(no subject)
Discussion tonight on Christology. It didn't go where I was expecting.
Do we justify violence by a 'bad' theology of the cross? Can I agree with theologians who say dump Good Friday, dump Easter? We glorify suffering, maintain it is necessary for redemption, propose a sadistic God, keep people in abusive relationships, promote an unhealthy theology of sacrifice. Or so they say.
The cross and the resurrection go hand in hand. I refuse to believe, pace Mel Gibson, that the point of the cross is "oh isn't it great that Jesus got his ass kicked". No, it's not great. It's horrifying. It absolutly MUST NOT be divorced from what led Christ to the cross. Christ was totally human, and totally Himself, and when he was asked Do you really say you are the Son of Man he didn't respond "no just kidding! can I go home now?" He didn't stop healing on the Sabbath. He didn't stop being who He knew He was, who He knew He had to be because it would lead to the cross. Sure, he pissed of Pharisees on the way there, but it's not like he was just pulling their beards and stealing their phylacteries in hopes that they would crucify him. I believe he did the right thing not because he wanted it to lead him to the cross but because he knew it was right, and maybe knew where it would lead, and chose it anyway. He saw in the desert that he could conquer sin in life, why shouldn't he have believed he could conquer it in death?
Nor can the cross be divorced from the resurrection. Christ totally submitted to the forces of human evil and demonstrated total triumph over them. It is not that the suffering is redemptive but that God can redeem the suffering. You may have read this theme in my other writings, apologies for repetition. God can transform our suffering but the suffering is not the source of the transformation. Our suffering is not the means of our salvation, Christ is.
I love the liturgical year because it leads us through the whole cycle, through all the aspects of faith and humanity over and over, every year, just as in the liturgy we re-live through remembering. If we forget about the crucifixion, don't look now because here it comes again. And I was almost shouted at tonight, a woman cried "why? why would you want to remember that?" But what choice do we have? I cannot make painful experiences go away. I can't make the cross not have happened. But I would rather live with trauma and follow it up with the hope that God can make it OK than not own the pain at all. For all the things we may believe Christ left ambiguous, this was not among them: if God can transform this ultimate suffering, what can God not transform?
Do we justify violence by a 'bad' theology of the cross? Can I agree with theologians who say dump Good Friday, dump Easter? We glorify suffering, maintain it is necessary for redemption, propose a sadistic God, keep people in abusive relationships, promote an unhealthy theology of sacrifice. Or so they say.
The cross and the resurrection go hand in hand. I refuse to believe, pace Mel Gibson, that the point of the cross is "oh isn't it great that Jesus got his ass kicked". No, it's not great. It's horrifying. It absolutly MUST NOT be divorced from what led Christ to the cross. Christ was totally human, and totally Himself, and when he was asked Do you really say you are the Son of Man he didn't respond "no just kidding! can I go home now?" He didn't stop healing on the Sabbath. He didn't stop being who He knew He was, who He knew He had to be because it would lead to the cross. Sure, he pissed of Pharisees on the way there, but it's not like he was just pulling their beards and stealing their phylacteries in hopes that they would crucify him. I believe he did the right thing not because he wanted it to lead him to the cross but because he knew it was right, and maybe knew where it would lead, and chose it anyway. He saw in the desert that he could conquer sin in life, why shouldn't he have believed he could conquer it in death?
Nor can the cross be divorced from the resurrection. Christ totally submitted to the forces of human evil and demonstrated total triumph over them. It is not that the suffering is redemptive but that God can redeem the suffering. You may have read this theme in my other writings, apologies for repetition. God can transform our suffering but the suffering is not the source of the transformation. Our suffering is not the means of our salvation, Christ is.
I love the liturgical year because it leads us through the whole cycle, through all the aspects of faith and humanity over and over, every year, just as in the liturgy we re-live through remembering. If we forget about the crucifixion, don't look now because here it comes again. And I was almost shouted at tonight, a woman cried "why? why would you want to remember that?" But what choice do we have? I cannot make painful experiences go away. I can't make the cross not have happened. But I would rather live with trauma and follow it up with the hope that God can make it OK than not own the pain at all. For all the things we may believe Christ left ambiguous, this was not among them: if God can transform this ultimate suffering, what can God not transform?