In the Wake beneath the Dust and Blood of the Crucified God #progGod

There are a million questions to this question, and I don't think one can even begin to do them justice in the spans of a thousand or two words. For myself, I would consider myself a moderate to conservative evangelical so this is a bit of a brain teaser.

Why crucifixion?

Adam as the one formed from dust (or earthling, as a former prof once explained) is the one for whom the spiral out began. This Adam is from the earth, as a created being, from humble roots (pun possibly intended) and offered the world. However, through actions unlike what God desired, the world as we know it began a spiral towards death.

Why crucifixion?

Adam died in the wake of a falling creation and Eve died alone, with her children in disarray. All they knew was death apart from anything good. Genesis doesn't mention how Adam and Eve died, but it wouldn't be far to assume that it was of old age and of broken hearts.

Why crucifixion?

Paul states in Romans 5 that through the one human death came into this world, and through the one man we are all justified. In a cosmic sense, maybe Jesus had to die in such a way as opposite of Adam and Eve. Maybe he couldn't go up and ascend in wonder and glory via old age, but instead he had to die at the hands of certain emperors and certain Jewish leaders.

Maybe it is to showcase the failings and the abundance of grace, and that the pain of old age is a wonderful gift (in it's own right) as opposed to a political execution.

In the wake beneath the dust and blood of the crucifixion, maybe Jesus' death reveals that in spite of the hope for a life of old age, that life is cruel and callous and that this hostile universe needs to be revealed. The political and the social and the redemptive are summed up in a crucifixion. Maybe Christ's life was too important to drag out. Maybe the adage "a young life" is wasted, but even that is subverted.

Why crucifixion?

Dying a political death at the hands of an evil empire seems to be a universal addendum, in that there will always be martyrs and kings, blood and pain, until beyond the eschaton.

To quote my favorite church father,

When Christ 'shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father' , then those living beings, because they have been before this been made part of Christ's kingdom, shall also be delivered up along with the whole of that kingdom to the rule of the Father; so that, when 'God shall be all in all', they also, since they are a part of all, may have God even in themselves, as he is in all things.

Origen, On First Principles, pg65.

All in all, I don't really know. But it is fun to sit and think about such things on a Saturday afternoon.

--Nick

A Relatively Innocuous Post about Relationships and the Crucifixion

Waking up to over a dozen facebook notifications about Chick-fil-A was a bit of a surprise. I pride myself on staying current with culture and theology, and this day apparently slipped right past me.

But, honestly, though some have asked me my thoughts on that debacle, I couldn't care less. Instead, I had a dream about someone very special. It was a good dream.

The background is necessary. I found a couple of letters written by this person to me a while back, when they were going through a really tough time. I reread them a couple times and I remember vividly what they were suffering and why they felt alone. Their background is rocky, and they are still struggling to piece together everything that happened to them.

Yes. I am being intentionally vague.

But these letters really began to bother me, and I couldn't figure out why. I mean, they bothered me then, but not in the same way.  Looking back, I imagine that it was more based on regret and wishing that things could've been handled differently. Or that in that hopeless place there would've been something greater than sorrow.

Solidarity.

God's solidarity with us upon the cross is the ultimate identification with humanity. In being crucified for the sins of the world, He claimed not only everyone's sin, but also experienced with us the ultimate separation of sin from God.

But this struck me quite hard. I was taught in my childhood and at Biola that the Father had turned his back on the Son, thus the reason Christ cried out. But Jesus was quoting a messianic psalm (ch22) that prophesied his death. In essence, bringing solidarity between the OT and the NT. However, that isn't what struck me in these letters and in these words. Verse 24:

For he has not despised or scorned
    the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
    but has listened to his cry for help. 

I don't quite see anywhere in Scripture that demands that God turned his back on his Son. In fact, Habbakuk 1:13 is often the proof text to prove that God cannot look upon sin. However, the second part of the verse seems to refute that. Here is the entire verse:

You who are of purer eyes than to see evil
    and cannot look at wrong,
why do you idly look at traitors
    and remain silent when the wicked swallows up
    the man more righteous than he?

Dealing with theodicy and the problem of evil was something that seemed quite fervent in the mind of the prophet. Where was God's solidarity with humanity in such evil? Where was I in the other person's suffering? 

If God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, then I wonder about the solidarity the Godhead achieved on the cross, and what that means for relationships. We are to experience with the broken and the hurt, not turn our face from them. I see no reason to ponder the reasons why God could not look upon sin, as his entire earthly ministry was ministering to sinners.

I think that is why these letters bothered me so much. Though there is genuine relationship between us, it could always be better. A fractious relationship can be made whole in time, but in the meantime, solidarity is an ideal that should be driven towards. Distance should not separate us from one another.
Solidarity between sinners and God, and sinners and sinners. Makes me want to call this person right now. 

Just thinking in type.

--Nick