Pain Speaks to Pain

When I preach about the pain of my life, my struggles and disappointments, it connects with other people's pain. When I have heard someone else talk about their successes it is not always possible for me to relate to it if I have not experienced such success myself. In fact, sometimes it makes me feel envious or spiteful or a failure. When I am honest in revealing my pain, however, others are given the courage to be honest about their pain, and together we discover healing.

Jesus represents God's pain. God shares Jesus with the world and then reincorporates the Broken and Crucified One back into the self-understanding of the Trinity. God's pain - Jesus - speaks to our pain. Our pain - Jesus - is taken up into the self-understanding of the Holy Trinity.

In the revelation of God's willingness and desire to embrace human suffering as God's own suffering we discover healing.

Public Disgrace

"Joseph, being a righteous man, did not want to subject Mary to public disgrace..."

We would rather handle scandalous matters quietly, in private. No one has to know. God in Christ is not spared being made subject to public humiliation. God does not resolve things quietly, in private. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, God raises up Jesus for all the world to see. In Christ crucified we see our own shame and disgrace on display. Yet God vindicates and clothes with righteousness that which we futily attempt to hide.

With Awe and Reverence

Certain places have an almost palpable gravitas about them. I perceived it while standing at the chain link fence surrounding the crater of the Ground Zero in New York and at the memorial of the Oklahoma City Federal building. I have perceived at the Viet Nam War Memorial in Washington D.C. I suppose other people perceive it in different places: the memorial to the "Arizona" in Pearl Harbor or the cemeteries of Normandy beach, Auschwitz...

I suppose it comes on very strongly when pilgrims visit Jerusalem and Golgotha/Calvary, the site of Jesus' crucifixion. Perhaps those who first visited Jesus' tomb and saw its emptiness felt the same thing: a presence in the absence.

The same feeling of awe and reverence in the presence of absence ought to come those who approach the baptismal font and the communion altar. The same feeling ought to come over us as the preacher announces the Word that kills and makes alive. In these places, at these times, we stand in the presence of an absence. Looking at the font, the altar and the pulpit and we proclaim Christ's death and keep right on proclaiming it until the day he comes.

Incisive Christianity

Perhaps the most incisive element of Christianity is the overcoming of narcisism and denial. The painful truths we hide from ourselves must be revealed in order that we may no longer be enslaved by our secrets, walking in darkness. So Nathan confronts King David with his crimes "You are the man!" So Jesus confronts the woman at the well "You're darn tootin' you have no husband! You've had five husbands and the fella you're sleepin' with now aint even your husband!" So Stephen confronts "the Jews" [those under the Law] "You are the ones who received the law as handed down by angels yet none of you keeps it." So Peter confronts "the Jews" "This Jesus, whom you crucified, God has raised up and seated him at his right hand."

Those with ears to hear were cut to the heart. They acknowledged the truth and the truth set them free. "What then shall we do?" they cry. John the Baptist tells them to be good. Micah tells them to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with their God. Peter just tells them to believe in God's forgiveness of their sins and be baptized. From the darkness of slavery and fear they now walk in the light of the truth of God's grace, having died to the power of sin and having been raised to newness of life.

This is the dialectic of Law and Gospel. The Law cuts open the pericardium so that God is able to remove the heart of stone and replace it with a heart of feeling and pathos.

Face to Face with God

Although Moses requests to see God face to face God rebuffs such a desire, saying "No one shall see me face to face and live." Jacob is surprised to have survived his face-to-face encounter with God on the eve of encountering his estranged and enraged brother Esau. When at last they meet, Jacob is again surprised that Esau has been reconciled and embraces Jacob-the-Usurper with love. Jacob exclaims, "To see your face is to see the face of God since you have received me with such kindness." I suppose if Esau had nurtured his hatred Jacob would not have seen the proper face of God.
Pastor Thomas Torrence recalls how both an old woman dying at home in her a bed and a dying soldier on the battlefield both asked him the very same question: whether to see the face of Christ was really to see the face of God. Torrence reassured them both that yes, to see the face of Christ is indeed to see the true face of God. There is no angry God of wrath lurking behind the gentle face of Jesus. As Jesus himself says, "I and the Father are one," and "to know me is to know the Father."
Whereas Jacob and others are overcome with fear at the approach of God Almighty, few people were overcome with fear in the presence of Jesus. I think instead they were overwhelmed with love. I think especially of the Samaritan Woman at the Well, Zaccheus. The demons seemed intimidated.
Again the thief on the cross speaks to and sees God face to face when he asks the Crucified Messiah to remember him.

Christ the King of the Crucified

On Christ the King Sunday the thief on the cross says to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus is King of everyone who is crucified by their sins, by poverty, hunger, hatred, fear, shame...

Naked Jesus?

When the disciples went to Jesus' tomb all they saw were his grave clothes. So what was he wearing? Was he naked? Perhaps so! Adam and Eve were naked in the Garden of Eden and were not ashamed. Perhaps the risen Christ is naked and not ashamed as a sign of the completeness and restoration of creation.