From “The Cross in our Context” by Douglas John Hall
...if Christians confess that the Christ, the divine Son, “suffered,” they cannot turn about and claim that suffering is impossible where God the Father is concerned. So that, for instance, when the author of Philippians declares that the Christ, though, “in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant…humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (2:5f.), this must be taken as an indirect statement about God in the totality of God’s being, and not merely as a statement about Jesus. In other words, the “emptying” or “kenosis” of the incarnation and the cross must be understood to apply to God in God’s indivisibility.
Luther called the death of Jesus on the cross the “crucified God” because on the cross all of God is given up and rejected and a part of all the rejection of the world. God hold nothing back. God holds nothing back in order to be completely with us. God freely enters into such identification for us so that we will never find ourselves outside of the bounds of God’s embrace. Never…not one of us…none of us. We start this day with our God so for us and with us that we are free to be whom we have been created to be. That’s call grace and that is the power for new life.
Connection: Trust the depth of God’s love…and the completeness of that love…once and for all.
Lord empower us to trust your never failing love that embraces us in all things and for all times. Amen
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