The Lenten Journey Day 39

In today’s essay John Stott succinctly points out the struggle with the cross. Stott states simply that our human problem with Christ on the cross is our human pride. Stott gets at the heart with where our pride really comes in to play. It is not that we would deny our own sin, it is that we would deny that it required and received the sacrifice of God as atonement. From Stott’s own words,

“We cannot stand the humiliation of acknowledging our bankruptcy and allowing somebody else to pay for us. The notion that this somebody else should be God himself is just too much to take. We would rather perish than repent, rather lose ourselves than humble ourselves.”

A lot is said and made about our human tendency to categorize sin. It is Biblically true that different sins carry different consequences and it is also Biblically true that any and all sin separate us from God. What is overarchingly true is that Christ is the only remedy for any and all sin. I end with where Stott begins his essay, “The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.”

The Lenten Journey Day 38

The distance that Simon Weil speaks of in his essay with the same title is the expansive gap between humanity and God. Weil answers that the gap is filled by God’s initiating love that He has created and that He supplies. That love is seen most clearly in the disturbing suffering of the cross.

Weil contributes to the Lenten conversation by emphasizing some already observed themes. It is the theme of how Christ’s suffering informs our own suffering, the necessity of the cross, and the depth of evil that has been overcome. What Weil brings out so brilliantly is the breadth of love, to quote the hymn, “it reaches to the highest mountain, it flows to the lowest valley.” Weil sums it up with this, “It is thus the soul, starting from the opposite end, makes the same journey that God made toward it. And that is the cross” What a blessed reassurance that God, possessor and creator of supreme love, brought that love to us. Choosing not to hoard His love and make us come get it, but to bring His love toward us in its fullest extent. To quote another hymn, “O, love that will not let me go.”

The Lenten Journey Day 37

“In this cross this level of our being has thrust itself up out of its deepest underground cellar so that we humans may see what is in all of us and take heed. The cross is crucial because it shows what possibilities for evil lie hidden in human beings”- Morton T. Kelsey

This is the thesis statement of Kelsey’s essay and today’s reading. When we see, truly see, Christ on the cross we truly see ourselves. Kelsey gives examples of the depth of human evil showing how seemingly normal, good people can get to the point of committing hellish atrocities. He might over simplify the examples but Kelsey’s assertion that when we look at the cross we should see what we are capable of, yet can be saved from is poignant. Kelsey closes with a look at some of the notorious characters at the cross, Pilate, Caiaphas, Judas, and even the carpenter who fashioned the cross. He paints them to be relatively “good” people with a slight flaw that is expanded within the pressure and scope of the events surrounding Jesus resulting in their roles in the evils of the cross.

The cross reminds us of our own propensity for evil but also points to victory. Kelsey ends with this encouraging summation, “The empty cross is planted there to remind us that suffering is real but not the end, that victory is still possible if we strive on.”

Lenten Reading Day 36

Today’s reading comes from author and professor Thomas Howard. As an interesting side note, Howard was brother to Elisabeth Elliot who wrote Through Gates of Splendor about her husband Jim and other missionaries who died in Ecuador.

Howard takes issue with the tendency to in a way skip over the crucifixion for the celebration of the empty tomb. It is important to remember, asserts Howard, that the Christ died in real time on a real cross. One of the implications for this focused remembering is to find Christ in our suffering and ourselves in His. The train of thought for Howard follows that if we see Christ’s suffering, we better understand our suffering, and we are more likely to respond with Christ’s forgiveness.

“For this Crucifix bids me also to the place where my exasperation or ire over others’ sins must be forsworn in the name of the Mercy that God himself offers to the perpetrators of sin (I being chiefly among them).”

The Lenten Journey Day 35

In reading today’s entry from Augustine I am captivated by one line in particular. Augustine is writing on Christ as our only true qualified mediator and says the following,

“What we needed was a mediator to stand between God and men who should be in one respect like God, in another kin to human beings, for if he were manlike in both regards he would be far from God, but if Godlike in both, far from us: and then he would be no mediator.”

Christ in His very being is perfect. So, the balance needed to be both God and man is therefore perfect. Christ is everything the Divine and humanity need Him to be. Hanging on the cross is the one, the only one, who is and has ever been closest to God (being God) and closest to us (being man). Not to overstate the point, but on our journey it is essential and uplifting to know that our go-between is the perfect mediator.