Wednesday, November 10, 2010

If We Don't Find The Gospel Interesting...

...it's not the Gospel's fault.  Jesus is certainly enough to make short work of the relentless temptation to make various self-helpisms, moral standards, and abstract God-concepts the object of our attention.  Honestly, I don't see what is so cool about a bunch of mental gymnastics that are supposed to lead to self-improvement.  The only good thing they seem to do is show me that I'm really inadequate, and cause me to find someone else's performance sufficiently fascinating. That is if I'm on my toes and recognize it for what it is. Now this, for instance, is fasincating:
It has been testified somewhere, "What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet."  Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus,  crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death  for everyone.[Heb 2:6-8]
The submission of Jewish Scripture(and everything else!) to Jesus, the humanity of Jesus and his kinship with us through the experience of death. He's accessible- there's no way to mistake Jesus for some vague cloud of God-ness or some such.  Which is essentially what's behind all this "taking advantage of the grace of God," or whatever it is that people warn about when you preach the Gospel like it matters.  Remember the snakes in the wilderness? The people complained against the Lord, and so he sent fiery snakes to bite them and kill them. And then God said to Moses: 
"Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live."[Num 21:8]
When he sees it, he shall live. Behold! That's really all it takes to be fascinated by it.  Yep, if that doesn't do the trick, well that's just a sign of my screwed up priorities, not of the Gospel's weakness.  Just remember this- Jesus found the Gospel fascinating:
And he said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. [Luke 24:25-27] 

1 comment:

Erin Hope said...

Yeah!

oh man. just flipped open to that passage in heb. yesterday.

It is fascinating, and does grab our attention, when he is seen. I like that.(the 'seen' part)