From “The Cross in our Context” by Douglas John Hall
Christianity makes the astonishing claim that God, who is preeminent in the only unqualified sense of that word, for the sake of the creature’s shalom suffered – suffers – the loss precisely of that preeminence. In the words of Reinhold Niebuhr, “The crux of the cross is its revelation of the fact that the final power of God over (humanity) is derived from the self-imposed weakness of his love.” Not incidentally, Niebuhr’s qualifying adjective is tremendously important here: “self-imposed weakness.”
Giving it all up for the sake of another…this does not mean that the least give it up for one more worthy. Actually it does mean that…also. But the power of the story of the cross is that the one who is worth more than anyone can imagine, gives it all up for you…me…the ones considered worth-less than any of us. Then we must add on to that the notion of the suffering and loss is “self imposed.” For you God chooses to risk all things in order to bring to us…a new life here and now and forever. That risk taken for us…shapes the new life in its own form. That shape is traditionally called the Church…so let us be.
Connection: Be the Church today! For you all things are made new and through you all things are made new. Therefore, today is always the most exciting and adventurous time to be alive.
Lord God, lead us through this day by the power of your self-sacrificing love so that such love may come to life in us. Amen.
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