From William C. Placher’s “Narratives of a Vulnerable God”
In obediently surrendering his freedom, Jesus becomes more and more identified with God, who has complete freedom, and in that freedom takes all the risks of vulnerability. The pattern of the story thus shows…both something about being human and something about God. In this story Jesus shows what it is to be most human, most like what a human being is supposed to be, living in full obedience to God. Such obedience turns out to mean the truest kind of freedom, in which one has chosen the life that meaningfully fulfills one’s destiny. And in this story God is most God, for in coming vulnerably into creation God is not giving up the characteristics of divinity but most fully manifesting them. God is not essentially impassible and omnipotent, so that divine self-revelation in the vulnerable Jesus would be utterly paradoxical, but God is fundamentally of all…the one who loves freedom, the one whose essence these stories reveals.
It is so vital to the story of Jesus to see that our God is utterly available to us. The God “unknown” and “distant” is now so very near that we see God in the same condition of our humanity. God’s freedom to be with us – to become broken and lost with us – shows us a God that will be within the depth of our days to stand with us and lead us through whatever may try to oppress us. Rather than the God far away, God comes so close – freely with us to reveal who God really is. In many ways, our coming closer to one another is part of the life of God’s children…free to be present in all our humanity with and for others.
Connection: What is the destiny of this day for you? What is it that will reveal you most fully as a unique child of God as that identity is made know in and through the story of Jesus?
By you grace, O God, you choose to walk with us and you invite us to see your glory through the common life of this day. Pull us into that glorious life where we are free to be vulnerable and, in that, whole. Amen.
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