Knowing who to blame...
Come, see for yourself:
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Beginning of Hope Is the End of Our Story
The Lord said to Abraham,
“Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child when I am old?’ Is anything impossible for the Lord? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son.”
Then Sarah lied, saying,
“I did not laugh,” because she was afraid.
But the Lord said, “No! You did laugh.”
Genesis 18:13-15
Then as they went into the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has been raised! He is not here. Look, there is the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples, even Peter, that he is going ahead of you into Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you.” Then they went out and ran from the tomb, for terror and bewilderment had seized them. And they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
Mark 16:5-8
Reading on the Girardian Reflections site I came across this reference to James Alison's book "Raising Abel." Christian hope does not arise from God's "Yes!" to who we are and what we do. Christian hope arises from God's resounding "No!" to who we are and what we do. God says, "No!" so that he can say "Yes!" to who Christ makes of us and what Christ does in us. But--as Alison so ably portrays--between God's "No!" and God's "Yes!" there must be a complete end and totally new beginning.
Quote:
If you would like a more fruitful pairing of this story (all 15 verses) with a Gospel text, James Alison has a great one in Raising Abel, pp. 160ff., where he pairs it with Mark 16. When Sarah hears the promise, she laughs; and when God questions her about it, she lies because "she was afraid" (the Greek Septuagint: ephobethe gar). When the women at the empty tomb are confronted with the promise, they didn't tell anyone for they were afraid (Gr: ephobounto gar). He uses this pairing to begin a discussion of Christian hope: "I want to focus on this because there is nothing pretty about Christian hope. Whatever Christian hope is, it begins in terror and utter disorientation in the face of the collapse of all that is familiar and well known." [p. 161] To give you one other crucial paragraph from this chapter as a follow-up:
In the light of all this we can begin to understand Christian hope as an unexpected rupture in the system. What do I mean by system? Every system. As humans we all live and inscribe our lives within a series of systems, of games whose rules we know and to which we adapt ourselves to a greater or a lesser extent. By 'the system' I mean every way of ours of having a story, of organizing our thinking and acting, every way of forging our lives and of talking about them as something sure. And this system is, for many people, most of the time, quite livable. It is moved neither by great hopes nor shaken by great despairs. However, as I have tried to show throughout these pages, every story, in as far as it is grasped, is a system structured by the murderous lie, whose security depends on some exclusion. That is, every system is dominated and shaded by the definitive impossibility which comes from death, the impossibility of moving the stone. [pp. 173-174]
End Quote
But God's Word will not be silenced! In one way or another this Word from outside of ourselves confronts the word we tell ourselves. Just there, there in that instant, the confrontation of Word against word, of God's narration vs. our narration, of truth over lie, we are exposed and fearful. God's truth puts an end to our lies. Our "story" by which we spoke ourselves into existence is silenced: we die. And there in that silence God's Word speaks us into our new existence; such is the birth of hope.
Jesus Christ--and him crucified--is not just another "addition" to our narrative. He just doesn't become one more character in the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. He puts our story to an end so that his story begins "for us."
Read more here:
"Fracture: The cross as irreconcilable in the language and thought of the biblical writers" by Roy A. Harrisville
"Raising Able: the recovery of eschatological imagination" by James Alison
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Christ without a cross... HUH?
This...
"A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment
through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross."
--H. Richard Niebuhr
...DOES NOT describe faith in Christ.
This..
Christ's work of redemption does not cancel the twofold aspect of God's dealings with mankind. He continues to deal with us in love or in wrath. For Christ's work does not imply the resolution of a conflict between differing attributes of God, as though God's love had overcome his wrath. Then the Word of reconciliation would simply mean the victory of God's love. But the work of redemption is much more than a process in the mind of God. it is an act of God. God acted when he reconciled the world in Jesus Christ. Christ has borne vicariously the sins of all mankind and suffered for the their sake the wrath of God. By striking him, God's wrath struck all mankind. So the word of Jesus' death is a word of condemnation (law). The voice of condemnation in the law forces all men into the fellowship of the death of Christ. Christ's continued work of redemption makes us die with him, for we stand condemned by the fact of his death for our sins. But he who submits to the verdict of the law submits to the wrath of God as did Christ. He belongs to the Crucified and therefore also to the Risen One. In the midst of death he receives life. To raise us with Christ is the proper work of God, or, as it were, the proper Word of God--the gospel.
--Vilmos Vajta in "Luther on Worship: an interpretation" p. 74
...DOES describe faith in Christ.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
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