Katutura English |
|
|
for english speaking friends of Katutura
Archives
April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 January 2005 February 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 October 2005 November 2005 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006 June 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 February 2009 November 2009 January 2010 February 2010 March 2010 April 2010 July 2010 September 2010 March 2011 July 2011 October 2011 December 2011 January 2012 March 2012 April 2012 September 2012 June 2013 July 2013 
  |
Friday, April 06, 2012
 Friday, April 6, 2012 The supreme irony of the whole crucifixion scene is this: He who was everything had everything taken away from Him. He who was perfect was totally misjudged as "sin" itself (Romans 8:3-4). The crucified Jesus forever tells power and authority, and all of us, how utterly wrong we can be about who is in the right and who is sinful (John 16:8). All human solidarity and sympathy was taken away from Him and He finally had to walk the journey alone, in darkness, in not-knowing, as most humans finally have to do.Good Friday Jesus hung in total solidarity with the pain of the world and the far too many lives on this planet that have been "nasty, lonely, brutish, and short.” After the cross, we know that God is not watching human pain, nor apparently always stopping human pain, as much as God is found hanging with us alongside all human pain. Jesus forever tells us that God is found wherever the pain is, which leaves God on both sides of every war, in sympathy with both the pain of the perpetrator and the pain of the victim, with the excluded, the tortured, the abandoned, and the oppressed since the beginning of time. I wonder if we even like that. There are no games of moral superiority left. Yet this is exactly the kind of Lover and the universal Love that humanity needs. What else could possibly give us a cosmic and final hope? This is exactly how Jesus redeemed the world "by the blood of the cross.” It was not some kind of heavenly transaction, or "paying a price" to God, as much as a cosmic communion with all that humanity has ever loved and ever suffered. If he was paying any price it was for the hard and resistant skin around our souls. Adapted from The Great Themes of Scripture (no longer available, see Prayer: "Faith is a journey into darkness, into not-knowing." ~ Richard Rohr |