Last Saturday I had the privilege of facilitating a discussion on church leadership for four Pentecostal pastors near the town of Cradock. Our primary text was the parable of the sower and the seed (Mark 4:3-9). In my own preparation for the session, I noted especially the description of the seed. The seed, which Jesus later tells the disciples is the word, "falls" to four environments. Three of those environments are not conducive to "bearing fruit" (4:7,8); the seed is eaten by birds in one; scorched by the sun in another; choked by thorns in a third. Only in a fourth does it find "good soil" in which it yields "thirty, sixty, a hundredfold" (4:8). Yet whether to the good or to the bad, the seed "fell". I suggested that the "falling" of the word described the life of Jesus himself, the Word of God which came down from heaven to dwell among mortals. Such a falling was a "humbling", an obedience to the love of God even to death on the cross (Php 2:8). As the seed was eaten, burned, and choked, so the Son was crucified. And just as Jesus humbled himself, so leaders in the church are called to humble themselves whether the environment is "favorable or unfavorable" (2 Tim 4:2).
In response, one pastor shared a story from his work in the correctional services of South Africa (most pastors we know are bi-vocational). He said that he was talking to an inmate who said that you "can't be soft or people are just going to walk right over you." The pastor then shared with us that, while he was contemplating this inmate's advice, "I remembered what it says in the Bible, that 'he was led like a sheep to the slaughter', that he did not even 'open his mouth'" (see Isa 53:7; Acts 8:32). The pastor believes that this is the way for leaders in the way of Jesus.
It is important to acknowledge the predicament of people suffering injustice and those whose vulnerability is exposed in a place like prison. It is important to remember that calls to bear abuse without a word can sound like an affirmation of injustice in the ears of those who bear the brunt of that injustice. It is also important to remember, however, that if leaders did abide by the humility of Jesus, our world would not suffer the injustice it now does. In spite of its circumstances, the world needs disciples who will take up the cross after Jesus, whose lives will point the world back to the self-giving love for which it was created.
-Joe
Showing posts with label cross. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cross. Show all posts
Friday, May 4, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
the creative cross
I preached twice last weekend, once on Saturday and on Easter Sunday. This year, deciding to stick with the gospel in the lectionary, I chose the passion-resurrection narrative from Mark. In this post, I’ll share some things I learned from the crucifixion of Jesus in Mark 15:25-39. In the next post, I’ll share about the resurrection narrative, Mark 16:1-8.
Mark 15:25-39 encompasses the time that Jesus actually spent on the cross. The text begins with a reference to time: “It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him” (v. 25). It follows through with references to time, tracking Jesus’ last hours in this way. So we read that at “noon, darkness came over the whole land” (v. 33). Moreover, this darkness lasted “until three in the afternoon” (v. 33). Finally, three o’clock gets another mention: “At three o’clock Jesus cried out . . .” (v. 34). There may be multiple reasons for tracking the death of Jesus in terms of time, but one possibility hit me for the first time in my years of hearing and reading this story. If Jesus’ dying on the cross was from 9 am to 3 pm, then Jesus hung there for six hours. This invites a comparison with other biblical “sixes”, most notably, the number of “days” God took to create “the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1; 2:1). Along these lines we might also remember how Mark has chosen to frame his entire gospel, that is, with explicit reference to the story of Jesus being like the story of creation.
“This is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1:1).
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth . . .” (Gen 1:1).
Consequently, it is not impossible that Mark is making the claim that Jesus’ death is something of a labor, a work, of creation again, or new creation. Just as for six days God, through God’s brooding spirit and enlightening Word (Gen 1:2,3), ordered a world, so Jesus, through his breath and with his voice (see 15:34, 38) gave that world a new beginning.
How does Jesus’ breath, that is, his spirit, and his voice, that is, his word, constitute for us a new beginning?
This question leads us to the heart of the text. For 15:25-39 revolves around the speech of Jesus, and specifically the speech of Jesus in contrast to the other speeches uttered at the cross. Indeed, whereas those who look on while Jesus is crucified speak, derisively, about Jesus, Jesus directs himself only to the Eternal Spirit. The only words upon his lips pertain to God, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (15:34). Of course, in saying so, Jesus was also speaking God’s Word (Psalm 22). This sets Jesus apart from the other human characters in the story. They spend these six hours harassing a dying person, ridiculing his claims to kingship (15:32) and priesthood, one with authority over the temple (15:29). Their words also assume the failure of his status as prophet, since his hanging on the cross in the face of the temple’s persistence negates the truth of his words. In fact, however, the age of the temple is quickly passing—and much sooner than anyone at the cross could have feared. With Jesus’ last breath and loud cry, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (15:38). Thus for the followers of Jesus thereafter, the curtain that marked entrance into the very presence of God (“the holy of holies”) would truly be “his flesh”, his body, that which was crucified (see Heb 10:19-20). He himself, and no place in particular, would be the means by which, through whom, we worship and live. All of this he effected because of his faithfulness to his loving Father—because of the steadfastness of his word even to his dying breath. “When he was abused he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly” (1 Pet 2:23). He might have entrusted himself to someone else or to some other means. Indeed, the mockers also believe, in spite of his confession to God, that Jesus is calling Elijah for help (15:35). But as it stands, Jesus, with no derision toward his fellows, commits his life, his death, into the hands of God.
In this way, Jesus is our model in suffering for others even as his unstinting perseverance in love reveals that something much more than a human was inhabiting his flesh. God was in Christ reconciling us to himself, not counting our trespasses against us (2 Cor 5:19). And that is why those six hours on the cross were for us the work that made creation new.
-Joe
Mark 15:25-39 encompasses the time that Jesus actually spent on the cross. The text begins with a reference to time: “It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him” (v. 25). It follows through with references to time, tracking Jesus’ last hours in this way. So we read that at “noon, darkness came over the whole land” (v. 33). Moreover, this darkness lasted “until three in the afternoon” (v. 33). Finally, three o’clock gets another mention: “At three o’clock Jesus cried out . . .” (v. 34). There may be multiple reasons for tracking the death of Jesus in terms of time, but one possibility hit me for the first time in my years of hearing and reading this story. If Jesus’ dying on the cross was from 9 am to 3 pm, then Jesus hung there for six hours. This invites a comparison with other biblical “sixes”, most notably, the number of “days” God took to create “the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1; 2:1). Along these lines we might also remember how Mark has chosen to frame his entire gospel, that is, with explicit reference to the story of Jesus being like the story of creation.
“This is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1:1).
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth . . .” (Gen 1:1).
Consequently, it is not impossible that Mark is making the claim that Jesus’ death is something of a labor, a work, of creation again, or new creation. Just as for six days God, through God’s brooding spirit and enlightening Word (Gen 1:2,3), ordered a world, so Jesus, through his breath and with his voice (see 15:34, 38) gave that world a new beginning.
How does Jesus’ breath, that is, his spirit, and his voice, that is, his word, constitute for us a new beginning?
This question leads us to the heart of the text. For 15:25-39 revolves around the speech of Jesus, and specifically the speech of Jesus in contrast to the other speeches uttered at the cross. Indeed, whereas those who look on while Jesus is crucified speak, derisively, about Jesus, Jesus directs himself only to the Eternal Spirit. The only words upon his lips pertain to God, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (15:34). Of course, in saying so, Jesus was also speaking God’s Word (Psalm 22). This sets Jesus apart from the other human characters in the story. They spend these six hours harassing a dying person, ridiculing his claims to kingship (15:32) and priesthood, one with authority over the temple (15:29). Their words also assume the failure of his status as prophet, since his hanging on the cross in the face of the temple’s persistence negates the truth of his words. In fact, however, the age of the temple is quickly passing—and much sooner than anyone at the cross could have feared. With Jesus’ last breath and loud cry, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (15:38). Thus for the followers of Jesus thereafter, the curtain that marked entrance into the very presence of God (“the holy of holies”) would truly be “his flesh”, his body, that which was crucified (see Heb 10:19-20). He himself, and no place in particular, would be the means by which, through whom, we worship and live. All of this he effected because of his faithfulness to his loving Father—because of the steadfastness of his word even to his dying breath. “When he was abused he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly” (1 Pet 2:23). He might have entrusted himself to someone else or to some other means. Indeed, the mockers also believe, in spite of his confession to God, that Jesus is calling Elijah for help (15:35). But as it stands, Jesus, with no derision toward his fellows, commits his life, his death, into the hands of God.
In this way, Jesus is our model in suffering for others even as his unstinting perseverance in love reveals that something much more than a human was inhabiting his flesh. God was in Christ reconciling us to himself, not counting our trespasses against us (2 Cor 5:19). And that is why those six hours on the cross were for us the work that made creation new.
-Joe
Monday, November 29, 2010
as the head, so the body
The Christ hymn of the book of Colossians, 1:15-20, claims, once at the beginning and once at the end, that the “beloved Son” (1:13) is so close to “the Father” (1:12) that he is with the Father one God. First, in v. 15, it claims that the Son “is the image of the invisible God”; second, in v. 19, it claims that in the Son, “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” These twin statements about the identity of God the Son are complemented by twin statements about the activity of God the Son as Creator and Savior. First, “in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him” (v. 16); second, “through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven” (v. 20). Obviously, the work of the Son in creation and salvation in this second pair of statements is emphasized by the language of “all things”—first, the Son is the one through whom “all things” were created; second, the Son is the one through whom “all things” were reconciled to God. Moreover, in both cases, “all things” include that which is “in heaven and on earth” (v. 16, 20). In short, therefore, as reflected in this hymn, the early Christians claimed that Christ Jesus, the Son of the Father, one God from “before all things” (v. 17), is the Creator and Savior of the universe (or whatever is the biggest possible designation for “all things”).
Alongside these lofty claims, however, are two claims “from below.” That is, if the Son is God, the Invisible One, he is also simply “the head of the body, the church” (v. 18), the visible one. God, who is Spirit, who has no body in the form of God’s creation, is nonetheless, in Christ, the “head of the body, the church”, made up of many human members. A second claim “from below” is more shocking: the One in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” is the same One through whom God “was pleased to reconcile to himself all things . . . by making peace through the blood of his cross” (v. 19-20). God, the eternal one, “before all things,” Creator not created, became in Christ the mortal one, beneath all things, rejected, crucified—“on the cross.” God, “before all things”, is “pleased” to work in no other way than “through the cross,” through God’s giving of God’s self to the world in creation and redemption. God, though “before all things,” is not a God who stands far off from all things, but enters into their condition in order to redeem them. God is pleased to dwell in the flesh, and to be glorified in it.
And how will God be glorified in the flesh?
If the dual claims “from above”—that the Son is God who creates and redeems all things—are related—then so too the claims “from below”—“the head of the body, the church” reconciles all things to God “by making peace through the blood of his cross” (vv. 18, 20). As the church proclaims in word and deed—in true worship—the identity and activity of the Son, it becomes like its “head.” The church that truly sings of its head will become like its head. The church that claims the identity of its head must take up the activity of its head, “making peace”—even at the cost of its own life, “through the blood of his cross.”
-Joe
Thursday, February 25, 2010
prophetic loneliness
I have an excess of material in my heart and mind from studying in preparation for teaching a lesson on "the prophets" for Bethany Bible School earlier this month. I gave a shortened version of what I did at BBS for our Tuesday evening fellowship group this week. The last two Sundays at Mandela Park I preached on the experience of two different prophets, Elijah and Isaiah. In the case of Elijah I focused on his showdown with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18). In the case of Isaiah I found myself preaching on his call vision of the Lord in chapter 6.
Perhaps the unifying theme of the stories of Elijah and Isaiah is their loneliness. As people called to stand for their God, to speak his words to a rebellious people, they experience widespread, nearly total, rejection.
"To be a prophet is to be alone"--this is how I put it.
It is, therefore, precisely in their loneliness that the prophets embody the faithfulness that God intends for all his people. Standing for God, the prophets can no more rely for support on a people who have rejected God. The only thing, the only one, left for the prophet is the One. The prophet's support has been reduced to God. The prophet's only dependence is God. The prophet thus is privileged to know in his or her own person or very being that which is fundamentally true: that God is the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of the universe. "There is no other", as God put it through Isaiah (Isa. 45:5).
One of the biggest dangers for my noble faith tradition, the Anabaptist, is mistaking the God who holds our life for the human community. Our language sometimes suggests that the community of the church is God. "We discern together," we say, "in the gathered community of believers". We speak as if this in itself is a safeguard against sin and the running amok of injustice, a balance of powers of sorts not unlike the set-up of the democracy in the land in which I have heard these words (America, the land of my earthly citizenship). We forget, however, that the early Anabaptists from whom we have inherited were not so much in their beginning an established faith community as they were a coming together of convicted individuals rebelling each in his own sphere against the rebellion of the established church. The Anabaptists were first and foremost lonely individuals, rejected at large by the culture in which they were born, eventually coming together to form an alternative community in the world. In the land of my birth, that alternative community is no longer alternative; it is dominant. The community has triumphed over the individual alone before her God.
The irony of all this is that the health of the community is dependent upon the holy loneliness of every one of its members. Every person needs to face that place in which they are rejected, in which the only one they have to go to is God. Each person needs to confront that one nagging fear, the avoidance of which has become his dependence, his security, his god. Only then, having found himself alone, does one discover that he is not alone. He is with his God. She is with her God.
In this light the cross of Jesus is the witness of prophetic loneliness par excellence. The crucifixion is the final cycle of prophetic loneliness opening up to holy communion. Jesus experiences on the cross that which he experienced numerous times on the way to the cross. Alone with the tempter in the desert, eventually finding strength in the Word of God. Deserted by companions in Gethsemane, persevering in prayer to his "Abba". Finally, on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" ends in "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Mk. 15:34; Lk. 23:46). The final experience of human loneliness is God's fullest embrace. Loneliness and communion are two sides of the same coin in the life of God.
The prophet knows that life, and he is desperate for others to know what he knows.
-Joe
Perhaps the unifying theme of the stories of Elijah and Isaiah is their loneliness. As people called to stand for their God, to speak his words to a rebellious people, they experience widespread, nearly total, rejection.
"To be a prophet is to be alone"--this is how I put it.
It is, therefore, precisely in their loneliness that the prophets embody the faithfulness that God intends for all his people. Standing for God, the prophets can no more rely for support on a people who have rejected God. The only thing, the only one, left for the prophet is the One. The prophet's support has been reduced to God. The prophet's only dependence is God. The prophet thus is privileged to know in his or her own person or very being that which is fundamentally true: that God is the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of the universe. "There is no other", as God put it through Isaiah (Isa. 45:5).
One of the biggest dangers for my noble faith tradition, the Anabaptist, is mistaking the God who holds our life for the human community. Our language sometimes suggests that the community of the church is God. "We discern together," we say, "in the gathered community of believers". We speak as if this in itself is a safeguard against sin and the running amok of injustice, a balance of powers of sorts not unlike the set-up of the democracy in the land in which I have heard these words (America, the land of my earthly citizenship). We forget, however, that the early Anabaptists from whom we have inherited were not so much in their beginning an established faith community as they were a coming together of convicted individuals rebelling each in his own sphere against the rebellion of the established church. The Anabaptists were first and foremost lonely individuals, rejected at large by the culture in which they were born, eventually coming together to form an alternative community in the world. In the land of my birth, that alternative community is no longer alternative; it is dominant. The community has triumphed over the individual alone before her God.
The irony of all this is that the health of the community is dependent upon the holy loneliness of every one of its members. Every person needs to face that place in which they are rejected, in which the only one they have to go to is God. Each person needs to confront that one nagging fear, the avoidance of which has become his dependence, his security, his god. Only then, having found himself alone, does one discover that he is not alone. He is with his God. She is with her God.
In this light the cross of Jesus is the witness of prophetic loneliness par excellence. The crucifixion is the final cycle of prophetic loneliness opening up to holy communion. Jesus experiences on the cross that which he experienced numerous times on the way to the cross. Alone with the tempter in the desert, eventually finding strength in the Word of God. Deserted by companions in Gethsemane, persevering in prayer to his "Abba". Finally, on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" ends in "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Mk. 15:34; Lk. 23:46). The final experience of human loneliness is God's fullest embrace. Loneliness and communion are two sides of the same coin in the life of God.
The prophet knows that life, and he is desperate for others to know what he knows.
-Joe
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
there's peace in the blood
At the heart of Ephesians 2:11-22, we find two parallel statements which express agency.
A divided humanity, whom the text calls "the circumcised" and "the uncircumcised", the "near" and the "far", and "aliens" and "citizens", has become one "by the blood of Christ." This "one new humanity in place of the two" was likewise united "through the cross." "By the blood" and "through the cross" are the synonymous means from which the text makes its central claim: "hostility"--that which divided humanity--has been "broken down" or "put to death", the end result being "peace."
It seems indeed a peculiar thing that "the blood" and "the cross" would break down hostility and make peace, for it is precisely that problematic, divisive hostility that finds substantial expression in the shed blood of a Roman death instrument, the cross. In what sense, then, are the blood and the cross peace?
They are so, according to the text, because of whose they are. The cross is not Rome's, and the blood is not specifically that which was shed; the blood is Christ's, the one who "himself is our peace", who has made the two one "in his flesh", who has "put to death hostility through the cross". The text does not say that the cross has put to death hostility; it says that "he has put to death that hostility" by means of the cross.
So what is the difference?
As we were studying this text together last May, I was led toward this distinction between the cross and the blood as hostility and the cross and the blood as peace. The students again were looking for repetitions in the text, the same method we had used to find the meaning in Genesis 19:1-14 (see previous entries). Quite naturally, then, we came to "hostility" and "peace."
"How does the text say the hostility was broken down?" I asked the students.
Eventually, it came to the answers posited above: "by the blood of Christ" and "through the cross."
The large, mud church hall where we were meeting in a rural area outside Lusikisiki was supported by wooden beams from the floor to the ceiling. I approached the beam nearest me.
Having turned my back on the students, I began with my right hand to pound my left into the wood. "Does this blood make peace?" I asked.
Heads nodded affirmatively around the room.
"Really?", I said.
Facing the students, I leaned my back against the beam, arms outstretched. Again I made the hammering motion while maintaining my position against the beam. "Or is it this blood?"
Murmurs of growing recognition scattered among the people.
"How can this be peace?" I said, returning to the pounding action. "Is this not hostility? Is this not murder?"
In a sudden burst of conviction, I remembered the language of the text. "Hostility is far and peace is near, and the two have no part one in the other."
I exhaled.
"But this blood," I said, returning to the outstretched posture and wiping the palms of my hands, "this blood is peace."
"At the same time that Jesus' enemies are taking his blood, he's giving them his. At the same time they're cursing him, he's blessing them. At the same time they're hating him, he's loving them. 'Bawo Baxolele', 'Father forgive them.' "
Seemingly every Sunday, the small, Pentecostal church with which we often worship sings "lona linamandla igazi lemvana", "the blood of the lamb has power." Or, even more emphatic were the words we heard there just last week. Igazi likaYesu, asoze la phela amandla, "the blood of Jesus will never lose its power."
Why will the blood of Jesus never lose its power? The first answer, of course, is the peace Jesus maintained on the cross in face of hostility's cruelest test. John was right in his first letter when he declared that "the blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin." Yet before that blood could become for us healing balm, it itself had to withstand our greatest evil--the murder of the cross--precisely because the evil from which we must be cleansed is ours. Our blood, contaminated and shed in the spirit of hostility, had itself to be cleansed by the peace in the blood itself infused with the life of the Spirit. That, of course, is the work that was truly "finished" in Jesus' dying breath.
Yet it does not explain how the power in his blood gets from his cross--one moment in time--to us--in every time and place. To receive his peace, we will need to know that the "flesh in which he has made us one", from which poured out his blood, life, and Spirit, has indeed been raised to the "right hand of Power." And to us he says, "Touch me and see, a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." Upon us he also breathes, saying, "Peace be with you, receive the Holy Spirit."
Yes, surely, he is more than us: "the first human being became a living being, the last human being became a life-giving Spirit." Yet his difference does not negate our (us with him) fundamental unity. "For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being." And again, "since the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things . . .. For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham."
Because he is both us and more, he can help us. Because his blood is both ours and the Spirit's, it can turn our hostility to peace.
But how specifically do we receive his blood? I suppose it has something to do with asking, seeking, knocking. And going. Which will include preaching. And listening. And water. And teaching. And obeying "all that he has commanded." Which includes remembering. In bread. And wine. Or juice, depending.
More to come.
-Joe
Texts referred to or quoted in this entry: Eph. 2:11-22; Lk. 23:34; 1 Jn. 1:7; Mk 14:62; Lk 24:39; Jn. 20:19-23; 1 Cor. 15:45,21; Heb. 2:14-16; Mt. 7:7, 28:19-20; 1 Cor 11:23-26
A divided humanity, whom the text calls "the circumcised" and "the uncircumcised", the "near" and the "far", and "aliens" and "citizens", has become one "by the blood of Christ." This "one new humanity in place of the two" was likewise united "through the cross." "By the blood" and "through the cross" are the synonymous means from which the text makes its central claim: "hostility"--that which divided humanity--has been "broken down" or "put to death", the end result being "peace."
It seems indeed a peculiar thing that "the blood" and "the cross" would break down hostility and make peace, for it is precisely that problematic, divisive hostility that finds substantial expression in the shed blood of a Roman death instrument, the cross. In what sense, then, are the blood and the cross peace?
They are so, according to the text, because of whose they are. The cross is not Rome's, and the blood is not specifically that which was shed; the blood is Christ's, the one who "himself is our peace", who has made the two one "in his flesh", who has "put to death hostility through the cross". The text does not say that the cross has put to death hostility; it says that "he has put to death that hostility" by means of the cross.
So what is the difference?
As we were studying this text together last May, I was led toward this distinction between the cross and the blood as hostility and the cross and the blood as peace. The students again were looking for repetitions in the text, the same method we had used to find the meaning in Genesis 19:1-14 (see previous entries). Quite naturally, then, we came to "hostility" and "peace."
"How does the text say the hostility was broken down?" I asked the students.
Eventually, it came to the answers posited above: "by the blood of Christ" and "through the cross."
The large, mud church hall where we were meeting in a rural area outside Lusikisiki was supported by wooden beams from the floor to the ceiling. I approached the beam nearest me.
Having turned my back on the students, I began with my right hand to pound my left into the wood. "Does this blood make peace?" I asked.
Heads nodded affirmatively around the room.
"Really?", I said.
Facing the students, I leaned my back against the beam, arms outstretched. Again I made the hammering motion while maintaining my position against the beam. "Or is it this blood?"
Murmurs of growing recognition scattered among the people.
"How can this be peace?" I said, returning to the pounding action. "Is this not hostility? Is this not murder?"
In a sudden burst of conviction, I remembered the language of the text. "Hostility is far and peace is near, and the two have no part one in the other."
I exhaled.
"But this blood," I said, returning to the outstretched posture and wiping the palms of my hands, "this blood is peace."
"At the same time that Jesus' enemies are taking his blood, he's giving them his. At the same time they're cursing him, he's blessing them. At the same time they're hating him, he's loving them. 'Bawo Baxolele', 'Father forgive them.' "
Seemingly every Sunday, the small, Pentecostal church with which we often worship sings "lona linamandla igazi lemvana", "the blood of the lamb has power." Or, even more emphatic were the words we heard there just last week. Igazi likaYesu, asoze la phela amandla, "the blood of Jesus will never lose its power."
Why will the blood of Jesus never lose its power? The first answer, of course, is the peace Jesus maintained on the cross in face of hostility's cruelest test. John was right in his first letter when he declared that "the blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin." Yet before that blood could become for us healing balm, it itself had to withstand our greatest evil--the murder of the cross--precisely because the evil from which we must be cleansed is ours. Our blood, contaminated and shed in the spirit of hostility, had itself to be cleansed by the peace in the blood itself infused with the life of the Spirit. That, of course, is the work that was truly "finished" in Jesus' dying breath.
Yet it does not explain how the power in his blood gets from his cross--one moment in time--to us--in every time and place. To receive his peace, we will need to know that the "flesh in which he has made us one", from which poured out his blood, life, and Spirit, has indeed been raised to the "right hand of Power." And to us he says, "Touch me and see, a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." Upon us he also breathes, saying, "Peace be with you, receive the Holy Spirit."
Yes, surely, he is more than us: "the first human being became a living being, the last human being became a life-giving Spirit." Yet his difference does not negate our (us with him) fundamental unity. "For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being." And again, "since the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things . . .. For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham."
Because he is both us and more, he can help us. Because his blood is both ours and the Spirit's, it can turn our hostility to peace.
But how specifically do we receive his blood? I suppose it has something to do with asking, seeking, knocking. And going. Which will include preaching. And listening. And water. And teaching. And obeying "all that he has commanded." Which includes remembering. In bread. And wine. Or juice, depending.
More to come.
-Joe
Texts referred to or quoted in this entry: Eph. 2:11-22; Lk. 23:34; 1 Jn. 1:7; Mk 14:62; Lk 24:39; Jn. 20:19-23; 1 Cor. 15:45,21; Heb. 2:14-16; Mt. 7:7, 28:19-20; 1 Cor 11:23-26
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