This week: God as crucifixion. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com [mailto:adebelak@redeemerluth.com].
This one may seem odd. To say that God is an instrument of death - a brutal instrument
- a death row device, may be offensive. And yet, there on that wooden sign of rejection
is God who will never leave us never. God as crucifixion shows just how off the
road of the hatred and violence is the road that moves along God's shalom. God as
crucifixion allows us to see that even at the end - even an end that was a public
sign of rejection and disgrace - God forgives. That is, God exposes the fullness
of God's Reign. If the forces of death are going to put to death God expression
of life and peace and mercy and reconciliation, then those forces will have to
hear God's reply: Forgive them. God as crucifixion is God who never stops calling
us into another life - never stops teaching us - never stops resisting the powers
of the world that cannot stand God's peaceable Reign. There is no magic on that
cross. There is death - rotten, brutal death. God as crucifixion is the power that
holds us up so that we too may face that power of death and offer the dismantling
words of forgiveness. It is there that the power of death becomes impotent.
O God of love and new life, take us right to the end and remain with us for it is
too often that we find ourselves hiding and not coming out to live within your gracious
Reign. Amen.
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