| Today is a longer section from Alison - again good, challenging stuff. Let me try to unpack this difficult notion a little. If God can raise someone from the dead in the middle of human history, the very fact reveals that death, which up till this point had marked human history as simply inevitable, part of what it is to be a human being, is not inevitable. That is, death is itself not simply a biological reality, but a human cultural reality marking all perception and a human cultural reality that is capable of being altered. this it seems to me is the decisive point at which any pre-Christian notion of sin and the Christian understanding must differ. The drastic nature of sin is revealed as something which has so inflected human culture that death is a human reality, and not simply a biological one, one which decisively marks all human culture. This nature of sin as related to death is simultaneously revealed as something which need not be. It is not that God can, of course, forgive all our sins, but then there is also death which is just there. It becomes clear that God is not only capable of forgiving us for such things as we might have done, but the shape of his forgiveness stretches further than that, into what we are: we are humans tied into the human reality of death. We need no longer be. I wrote in the margin: death's structures do not rule us. We are tied to the reality of death - but we no long need be. One of the strongest witnesses I can remember was the story told me during my seminary years. A young man who had been in South Africa drew a verbal picture of the line of confrontation between the South African security forces with their dogs on leashes - and unarmed South Africans. Like scenes in the civil rights days in the U.S., the ones without weapons really had no chance at all against the forces of power that claimed to rule the day. And yet, the South Africans put to voice -in song- the reality that was really present among them as they sang "you have no power." To a passing onlooker, those were not rational comments. To people who understand the power of resurrection and what God has offered us for the living of these days when death seems to rule, the obvious reality are the words of the song. We are the forgiveness that is the power to make a witness to the creative power of our god even as the powers of death appear to have the last word. Connection: I know I can make this a part of my thinking - can I make it a part of my being. Big step - necessary step. Lord of the Resurrection, you make us your own. We are people of resurrection hope even as the day attempts to confuse us. Keep us facing the new day in your name. Amen. |
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