Seems like I'm taking this just bit-by-bit. I am. a new addition to Alison's thought on death and resurrection and forgiveness.
It becomes clear that God is not only capable of forgiving us for such things as we might have done, but the shape of (God's) forgiveness stretches further than that, into what we are: we are humans tied into the human reality of death. We need no longer be.
This is an anthropological discovery of unimaginable proportions. At exactly the same moment as God is revealed as quite beyond any human understanding marked by death, entirely gratuitous love, so also it is revealed that the human understanding marked by death is something accidental to being human, not something essential. Here we have the linchpin of any understanding of original sin: that what we are as beings-toward-death is itself something capable of forgiveness. Furthermore we can see that the only way we are able to appreciate our true condition as humans-marked-by-death is precisely as it is revealed to us that that condition is unnecessary.
What could be the most frightening of situations - being humans-marked-by-death - is not necessary. I take that to mean that death and its many faces do not control the next steps in our lives. Easier said than done. And yet, it is a powerful thing to bring to mind. It is even more powerful to bring it into our lives. For at that point, we will be living within the unimaginable freedom of the Good News. This is not like freedom within a country or an ideology - for that kind of freedom always needs to fight off death -even if it means taking on the games of death. Instead, the Good News bring us freedom to be me and you as the Beloved of God - over whom death has no sway. That's freedom.
Connection: I wonder about freedom. In some ways, it becomes something to which we become slaves. That's when freedom has a biased agenda and vision. But freedom within the Good News is life not chained to any power. It is freedom the fullness of image of God alive among us.
No comments:
Post a Comment