Here is the '3rd step' in recasting God and sin. I find it to be the essence of who we become as followers of Jesus. God did not raise Jesus from the dead merely to demonstrate his own deathlessness, or rescue Jesus from the middle of the human reality of death as a bodyguard may rescue a beleaguered pop star from the midst of a pressing crowd of fans, to get her away from it all as quickly as possible. The third step in recasting God and the recasting of sin is that God raised up this man who had been killed in this way for us. The victim of human iniquity was raised up as forgiveness; in fact the resurrection was the raising up of the victim as forgiveness. This it was which permitted the recasting of God as love. There is no rescue in the sense that we are able to be saved from the reality of the brokenness around us. We go through it - face it - suffer from its brutality. What is dynamic is the way we move through it. We move through it as ones who forgive. That is, in the image of God. Forgiveness instead of 'pay-backs' or retribution. God is one who forgives - that is God. Therefore, the power that is handed to the victim is the power of the living God - forgiveness. That is the life that death is not able to destroy. Death cannot hold down the love of God - or - I would suggest - the love that is embodied in the merely human ones - like all of us. I think we all might be a bit afraid of such a suggestion as this. It takes God's love so seriously it means the end of what is and the emergence of God's Reign - even now. In some ways, this piece today makes me shake - as in the shaking of a foundation. The shaking is not a breaking, it is a full-body reminder - a reminder that can be experienced right down into the very center of life. Connection: I for one am a bit overwhelmed. This is an unbelievable story and made even more unbelievable because it is our story to live. That, I suppose, is why we keep asking for the Spirit of God to keep coming and pulling us along the way. |
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