Your piece sends me back to something I regularly wrestle with: the line between ‘Gd meant to …’ and ‘it was inevitable for Gd to …’ If it’s human nature to both love and reject Gd, then maybe it was inevitable for Christ, as the/an incarnation of Gd, to be both loved and rejected. For me, that’s enough to say, without taking the next nuanced step of saying, ‘Gd became incarnate in Christ in order to embody humanity’s rejection of Gd.’ Maybe I’m not reading you correctly, but you seem to add that bit of deliberate causation to the cross?
No, I think that Christ entered human affairs as Jesus because God can't stay away from humankind, even if a lot of humans want nothing to do with God, or find them (God) threatening. So, God pitched a tent among us, knowing that it would end badly, but not wanting it to end badly. But pitched a tent among us, because they love us, even when we end things badly.
This couple of sentences really caught my attention: "freedom is of God, but the results of freedom may not be. Faced with a choice between freedom and insignificance, God has chosen to preserve freedom and allow suffering. We may wish it otherwise, but God prioritizes vitality over security." And then you go on to show how God participates fully and bodily in extreme suffering. God suffers with us. Make sense of the atonement, for a change. Powerful writing!
wow ... "God in Jesus is perfectly open to the mutually amplifying contrasts of embodied life, and God is perfectly subject to the grotesque and gratuitous suffering that God rejects but freedom allows."
Then why did you title your article the way that you did? Seems kinda disingenuous. Or just reductive. Like, why do people hate, get angry, etc? Pride. Duh. But you don’t go there. Why?
Your piece sends me back to something I regularly wrestle with: the line between ‘Gd meant to …’ and ‘it was inevitable for Gd to …’ If it’s human nature to both love and reject Gd, then maybe it was inevitable for Christ, as the/an incarnation of Gd, to be both loved and rejected. For me, that’s enough to say, without taking the next nuanced step of saying, ‘Gd became incarnate in Christ in order to embody humanity’s rejection of Gd.’ Maybe I’m not reading you correctly, but you seem to add that bit of deliberate causation to the cross?
No, I think that Christ entered human affairs as Jesus because God can't stay away from humankind, even if a lot of humans want nothing to do with God, or find them (God) threatening. So, God pitched a tent among us, knowing that it would end badly, but not wanting it to end badly. But pitched a tent among us, because they love us, even when we end things badly.
So beautiful!
This couple of sentences really caught my attention: "freedom is of God, but the results of freedom may not be. Faced with a choice between freedom and insignificance, God has chosen to preserve freedom and allow suffering. We may wish it otherwise, but God prioritizes vitality over security." And then you go on to show how God participates fully and bodily in extreme suffering. God suffers with us. Make sense of the atonement, for a change. Powerful writing!
Thank you for the feedback and Godspeed your ministry!
Love moves, suffers and risks. Thanks for sharing!
Intensity depends on contrast. Love this perspective!
wow ... "God in Jesus is perfectly open to the mutually amplifying contrasts of embodied life, and God is perfectly subject to the grotesque and gratuitous suffering that God rejects but freedom allows."
I’m grateful for this perspective. It gives a fresh, thoughtful way to understand love, suffering, and divine involvement in a deeply human way.
And btw I inboxed you, there's something I would like to share with you and hear your thoughts on it
Somehow am I supposed to take from this that Jesus didn’t die for my sin?
That sounds like sin to me.
Then why did you title your article the way that you did? Seems kinda disingenuous. Or just reductive. Like, why do people hate, get angry, etc? Pride. Duh. But you don’t go there. Why?
Yessir, he died because of our fear, anger, and hatred.