them, saying “do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children” (Lk. 23.28). I find it amazing that as Jesus experiences the greatest amount of pain in his life and indeed in the entire existence of the world, he turns and tells people to not focus on his pain, but rather on their own. For many of us, thinking about our own pain seems to be one of the last things we want to do. For others of us, we can’t even think about our pain because it is so far buried that it is beyond our cognizance. For others, we spend so much time giving to others, helping, serving and ministering to those whom to us seem in dire need, that we have emptied our reservoir of time or emotional energy to consider our own pain. Yet, in the moment of his anguish, at the time when he faced death and separation from his Father, he calls attention to the plight of human suffering – the universal experience of every human being. We spend so much time, energy and anxiety denying, avoiding, suppressing, overlooking and dismissing our pain, yet Jesus seems to find it important in the hour of his death.

The liturgical tradition of the church maintains this undesired nuance of the Good Friday story. It is traditional that following a reading from Isaiah 53 (the suffering servant) or Genesis 22 (Abraham offering Isaac), Psalm 22 is said or sung by the congregation. This psalm, with its opening line “My God, my God why have you forsaken me” is obviously connected to Jesus’ suffering due to his own voicing of these words while hanging on the cross. However, ironically, though alluding to the suffering of the Messiah, the psalm is said by every congregant in the first person. Each person voices to God, “why have you forsaken me.” While of course recalling Jesus’ sufferings, one personally recounts to God and is therein confronted with the anguish, god-forsakenness, confusion and despair of their own existence. This inclusion of the first-person recitation of Psalm 22 prevents us from moving through Good Friday mourning solely for the sufferings of Jesus. “Do not weep for me; weep for yourselves…” In order for Good Friday to mean anything, we must mourn our own pain, we must grieve our own god-forsakenness. We must discover how the words of Psalm 22 are not simply Jesus’ words, but are in fact our own. Indeed, in the chronology of humanity, these words of god-forsakeness were our own lips long before they were on the lips of Jesus. They were words of the universal human plight that Jesus, in his passion, identified with, entered into and experienced fully.

“Do not weep for me; weep for yourselves…” This perspective is crucial for understanding the significance of Jesus’ death. On the cross, he not only paid the penalty for sin, but “surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows...upon him was the chastisement that brought our wholeness and with his stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:4-5). Without griefs and sorrows that are woefully significant, without brokenness that requires wholeness, without wounds that need healing, Jesus death flies high into an abstract world of economic exchanges for the price of sin, far from the aching place within us so desperately needing his presence. On the cross, Jesus drew near to us in our pain and fellowshipped with us in our suffering and continues to extend his wounded hands to embrace us in our brokenness. He knows us, in our pain. He understands us, in our brokenness. He is near us, in our sorrow. He feels together with us, in the place we feel abandoned by all, including even God. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16).

Resurrection and Justification Part 2

Richard — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 08:29:30 +0000

An excerpt from “Saved By His Life” - a new paper I am working on:

Understanding of Paul’s soteriology (doctrine of salvation) has usually focused exclusively or almost exclusively on the crucifixion. In the early church, this was understood primarily in terms of the Messiah’s victory over the powers of darkness, as in Colossians 2:15. In the medieval period, the cross was understood as the satisfaction of the demands of justice, which in the Protestant tradition became the satisfaction of divine wrath. This satisfaction-substitution understanding of soteriology, which continues to be very prevalent in Evangelical Christianity to the present day, creates a strong emphasis on rebellion as humanity’s primary problem and on the forensic and economic metaphors of justification.

When these aspects of Pauline soteriology are emphasized at the expense of the richly multifaceted metaphorical world Paul uses to describe the work of God in The Messiah, the system is unable to deal with many of the Pauline “anomalies” discussed previously. Rather than simply forensic and economic, we see that Paul’s soteriology is cosmic, dramatic, eschatological, apocalyptic, relational and participatory. Theological categorizations (dare we say segregations) of “justification” as being declared righteous and “regeneration” as being made new, have perhaps been advantageous in laying out theological concepts systematically, but not necessarily in understanding a symphonic thinker like Paul. Helpful towards this end is Jurgen Moltmann’s suggestion that justification is regeneration. Furthermore, he suggests that this doctrine of justification must be “eschatologically oriented.” It is often thought that participation in God’s future happens on the basis of our justification when perhaps it is the reverse that is true. Our declaration of righteousness in the present tense is given on the basis of our participation in the eschatological age of righteousness in Christ by the Spirit of him who raised Christ Jesus from the dead. Particularly in the Letter to the Romans, Paul sees justification as, not only the result of the death of Jesus, which affects the individual believer’s experience; but also the result of the resurrection of Jesus, which inaugurates the new age of cosmic redemption, in which individuals, via union with the Messiah, participate in the setting right and making new of all things.

Resurrection and Justification Part 1

Richard — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 08:32:55 +0000

An excerpt from “Saved By His Life” - a new paper I am working on:

Since the Protestant Reformation, “justification by faith” has been the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae—the article by which the church stands or falls. Stressing the significance of this doctrine, Martin Luther once said,

“[Justification is] the chief article of Christian doctrine. To him who understands how great its usefulness and majesty are, everything else will seem slight and turn to nothing. For what is Peter? What is Paul? What is an angel from heaven? What are all creatures in comparison with the article of justification? For if we know this article, we are in the clearest light; if we do not know it, we dwell in the densest darkness. Therefore if you see this article impugned or imperiled, do not hesitate to resist Peter or an angel from heaven; for it cannot be sufficiently extolled.”

Though a significant point of controversy between Catholic and Protestants since the 16th century, in recent years, the meaning of this “chief article” has been a matter of significant discussion even amongst Protestants. What does it mean to be justified? What is the problem that necessitates justification? How is justification achieved? How does it become effective in an individual’s life? What does it accomplish?

An oversimplified and clichéd response, but nevertheless moderately reflective of what a common evangelical believer would profess, might be as follows: The problem necessitating justification is that humans are in rebellion against God as expressed in sin. Because God is righteous, sin by nature provokes the wrath of God, before which, no human can stand. Justification is achieved by Jesus’ substitutionary death on the cross, whereby he bears the wrath of God for us and makes propitiation for us before God. This becomes effective in an individual’s life by repenting of and forsaking one’s rebellion and by believing in God. This accomplishes the forgiveness of one’s sin and acceptance before God, thus enabling one to go to heaven upon death and to spend eternity with God.

This summary, expressed in “gospel” presentations and systematic theologies, broadly and vaguely depicts what is with what is more precisely called the penal-substitutionary model of atonement. When this description of the “what” and “how” of justification is represented as the sole or primary understanding of justification, many peculiarities in Paul are “unearthed” which do not seem to correspond to this logic. Paul seems to have a broader understanding of the problem of the human condition than simply being “rebellion against the honor of God.” He talks about “futile thinking” and “foolish hearts” (Rom. 1:21), disordered passions (Rom. 1:24), lacking “knowledge of God” (Rom. 1:28), being “under a curse” (Gal. 3:10,13), being “in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world” (Gal. 4:3), being dead (Eph. 2:1), being “foreigners and strangers” (Eph. 2:19), and being under the “dominion of darkness” (Col. 1:13). He sees the work of God in the Messiah, not only in court-room images, but also in military, familial, relational, political, biological and architectural images. This work does not simply accomplish forgiveness for us, but through the cross we have been “delivered from the present evil age” (Gal. 1:4), rescued “from the dominion of darkness” and brought into “the kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). Furthermore, several cryptic yet explicit passages describe how Jesus was “raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25) and that we are “saved by his life” (Rom. 5:10).

In such, we are not merely forgiven, but are given participation in a cosmic redemption, which is often the climax of Paul’s discussions of “individual salvation”. In Romans, the “righteousness of God” that is revealed in the gospel ultimately builds to the time when “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). In 2 Corinthians 5, the non-reckoning of sin is intimately linked with the arrival of the New Creation. Paul’s discussion in Ephesians about being “chosen before the foundations of the world,” and “adopted to sonship” in Jesus by whom we have “redemption through his blood” all leads to the eternal purpose of God “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under The Messiah” (Eph. 1:10). In Colossians 1, the purpose of the Messiah’s work on the cross is to “reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

Jesus the Crucified and Resurrected Lord Part 2

Richard — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 08:46:18 +0000

In the last entry, I discussed the “theology of glory” and the “theology of the cross” and my difficulty with both. I also mentioned how I feel that the problem is essentially Christological. How do we relate the cross and the resurrection in the person of Jesus himself?

In verse thirty of Luke 24, the resurrected Jesus sits down with two disciples who as of yet had not recognized that it was Him, who had not received the hope of resurrection that prevails over their present despondency. Luke is well aware here of the continued significance of the breaking of bread in Christian liturgy. It is at this point more than any other that every believer finds entrance into this story. Even if in our own disillusionment we grow accustomed and anesthetized to our own pain, disappointment and despair, we know that when Jesus breaks the bread, that we are the ones on the receiving end.

At the table, the resurrected Jesus enacts the same symbolic actions of the Last Supper and therein reveals himself as the crucified one. The resurrected one shows reveals himself as the crucified one. The crucifixion is not something Jesus has left behind forever in the triumph of life. The Christianity of the resurrected Lord is ever and always faith and trust in the crucified resurrected Lord. Resurrection in and of itself implies death, and for Jesus every-time his resurrection is mentioned, his crucifixion is implied. It is the symbolic reenactment of the crucifixion, which continues on in the liturgical life of the people of God, that the resurrected Lord is recognized and never apart from such is he known. Later on the resurrected Jesus would only be recognized by his disciples as he shows them his hands and feet (cf. Thomas in the Gospel of John). The contradiction of death remains present in every revelation of the resurrected Lord. He opens the eyes of others to himself in his own contradiction of death and life and herein frees us to live in the contradiction of death and life, promised hope and existing reality, that perpetually surrounds us. We do not live in the power of the resurrection by a denial of the deadliness of death, by the suppression of pain, by the avoidance of suffering or by the reframing of disastrous tragedies as an unmixed blessing.

“Through the knowledge of the resurrection of the crucified the contradiction that is always and everywhere perceptible in an unredeemed world, and the sorrow and suffering caused by that world, are taken up into the confidence of hope, while on the other hand hope’s confidence becomes earthly and universal. Any kind of docetic hope which leaves earthly conditions or corporeal existence to the mercy of their own contradictoriness and restricts itself to the Church, to the cultus or to believing inwardness, is therefore a denial of the cross. The hope that is born of the cross and the resurrection transforms the negative, contradictory and torturing aspects of the world into terms of ‘not yet’, and does not suffer them to end in ‘nothing’.” Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope

Thus, the “theology of the cross” and the “theology of glory” become an eschatological dialectic of “already but not yet.” In the present we recognize the presence of suffering, sin and death, as that for which Christ died and rose to defeat and destroy. We do not glorify them as redemptive. The redemption of God is against and away from the realities that mark the present age of sin and death. We suffer under these woeful elements, groaning for the liberation of the earth and partnering with God to bring forth and implement, in the power of the Spirit, that suffusing dawn of the new age that Christ has accomplished and sent bursting forth in his resurrection. The “theology of the cross” and the “theology of glory” cannot look at each other in bewilderment from across a sharp divide. One side cannot berate the other for being overly optimistic and enthusiastic, from which they cannot in turn rise insensitively “from glory to glory” wondering why the rest don’t “get it together.” The cross and the resurrection, though inherently contradictory, with one annihilating the other, must be held together in the life of faith. We must honestly reckon with the painful absence of God in the earth as humanity pines in suffering, while also holding to the hope of new creation declared in the resurrection. From that place we can then move forward with both sensitivity and courage, with tender and valiant hearts proclaiming, embodying and expanding God’s kingdom of freedom, righteousness, justice and life on the earth.

Jesus the Crucified and Resurrected Lord Part 1

Richard — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 08:50:23 +0000

A friend recently asked me whether I align myself more with the “theology of the cross” or the “theology of glory.” Not really understanding what he meant by either of those terms, I asked for a clarification. The “theology of the cross,” as he explained it, is an understanding of our life now, primarily understood in terms of dying to the flesh, to sin, etc. Our lives now are primarily cruciform in shape and our main task is to be conformed to the Messiah in the likeness of His death, while being conformed to the likeness of His resurrection awaits us in the age to come. The “theology of glory,” as he explained it, would emphasize the present tense dimensions of the power of the resurrection in which the cross mostly lies behind us as the once-and-for-all payment for and defeat of sin. Our lives now are primarily to live in the victory of the resurrection and move “from glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18) and “from strength to strength” (Ps. 84:7).

I seem to think that both approaches have shortcomings which if taken to far could quickly become altogether different from that to which the biblical texts witness. The deficiencies of the “theology of glory” are readily recognized by a postmodern society strongly reacting to centuries of oppression, power games and imperialistic rhetoric, in addition to whenever residue of such is seen surfacing in contemporary society. My fear is that a “theology of glory,” which from my (albeit limited) perspective translates to a “praxis of victory” may leave the weak, broken, suffering and afflicted behind, with a momentary wonder as to why they don’t “get it together,” “move on,” “walk in faith,” “live in victory,” etc. As I’ve run into this approach over the years, there seems to be little understanding of human pain, little expression of compassion, and general confusion as to why their instructions do not “fix” people.

While I believe that such a “theology of glory” could in fact be dangerous to the people of God, I do not believe a thorough-going “theology of the cross” leaves us in a much better place. Where all we do is conform to the Messiah’s death, there seems to be little or no expectation of or room for the startling newness of what Christ has already accomplished. The dramatic thrust of New Testament eschatology, where the future of God’s righteousness and justice rushes forward in the justification of the people of God becomes little more than the “forgiveness of sin” conceived in abstract categories. The justification of life in the Messiah is “not merely a gift that has been made manifest, but means also the power of the Giver which is at work in the life of the believer.” Justification, far from being mere relief to our guilt-anxiety complexes, is the beginning of return from humanity’s long exile of sin and death. In this dynamic work of God, we know can indeed “walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:5) because “if anyone is the Messiah, the New Creation has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17). The future of God for the world has rushed forward into the present by Jesus the Messiah and is not to be interpreted merely in judicial or moralistic terms.

My fear is that a “theology of the cross” may too readily reconcile with sin, death, suffering and injustice, understanding it to be part of being conformed to the cross, while inadvertently being a shield from the deeper pain of wrestling with the contradictions between what God has promised and present reality as it exists and more difficult still, who God is as He says in His word and who we believe in by faith, and what present reality as it exists shows us God to be like. Far from accepting suffering and death the woman or man “who is justified begins to suffer under the contradiction of this world with which he [sic] has a bodily solidarity, for he must in obedience seek the divine righteousness in his body, on earth and in all creatures” (Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, p. 206). In light of the cross and the resurrection, our suffering is not an acceptance of all things that are, but a suffering in and against the realities of the fallen world in anticipation of God’s righteousness covering the earth when He comes.

Paul says in Romans 3:21, “But NOW…the righteousness of God has been made manifest,” that is God’s faithfulness to his covenant promises, the righteousness of God that will set all things right in the age to come is made manifest NOW. The “but now” indicates the presence of the future even in the midst what by all other indicators is still “the present evil age” (cf. Gal 1:4). This echoes what he said earlier in the letter to the Romans, that he is not ashamed of the gospel (see earlier entry “the Gospel of God” for clarification as to what I mean by this term) – why? – because it is in itself the power of God that brings salvation. The gospel, the declaration that Jesus is the crucified and resurrected Lord of the world, in itself, is the dynamic power that brings salvation—not security for my soul to float off to heaven when I die—but the restoration of all things, righteousness, peace, joy. life and freedom on the earth in fellowship with God when He comes here to reign forever. The proclamation is the power that brings those realities into the present tense, not in wishful thinking but in the sense that we can truly say “the reign (kingdom) of God is in your midst (Luke 17:21).

What I think may be coming out in what I am saying, is that, in my opinion, the problem with the theology and praxis of “glory” and “the cross” are at heart Christological. How do the crucifixion and resurrection relate, not only in our personal lives, but in the person of Jesus himself? To this question I will proceed in my next entry.

The Gospel of God

Richard — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 09:01:27 +0000

In Romans 1, Paul describes himself as being “set apart for the gospel of God.” What is the gospel? Today the word “gospel” has several different meanings in various contexts. Sometimes it is “used to denote a particular sort of religious meeting (a ‘gospel rally’), and as a metaphor for utterly reliable information (‘gospel truth’).” In a strict sense it is commonly understood as the “order of salvation.” It is an explanation of how one obtains salvation, a description of the means through which one personally appropriates the redemptive work of Christ. In frequent usage, one “Admits they are a sinner, Believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and gave His life for their sin and Confesses that He is Lord of their life, giving everything to Him.”

Nevertheless, however one understands “the gospel” we must stop and ask what Paul meant when he used the word, what he sought to communicate under the inspiration of the Spirit, rather than assume the connotative meaning we have in our specific cultural and sub-cultural context. In Romans 16:25 Paul says it is “the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ.” Rather than being the “steps of salvation,” or a new way to order our personal spirituality, the Gospel is news about something that has happened, specifically the redemption God has accomplished in Jesus.

The Greco-Roman understanding of gospel (Gk. euangellion), was the announcement of a great military victory by an emperor beginning a new era of peace. When such happened, the emperor would send messengers (evangelists) to proclaim their reign. The Roman gospel was “Caesar is Lord.” The Christian gospel, rather than “you can be forgiven” is “Jesus is Lord” (Romans 1:4). In being raised from the dead, Jesus has triumphed over the powers of darkness and death (Col 2:15) and is designated as the Lord of the world. Jesus however, is far from being a tyrant like the Caesars and Herods of their day or the Hitlers and Stahlins of our own. Rather Jesus is the crucified one, who offered his life unto death in passionate self-giving love. He is also the resurrected one, having defeated the powers of death in his own life and for all those who give him allegiance. The cross and the resurrection radically reorient our understanding of lordship and authority. That Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not truly is great news. He will come in tender love to us, he will deal with our shortcomings in deep compassion and will heal our brokenness with his resurrection life.

The Surrender of the Son

Richard — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 09:02:51 +0000

In Romans 8:32, Paul says that “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” This phrase “gave him up” means to deliver, hand over, surrender or betray. Very strong language. I believe that this verse gets to the heart of the crucifixion event. We often think of Jesus marching, yes with anguish, but nevertheless resolutely up the hill carrying his cross. But what was going on in his heart? How did Jesus experience the cross? This verse lets us in on something we can only barely peer into. Jesus experienced the cross as being delivered up, surrendered or betrayed by the Father he called abba — The one He knew in intimate closeness forever in eternity past. The passion of Jesus was not the physical torment, but the alienation Jesus felt in his separation from the Father. It was the anguish of love beyond our comprehension. This very place is where Jesus draws near to us and meets us in the pain of alienated existence on earth. Jesus knows the plight of God-forsakeness. He is well acquainted with suffering the loss of the most profound love. Where we feel most isolated and alone, Jesus knows us well.

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