The Reign of God as losing to death. If you have any comments - adebelak@redeemerluth.com . The Reign of God as losing to death is my way of using an idea of James Alison. He writes that Jesus' "losing to death was not done so as to please the Father, but rather so as to get through to us. It is we could not be unhooked from our addiction to death until we were shown that we could live as if it were not." Imagine that, living as death were not. We would not need to fight for our lives. If the powers of death flex their might, we already know that that might need not have power over us. Jesus' life never stopped short of living. He did not back away from the many faces of death - a death that seems to be able to wrap its hands around us and shape our lives. So in the face of that death, Jesus lives. Even when his living appears to be a losing to death on the cross, he is never overcome by death. I find that to be an outrageous way to look at the power of death. It is an upfront statement that says 'go for it death' - 'we are going to keep living even when it appears to the world that death has won the day.' That attitude - that way of looking at life - presents to the world another way of living that is able to embody the Reign of God even as death fouls the air with its attempts to win the day. It cannot win the day. O God of love and new life, it is just not in us to lose - we fight it - we even become it rather than lose to it. Free us from the many ways death is ready to grab us and hold us. Amen. |
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