Foolishness

Foolishness - it's not a puzzle!

Lent 2016 (C) 2016-03-22: Reading the Lectionary with my family
(I encourage you to read the full text. Hold me accountable if you feel it has not been handled well. It is what Scripture means when it says to wrestle with the Bible and mentally struggle with it and inwardly digest it.)

The Cross does not make sense - or more precisely, the Cross does not make sense to us. The link between murdering Jesus and setting me free of sin is not self-evident. Why? I wonder if it might be as simple as saying that we lack all the facts necessary to formulate a full analysis and conclusion of this act. We don't have all the pieces to the puzzle. We are not in a position as finite persons to make sense of infinite Love - this Love appears senseless and foolishness to us. Perhaps we might agree that it is ok to stop treating the Cross and God's Love as some kind of divine riddle or puzzle which our salvation depends on us solving. It is not and it does not. The Cross is an act of infinite divine Love - we are Loved! Accept it.

God Loves us - it's free!! As we exert our wisdom and impose our reason our sin is revealed - we demand explanation yet are incapable of receiving it. We hear things, see things, smell things, touch and taste things - but still we lack something. Jesus tells us we must become like children to enter the Kingdom of God - our senses, our intellect and our demands for explanation block our way. We must suspend our "adultness" and become like innocent children; we must suspend our sophistication and become naive if we are to receive the benefit of Christ's Cross. As we analyze the Cross we lose the Cross. God freely gave Himself - can we accept that gift or not? Can we go into the world living in the joy and peace and awe that comes from trusting in and obedience to God?

Christians debate the great doctrines of salvation (soteriology) while failing to hear Scripture: it is futile, it is foolishness - it is idolatry to subject God to human reason - it is ungrateful to subject the Cross to our judgment. My mom would say: never look a gift horse in the mouth, receive it with thanks. Not only do we look into this horse's mouth, we beat it to death with our analysis and flog it into lifelessness with our vain arguments.

The implications of the context, the imagery, the movements and the choreography of God's infinite wisdom are only dimly viewed within our finite context and human understanding. And that's ok. How can we who are trapped in the finite ever grasp the infinite? But this Jesus promises us, the Cross brings life and light as it is received with awe and wonder by grateful hearts. All human knowledge and understandings will fail to explain even the origin and essence of human love; how can we possibly expect an explanation of the unimaginable Love God has for us?

The question of the passion of Christ is "Do you love me?" Is our response no or is it yes?

For today's full-text click here