Glory in the cross
Commentary
Object:
Constantine Caesar was advancing his legions through the northern Italian mountains toward Rome. Despite his recent military victories in Europe, this was not some triumphal parade preparing to celebrate in the imperial capital. Indeed, his most recent victory had come against Pompeianus, the chief general defending Maxentius Augustus in Rome. Constantine was embroiled in a brutal civil war against Maxentius, and as he advanced against the heavily fortified city of Rome itself the ultimate outcome was anything but certain. Early one afternoon, Constantine saw a vision of a cross in the sky, accompanied by an inscription that read "Hoc signo victor eris" ("by this sign you will conquer").
The early church historian Eusebius, who was personally acquainted with Constantine, recounts how the vision had troubled the Caesar:
What could the vision mean? He continued to ponder and to give great thought to the question, and night came on him suddenly. When he was asleep, the Christ of God appeared to him and he brought with him the sign that had appeared in the sky. He ordered Constantine to make a replica of this sign that he had witnessed in the sky, and he was to use it as a protection during his encounters with the enemy.1
It seems likely that the next morning Constantine hurriedly ordered that at least some of his soldiers have this sign of the cross emblazoned on their shields with paint, chalk, or whatever was available. That day, October 28, 312 AD, they encountered Maxentius and his army at the Milvian Bridge just two miles outside of Rome. The rest, as they say, is history. Constantine defeated Maxentius and went on to become the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.
So convinced was Constantine that this victory had been secured for him by the Christian God that he personally and genuinely converted to Christianity. He developed a special military standard that "displayed the Christogram (Chi-Rho: the initial letters of Christos) at the summit of the cross, and that became a magical, miraculous amulet, almost the equivalent of the Ark of the Covenant."2 Christianity soon became the official religion of the Roman Empire, and the cross a symbol of its power and glory and of the glory of the God the people of the empire worshiped.
It is no wonder then that the cross is prominently displayed in architecture and stained glass, worn on neck chains as an emblem of authority or as ornamentation, and that people sing in adoration, "I will glory in the cross."
Yes, it is a simple and direct line from the Milvian Bridge to the glorification of the cross within European culture. But the glorification of the cross as the means to military and political power seems light years removed from the reason for celebration given in 1 Peter: "Rejoice insofar as you are sharing in Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed." What can all this talk about the "eternal glory in Christ" have to do with suffering and being "reviled for the name of Christ"?
Acts 1:6-14
Forty days had passed since the first Easter, and six full weeks to the day since the night on which Jesus had been betrayed to those who would nail him to a cross. The glories of encountering the resurrected Christ had by that time seemingly almost erased the horrors of those dark days from the disciples' memories. As recounted in this opening chapter of Acts, their conversations with Christ during this period between Resurrection and Ascension had focused on "the kingdom of God." What had then been the suffering and anguish associated with deep grief and fear had been transformed into triumphalistic expectation -- and perhaps even a bit of impatience.
So it is that the lectionary text appointed for this last Sunday of Easter begins with the disciples' query to Jesus: "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom of Israel?" The unabashed nationalism of that question is not to be overlooked. We must assume that Jesus' discussions on the topic of the "kingdom of God" with the disciples during this period, like his many teaching sessions during his ministry, had sought to lead them to disavow such narrowly partisan messianic expectation. God's kingdom -- or better "the Divine reign" -- was to be over all of the world and for the benefit of all nations. The coming restoration was not just about Israel, but about all peoples. The evangelists, writing some forty years after the events of Passion Week, are clear that the decisive proof of this new understanding of messiahship was the cross; the disciples' question on this occasion makes clear that that insight did not take hold in the first forty days.
Although their wildest dreams could not have imagined a Roman emperor who worshiped the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus, what these disciples were longing for was Constantine Caesar. What they had was Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen one. They wanted the same power to crush their enemies that they had felt used against them. Jesus promised them the power that comes from receiving the Holy Spirit. They wanted to be conquerors of the world. Jesus called them to be "witnesses... to the ends of the earth."
The disciples' expectations both regarding the timing and the nature of the full realization of God's reign in the world needed correction, but that corrective did not entail a disavowal of glory and hope. Jesus was once again taken from them, but not this time by death. In the imagery of Stephen's later vision and the language of the much later creed, Jesus "ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty." Here was glory far surpassing what any earthly Caesar could attain. Historical clarity, however, will require us to note that precisely the same claim had been made by partisans of Julius Caesar following his death. They claimed that in dying he had been taken up into the heavens to rule with the gods. An important difference was that Jesus' exaltation came not in death but in resurrection. Unlike Caesar, Christ would return. For that reason, the announcement of the "two men in white robes" promised hope to the disciples.
The glory of the cross, seen in this context, is not as a magical talisman to protect us from and empower us to destroy our enemies. The glory of the crucified is that God has resurrected him from death and restored him to full, intimate communion and fellowship with the divine. The hope of glory for disciples is not in military or political domination, but in the promise that "this Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way" to bring the disciples of every age into that same uninhibited, eternal fellowship and communion with God (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
The concept of the Christian life as imitatio Christi ("the imitation of Christ") is intrinsically linked with suffering in the closing portions of 1 Peter. The letter shows clear signs of being intended to call Christians to continued faithfulness during a period of intense persecution. The author explicitly tells his readers that this "fiery ordeal" should come as no surprise to them. If the Lord and Savior suffered crucifixion at the hands of those who were opposed to God's reign in the world, then why should they have expected anything different (cf. John 17:14; 15:18-25)?
What is certainly surprising is the author's insistence that "sharing Christ's sufferings" is a reason to "be glad and [to] shout for joy" (1 Peter 4:13b). This rejoicing in suffering is not, however, some kind of perverse spiritual masochism. Rather it is the response to the revelation of Christ's glory. If they have shared in Christ's suffering, then they like him will also experience "the God of all grace... who... will restore, support, strengthen, and establish" them (5:10). Glory is not something that one can earn or something that one receives in order to exalt oneself over others. It is instead God's action toward those who place themselves in a relationship of complete dependence upon the divine (5:6-7).
The glory of the cross is then neither power to turn the tables on one's foes nor the honor that might come by showing tremendous endurance and perseverance in the face of suffering. Glory is not to be found within ourselves at all. The glory of cross is that it is the place where God's abiding love and grace are made manifest to those who are the recipients of this grace and, as the gospel lesson for this Sunday makes clear, also to the whole world.
John 17:1-11
The themes of glory and suffering in this world come together as well in the gospel reading. The context is a prayer that Jesus offers for his disciples gathered around the table just minutes, certainly no more than a couple of hours, before he is betrayed. Jesus refers to his impending arrest, trial, and execution as the "hour" (that is, the divinely appointed time) for the events that will reciprocally bring glory both to the Son and the divine Father (17:1).
The narrowly historical question of whether Jesus of Nazareth would have actually spoken these precise words in the hours before his death contributes little to the theological application and understanding of this passage. Like the Greek historian Thucydides writing his History of the Peloponnesian War centuries earlier, the evangelist is less concerned with using this "speech" to record a transcript of what was said than with assuring that his readers would have a proper understanding of the significance of what was transpiring. As mentioned above in dealing with the Acts passage, this evangelist writing more than a generation after the fact understands that Jesus' crucifixion is his moment of glory and that God has underscored this truth by the resurrection and exaltation of the Christ (17:5; cf. John 3:13-15). Nor is this glory reserved to Christ alone. The very purpose of this glorification is so that "all people" might share in the "eternal life" that God has thus given to the Son (17:2-3).
Yet as assuredly as the "hour" of the Son's glorification and entrance into the divine presence has arrived, that "hour" has yet to arrive for the disciples. Christ may "no longer [be] in the world, but they are in the world," and their continuing presence there means that they are in need of protection (17:11). The reason they need this protection is made more explicit later in this prayer (17:14-16), but already in the portion assigned for this Sunday it is clear that this gospel presupposes a marked distinction between those who belong to "the world" and those who belong to the Son and to the Father (17:9).
What will be needed to protect them is a unity that matches the shared unity of the Father and the Son. As is made clear by the final section of this prayer, the basis for this unity is twofold. First, the Father, Son, and those who belong to them are united by the word that has come from God (17:6b-8). Like many of the key terms of this prayer, "word" has been used in a variety of senses within this gospel: teaching, "name," and most notably the eternal word who was "with God, and... was God" from the beginning of creation (1:1). At times this evangelist expects his readers to carefully distinguish the differing nuances between his use of terms (cf. the "world" for which God gives the Son in 3:16 with the "world" for whom the Son refuses to even pray here in 17:9b), while at other times he clearly intends the nuances to be held in creative tension (for example, "from above"/"again" as meanings of Greek anothen in 3:3-7). The latter is most likely the case here; the unity of teaching and name with the eternal word who is the Son is the first key to their abiding relationship with God (17:12).
Second, the disciples are united and protected with one another and with God through the divine love (17:23-24). It is God's abiding love that is stronger than even the horrifying death on the cross that is the true glory that the Father and Son share, and that they will share with those who will yet know suffering in this world.
Application
Suffering certainly was not alien to the cross, not the real crosses of rough-hewn lumber on which the Romans publicly executed those who had committed crimes against the state. Not even the agonizing and gory details of Jesus' own death on the cross -- usually now only heard in our churches during the last days of Holy Week -- can express the true horror of this means of execution. Jesus, after all, died after only a few hours; the usual course was that death by scourging and crucifixion took several days as the condemned slowly succumbed to the effects of exposure and increasing asphyxiation. Such a death was filled with unimaginable suffering and was totally empty of glory. Can you imagine the gallows or the electric chair as an emblem of authority or a decoration for jewelry?
Yet we have seen in John's gospel for this Sunday where Jesus himself insists that the hour of his suffering on the cross is the moment of divine glory. "Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you." How is it possible that God could draw any glory from anyone's suffering on a cross? One answer, classically stated by the medieval theologian Anselm, was that the cross was the means by which the one righteous person was able to satisfy God's just demand for restitution in response to human evil and sin. In this view, God is glorified by upholding divine justice and honor by demanding that the price of death be exacted, and Jesus is glorified by his obedience to God's demand even as he suffered punishment for all in personal innocence.
Such a view of divine glory and justice is not very comforting to us in the modern world, and fortunately it is not the only understanding of the glory of the cross presented to us in the scriptures. The apostle Paul suggested the glory of the cross resided in the fact that there "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to the divine self" (2 Corinthians 5:19). In this view, God is not standing back demanding that someone satisfy the divine wrath; rather, God in Christ on the cross experiences the depths of human evil and transforms it into redemption. The glory of the cross is that even in what would seem to be the most God-forsaken of all possible deaths, God is in fact present. As Dermot Lane expressed it: "The cross is a kind of 'sacrament of darkness' revealing at one and the same time the depths to which humanity can descend in its orientation toward destruction and the heights to which God can soar in God's capacity to redeem."3
It was not that long ago that some other crosses on a hillside were in our news. Newsweek magazine reported that following the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, "scores of people vented their grief in front of thirteen wooden crosses erected on a hill near the school. In a gesture of forgiveness, someone put up two more crosses for the killers. Then a woman scrawled 'Evil Bastard' on [one of the shooter's] memorial, and a scuffle broke out. Later, a victim's father removed the two crosses altogether."4 Until we recognize and accept that God suffers not only with the families of the victims but also with the families of the perpetrators, we can never truly understand the glory of the cross.
Alternative Application
Acts 1:14 concludes with the interesting note that in the days following Jesus' Ascension "Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers" were among those who were "constantly devoting themselves to prayer" along with the disciples. Their involvement with the first disciples stands in marked contrast to the few mentions of the response of Jesus' immediate family to his ministry as recorded in the gospels (cf. Mark 3:20-21; Matthew 12:46-50; John 7:1-10 as examples). Some of the gospel passages suggest that it was the very familiarity with Jesus that presented an obstacle to accepting his ministry for his family and neighbors in Nazareth. Apparently it took Jesus' resurrection and glorification at the Ascension to establish his family as believers. Could it be that familiarity with our inconsistency in Christian faithfulness is the obstacle to belief in some of our homes? If so, then we too need to regain the disciplines of waiting for the Spirit and constantly devoting ourselves to prayer that were practiced by these first Christians. ____________ 1. Eusebius, Life of Constantine, I.28, cited in Michael Grant, Constantine the Great: The Man and His Times (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993), p. 140. 2. Ibid., p. 141. 3. Dermot Lane, Christ at the Center: Selected Issues in Christology (New York: Paulist, 1991), p. 77. 4. T. Trent Gegax and Matt Bai, "Searching for Answers," Newsweek (May 10, 1999), p. 34.
http://www.newsweek.com/1999/05/09/searching-for-answers.html
Preaching the Psalm
Schuyler Rhodes
Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35
God's got your back...
Everyone wants a defender. Only the suicidal or mentally ill would turn away from someone who would stick up for you when things are at their worst. No one likes to feel alone or isolated, especially when danger is near. So it is that the idea of a God who will scatter our enemies is a very appealing notion. Imagine adversaries disappearing like smoke or melting like wax before a flame. Having someone like that on your side is a good thing indeed.
In spite of humanity's continuing abuse of this notion, it remains a core truth of our faith. In the shambles of countless wars where each side claimed an alliance with God, this same God still has our back. No matter how shameless we become as we run about the globe murdering and stealing with "God on our side," God is -- miraculously -- still on our side!
This Psalm is but a taste of our collective experience of God's ongoing willingness to stand in our corner. Who else would remain at our side after such serial unfaithfulness? Who else would go before us into battle, even as we slide again into infidelity? The answer is, of course, no one. No one but our God!
The portrait of praise rendered here can stand for us as a touchstone. It can hover in our consciousness when we are tempted to use God's unfailing love as a poker chip in our own nefarious games of chance. It brings to mind Abraham Lincoln's musing when someone assured him that God was on the side of the Union cause. He is reported to have wondered out loud as to whether the more appropriate question had to do with whether or not we were on God's side.
One can't help but wonder what it would be like if we were to be on God's side. Rather than wholesale slaughter and oppression, perhaps we'd engage in massive agriculture projects to be sure that all of God's children had enough to eat. Rather than rapaciously using up the earth's resources, perhaps being on God's side would involve sustainable economic and ecological choices. And instead of amassing mountains of wealth while millions eked out lives of poverty, perhaps we would learn to share a bit. Imagine a world where we were less concerned about God being on our side, and more worried about being on God's side!
Through it all, though, God continues to step into the fray on our behalf.
From entering into the Promised Land to going to the cross for us, God has our back. I can't help wondering if the reverse is true. Do we have God's back?
The early church historian Eusebius, who was personally acquainted with Constantine, recounts how the vision had troubled the Caesar:
What could the vision mean? He continued to ponder and to give great thought to the question, and night came on him suddenly. When he was asleep, the Christ of God appeared to him and he brought with him the sign that had appeared in the sky. He ordered Constantine to make a replica of this sign that he had witnessed in the sky, and he was to use it as a protection during his encounters with the enemy.1
It seems likely that the next morning Constantine hurriedly ordered that at least some of his soldiers have this sign of the cross emblazoned on their shields with paint, chalk, or whatever was available. That day, October 28, 312 AD, they encountered Maxentius and his army at the Milvian Bridge just two miles outside of Rome. The rest, as they say, is history. Constantine defeated Maxentius and went on to become the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.
So convinced was Constantine that this victory had been secured for him by the Christian God that he personally and genuinely converted to Christianity. He developed a special military standard that "displayed the Christogram (Chi-Rho: the initial letters of Christos) at the summit of the cross, and that became a magical, miraculous amulet, almost the equivalent of the Ark of the Covenant."2 Christianity soon became the official religion of the Roman Empire, and the cross a symbol of its power and glory and of the glory of the God the people of the empire worshiped.
It is no wonder then that the cross is prominently displayed in architecture and stained glass, worn on neck chains as an emblem of authority or as ornamentation, and that people sing in adoration, "I will glory in the cross."
Yes, it is a simple and direct line from the Milvian Bridge to the glorification of the cross within European culture. But the glorification of the cross as the means to military and political power seems light years removed from the reason for celebration given in 1 Peter: "Rejoice insofar as you are sharing in Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed." What can all this talk about the "eternal glory in Christ" have to do with suffering and being "reviled for the name of Christ"?
Acts 1:6-14
Forty days had passed since the first Easter, and six full weeks to the day since the night on which Jesus had been betrayed to those who would nail him to a cross. The glories of encountering the resurrected Christ had by that time seemingly almost erased the horrors of those dark days from the disciples' memories. As recounted in this opening chapter of Acts, their conversations with Christ during this period between Resurrection and Ascension had focused on "the kingdom of God." What had then been the suffering and anguish associated with deep grief and fear had been transformed into triumphalistic expectation -- and perhaps even a bit of impatience.
So it is that the lectionary text appointed for this last Sunday of Easter begins with the disciples' query to Jesus: "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom of Israel?" The unabashed nationalism of that question is not to be overlooked. We must assume that Jesus' discussions on the topic of the "kingdom of God" with the disciples during this period, like his many teaching sessions during his ministry, had sought to lead them to disavow such narrowly partisan messianic expectation. God's kingdom -- or better "the Divine reign" -- was to be over all of the world and for the benefit of all nations. The coming restoration was not just about Israel, but about all peoples. The evangelists, writing some forty years after the events of Passion Week, are clear that the decisive proof of this new understanding of messiahship was the cross; the disciples' question on this occasion makes clear that that insight did not take hold in the first forty days.
Although their wildest dreams could not have imagined a Roman emperor who worshiped the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus, what these disciples were longing for was Constantine Caesar. What they had was Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen one. They wanted the same power to crush their enemies that they had felt used against them. Jesus promised them the power that comes from receiving the Holy Spirit. They wanted to be conquerors of the world. Jesus called them to be "witnesses... to the ends of the earth."
The disciples' expectations both regarding the timing and the nature of the full realization of God's reign in the world needed correction, but that corrective did not entail a disavowal of glory and hope. Jesus was once again taken from them, but not this time by death. In the imagery of Stephen's later vision and the language of the much later creed, Jesus "ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty." Here was glory far surpassing what any earthly Caesar could attain. Historical clarity, however, will require us to note that precisely the same claim had been made by partisans of Julius Caesar following his death. They claimed that in dying he had been taken up into the heavens to rule with the gods. An important difference was that Jesus' exaltation came not in death but in resurrection. Unlike Caesar, Christ would return. For that reason, the announcement of the "two men in white robes" promised hope to the disciples.
The glory of the cross, seen in this context, is not as a magical talisman to protect us from and empower us to destroy our enemies. The glory of the crucified is that God has resurrected him from death and restored him to full, intimate communion and fellowship with the divine. The hope of glory for disciples is not in military or political domination, but in the promise that "this Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way" to bring the disciples of every age into that same uninhibited, eternal fellowship and communion with God (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
The concept of the Christian life as imitatio Christi ("the imitation of Christ") is intrinsically linked with suffering in the closing portions of 1 Peter. The letter shows clear signs of being intended to call Christians to continued faithfulness during a period of intense persecution. The author explicitly tells his readers that this "fiery ordeal" should come as no surprise to them. If the Lord and Savior suffered crucifixion at the hands of those who were opposed to God's reign in the world, then why should they have expected anything different (cf. John 17:14; 15:18-25)?
What is certainly surprising is the author's insistence that "sharing Christ's sufferings" is a reason to "be glad and [to] shout for joy" (1 Peter 4:13b). This rejoicing in suffering is not, however, some kind of perverse spiritual masochism. Rather it is the response to the revelation of Christ's glory. If they have shared in Christ's suffering, then they like him will also experience "the God of all grace... who... will restore, support, strengthen, and establish" them (5:10). Glory is not something that one can earn or something that one receives in order to exalt oneself over others. It is instead God's action toward those who place themselves in a relationship of complete dependence upon the divine (5:6-7).
The glory of the cross is then neither power to turn the tables on one's foes nor the honor that might come by showing tremendous endurance and perseverance in the face of suffering. Glory is not to be found within ourselves at all. The glory of cross is that it is the place where God's abiding love and grace are made manifest to those who are the recipients of this grace and, as the gospel lesson for this Sunday makes clear, also to the whole world.
John 17:1-11
The themes of glory and suffering in this world come together as well in the gospel reading. The context is a prayer that Jesus offers for his disciples gathered around the table just minutes, certainly no more than a couple of hours, before he is betrayed. Jesus refers to his impending arrest, trial, and execution as the "hour" (that is, the divinely appointed time) for the events that will reciprocally bring glory both to the Son and the divine Father (17:1).
The narrowly historical question of whether Jesus of Nazareth would have actually spoken these precise words in the hours before his death contributes little to the theological application and understanding of this passage. Like the Greek historian Thucydides writing his History of the Peloponnesian War centuries earlier, the evangelist is less concerned with using this "speech" to record a transcript of what was said than with assuring that his readers would have a proper understanding of the significance of what was transpiring. As mentioned above in dealing with the Acts passage, this evangelist writing more than a generation after the fact understands that Jesus' crucifixion is his moment of glory and that God has underscored this truth by the resurrection and exaltation of the Christ (17:5; cf. John 3:13-15). Nor is this glory reserved to Christ alone. The very purpose of this glorification is so that "all people" might share in the "eternal life" that God has thus given to the Son (17:2-3).
Yet as assuredly as the "hour" of the Son's glorification and entrance into the divine presence has arrived, that "hour" has yet to arrive for the disciples. Christ may "no longer [be] in the world, but they are in the world," and their continuing presence there means that they are in need of protection (17:11). The reason they need this protection is made more explicit later in this prayer (17:14-16), but already in the portion assigned for this Sunday it is clear that this gospel presupposes a marked distinction between those who belong to "the world" and those who belong to the Son and to the Father (17:9).
What will be needed to protect them is a unity that matches the shared unity of the Father and the Son. As is made clear by the final section of this prayer, the basis for this unity is twofold. First, the Father, Son, and those who belong to them are united by the word that has come from God (17:6b-8). Like many of the key terms of this prayer, "word" has been used in a variety of senses within this gospel: teaching, "name," and most notably the eternal word who was "with God, and... was God" from the beginning of creation (1:1). At times this evangelist expects his readers to carefully distinguish the differing nuances between his use of terms (cf. the "world" for which God gives the Son in 3:16 with the "world" for whom the Son refuses to even pray here in 17:9b), while at other times he clearly intends the nuances to be held in creative tension (for example, "from above"/"again" as meanings of Greek anothen in 3:3-7). The latter is most likely the case here; the unity of teaching and name with the eternal word who is the Son is the first key to their abiding relationship with God (17:12).
Second, the disciples are united and protected with one another and with God through the divine love (17:23-24). It is God's abiding love that is stronger than even the horrifying death on the cross that is the true glory that the Father and Son share, and that they will share with those who will yet know suffering in this world.
Application
Suffering certainly was not alien to the cross, not the real crosses of rough-hewn lumber on which the Romans publicly executed those who had committed crimes against the state. Not even the agonizing and gory details of Jesus' own death on the cross -- usually now only heard in our churches during the last days of Holy Week -- can express the true horror of this means of execution. Jesus, after all, died after only a few hours; the usual course was that death by scourging and crucifixion took several days as the condemned slowly succumbed to the effects of exposure and increasing asphyxiation. Such a death was filled with unimaginable suffering and was totally empty of glory. Can you imagine the gallows or the electric chair as an emblem of authority or a decoration for jewelry?
Yet we have seen in John's gospel for this Sunday where Jesus himself insists that the hour of his suffering on the cross is the moment of divine glory. "Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you." How is it possible that God could draw any glory from anyone's suffering on a cross? One answer, classically stated by the medieval theologian Anselm, was that the cross was the means by which the one righteous person was able to satisfy God's just demand for restitution in response to human evil and sin. In this view, God is glorified by upholding divine justice and honor by demanding that the price of death be exacted, and Jesus is glorified by his obedience to God's demand even as he suffered punishment for all in personal innocence.
Such a view of divine glory and justice is not very comforting to us in the modern world, and fortunately it is not the only understanding of the glory of the cross presented to us in the scriptures. The apostle Paul suggested the glory of the cross resided in the fact that there "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to the divine self" (2 Corinthians 5:19). In this view, God is not standing back demanding that someone satisfy the divine wrath; rather, God in Christ on the cross experiences the depths of human evil and transforms it into redemption. The glory of the cross is that even in what would seem to be the most God-forsaken of all possible deaths, God is in fact present. As Dermot Lane expressed it: "The cross is a kind of 'sacrament of darkness' revealing at one and the same time the depths to which humanity can descend in its orientation toward destruction and the heights to which God can soar in God's capacity to redeem."3
It was not that long ago that some other crosses on a hillside were in our news. Newsweek magazine reported that following the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, "scores of people vented their grief in front of thirteen wooden crosses erected on a hill near the school. In a gesture of forgiveness, someone put up two more crosses for the killers. Then a woman scrawled 'Evil Bastard' on [one of the shooter's] memorial, and a scuffle broke out. Later, a victim's father removed the two crosses altogether."4 Until we recognize and accept that God suffers not only with the families of the victims but also with the families of the perpetrators, we can never truly understand the glory of the cross.
Alternative Application
Acts 1:14 concludes with the interesting note that in the days following Jesus' Ascension "Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers" were among those who were "constantly devoting themselves to prayer" along with the disciples. Their involvement with the first disciples stands in marked contrast to the few mentions of the response of Jesus' immediate family to his ministry as recorded in the gospels (cf. Mark 3:20-21; Matthew 12:46-50; John 7:1-10 as examples). Some of the gospel passages suggest that it was the very familiarity with Jesus that presented an obstacle to accepting his ministry for his family and neighbors in Nazareth. Apparently it took Jesus' resurrection and glorification at the Ascension to establish his family as believers. Could it be that familiarity with our inconsistency in Christian faithfulness is the obstacle to belief in some of our homes? If so, then we too need to regain the disciplines of waiting for the Spirit and constantly devoting ourselves to prayer that were practiced by these first Christians. ____________ 1. Eusebius, Life of Constantine, I.28, cited in Michael Grant, Constantine the Great: The Man and His Times (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993), p. 140. 2. Ibid., p. 141. 3. Dermot Lane, Christ at the Center: Selected Issues in Christology (New York: Paulist, 1991), p. 77. 4. T. Trent Gegax and Matt Bai, "Searching for Answers," Newsweek (May 10, 1999), p. 34.
http://www.newsweek.com/1999/05/09/searching-for-answers.html
Preaching the Psalm
Schuyler Rhodes
Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35
God's got your back...
Everyone wants a defender. Only the suicidal or mentally ill would turn away from someone who would stick up for you when things are at their worst. No one likes to feel alone or isolated, especially when danger is near. So it is that the idea of a God who will scatter our enemies is a very appealing notion. Imagine adversaries disappearing like smoke or melting like wax before a flame. Having someone like that on your side is a good thing indeed.
In spite of humanity's continuing abuse of this notion, it remains a core truth of our faith. In the shambles of countless wars where each side claimed an alliance with God, this same God still has our back. No matter how shameless we become as we run about the globe murdering and stealing with "God on our side," God is -- miraculously -- still on our side!
This Psalm is but a taste of our collective experience of God's ongoing willingness to stand in our corner. Who else would remain at our side after such serial unfaithfulness? Who else would go before us into battle, even as we slide again into infidelity? The answer is, of course, no one. No one but our God!
The portrait of praise rendered here can stand for us as a touchstone. It can hover in our consciousness when we are tempted to use God's unfailing love as a poker chip in our own nefarious games of chance. It brings to mind Abraham Lincoln's musing when someone assured him that God was on the side of the Union cause. He is reported to have wondered out loud as to whether the more appropriate question had to do with whether or not we were on God's side.
One can't help but wonder what it would be like if we were to be on God's side. Rather than wholesale slaughter and oppression, perhaps we'd engage in massive agriculture projects to be sure that all of God's children had enough to eat. Rather than rapaciously using up the earth's resources, perhaps being on God's side would involve sustainable economic and ecological choices. And instead of amassing mountains of wealth while millions eked out lives of poverty, perhaps we would learn to share a bit. Imagine a world where we were less concerned about God being on our side, and more worried about being on God's side!
Through it all, though, God continues to step into the fray on our behalf.
From entering into the Promised Land to going to the cross for us, God has our back. I can't help wondering if the reverse is true. Do we have God's back?
