The Wood Between the Worlds: Part 1 (of 3)

The Wood Between the Worlds: Part 1 (of 3)

1. SUNDAY // OCTOBER 6 The Wood Between the Worlds: Part 1

2. The cross is not what God inflicts in order to forgive; the cross is what God in Christ endures as he forgives… The cross is not where Jesus changes God but where Jesus reveals God. N.T. WRIGHT

3. The crucifixion means everything. Everything that can be known about God is in some way present at the cross. It’s the pinnacle of divine self-disclosure, the eternal moment of forgiveness, divine solidarity with human suffering, the enduring model of discipleship, the supreme demonstration of divine love, the beauty that saves the world, the re-founding of the world around an axis of love, (not power and killing),  the overthrow of the satan …

4. …the shaming of the principalities and powers, the unmasking of mob violence, the condemnation of state violence, the exposé of political power, the abolition of war, the sacrifice to end sacrificing, the great divide of humankind, the healing center of the cosmos, the death by which death is conquered, the Lamb upon the throne, the tree of life recovered and revealed.

5. And with this brief list of interpretations, I’ve come nowhere near exhausting the meaning of the cross, for indeed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is an inexhaustible revelation of who God is.

6. 1 CORINTHIANS 2:2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

7. 1 CORINTHIANS 2:2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:23 But we proclaim Christ Jesus crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.

8. The cross is by a very long way the most irreligious object ever to find its way into the heart of faith. FLEMING RUTLEDGE

9. The “Father, forgive them” moment upon the cross is not when Jesus changed the mercurial mind of God. No! This is the moment when the eternal love of the triune God intervened decisively in human history to forgive human sin once and for all. This is the moment when the Spirit of love that flows between the Father and the Son erupted to engulf and forgave the sin of the world.

10. JOHN 1:29 Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

11. JOHN 1:29 Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. 2 CORINTHIANS 5:19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them.

12. God in death upon the cross that fully reveals who God is. Christ as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8) is not just a historical event. It’s who God is.

13. The power and wisdom of God are not found in hurled thunderbolts or in some other imagined aspect of omnipotence, but in God nailed to a tree, dying in solidarity with mortal suffering and forgiving the sin of the world. God revealed in weakness and death is what the apostle calls the mysterion — “the mystery of Christ” (Eph 3: 4).

14. God looks like Jesus. God has always looked like Jesus. There has never been a time when God hasn’t looked like Jesus. There will never be a time when God doesn’t look like Jesus. We haven’t always known that. But now we do. BRIAN ZAHND

15. Lord Jesus, you stretched out your arms of love upon the hard wood of the cross so that all may come within the reach of your saving embrace; So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your name. Amen.   CLOSING PRAYER