Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Redeemer Devotions - July 12, 2012

Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions 

From resurrection to sin.

 

What I would suggest is that it is exactly this paradox that is also present in the recasting of sin. The two steps by which the understanding of God was recast are also, simultaneously, steps in the recasting of sin. In the first step it is exactly in the degree to which the understanding of God is separated from death that the fulness of the human nature of death becomes apparent. This is so because there is no longer any divine necessity or fatality about death: whatever death is, God has nothing to do with it. That is to say, it become apparent not only that death is simply as something which just is, but, precisely because of the resurrection of Jesus, it becomes present as something which need not be.

 

Death need no be. Really. Is that where the saints and martyrs of old and of today place their bets. No. It is the reality that has been shared with us as real - in the resurrection of Jesus. God - who claims us and hold us and blesses us and loves us - will have nothing to do with death. The beast - like the monster under the bed - is not real within the scheme of God's creativity. In our storytelling we hear it as a voice on Good Friday when everything is done and the grave is sealed. The voice says to all of us: 'This is not the last word - nor is it the truth. Come and see.'

 

Connection: To often it seems like it is impossible to listen to those words that bid us all to walk pass death's pull. Come and see - wow.

 

O God of life, keep holding onto us as we stammer and stutter and seem broken down by death and sin. Inspire our living through death's illusions.  Amen

 

 

 

 

 

 

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