NOTE: Found this reflection in a writing journal from a while ago. Thought I’d share it. Otherwise, it’ll just get dusty. A bit rough around the edges, but hey, this is blogging!
As far as truth-claims go, Christianity is far from modest. Our faith doesn’t pull punches or tread lightly. We go for broke like no other religion ever has or ever will. And we don’t just claim the incredible; we claim a set of incredibles that seem almost incompatible. Think about it:
We speak of a God who is outside space and time. He is the Absolute. He stands at the origin of all things and is not contained by anything like what scientists call Reality. And yet, in the very next breath, Christians speak of this very same God wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.
We speak of a God who is beyond comprehension. The most intricate Einstenian formula or subtle string of logical deductions hang like a three-year-old’s crayon creation from God’s refrigerator (Isn’t that cute!). And that’s actually giving way too much to the formulas and deductions. In reality, God’s knowledge, like his very being, is of a wholly different kind than that of humans. And yet, we claim that this God-beyond-comprehension has condescended and spoken to us. We claim that in Christ and Christ’s Book, the Bible, humans can comprehend reality in correspondence to God’s own perspective.
And let’s not even get to our claims about the nature of this God. He is one person. He is three persons. We are monotheists, worshipping three persons. The Trinity, above any other Christian claim, looks genius in the face and grins.
And, I’ve already tipped my hand to this, we don’t just claim that these are our best guesses about God. We go far beyond a seemingly humble, “At least, that’s how I see it” to a brashly confident, “This is how it is because God himself told us so.”
And of all the things God has told us, the Cross stands at the center and orients the rest. Christians love and treasure, write songs and poems about, make movies depicting, paint pictures of, preach sermons celebrating, and wear as jewelry the Cross. We say, because God has taught us to, that what happened outside Jerusalem 2,000 years ago has everything to do with everything. This historical event is the lens through which history is understood, and without which, life is without meaning. In a culture that prizes self-definition more than existence, the idea that a Jewish man pinned up to die has final definitional power is an offense and a scandal.
But we say it just the same.
Excellent beginning to tell the ‘old, old story.’
Sandra
November 29th, 2008