Week Four, Day 2: Human Beings Become Human because God Became Human

"God is ever-present in our lives and the lives of all human beings, but not to engage in magical manipulation of the forces of the universe. Creation is not control. God's creative Spirit is, was, and always will be the ongoing involvement of a loving God made known to us supremely in the person of Jesus the Christ. Jesus--through whom we understand God as incarnate in our world--offers us the clearest intellectual and relational image of God. In mission we are collaborators with the ongoing missional activities of the Creator God, revealed through the person of Jesus Christ and the experience of the ever-present Holy Spirit."
The Rev. Dr. John Edward Nuessle


"We believe that those dear folk who say -- presuming intellectual humility - that God is ultimate, distant, ineffable and unknowable, are wrong. God is not vague and indistinct, aloof and indiscernible. God has a face, a name, a certain way of talking and living, and dying, and rising. Jesus Christ - who lived briefly, died violently and rose unexpectedly - is the One in whom “all the fullness of God chose to dwell” (Col. 1:19)."
Bishop Will Willimon



The only way we could hope to understand God is to meet God in a way that is familiar to us. We do not become God but instead God becomes us, with a face, a name, a certain way of talking. God comes into the world as we do; vulnerable. Last night we discussed the vulnerability of babies; the complete reliance upon the parent. It doesn't get much more human than that!

Week Three, Day Six: Overcoming Fear

"And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. A gale arose on the lake, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’ And he said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, you of little faith?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. They were amazed, saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?’"
Matthew 8:23-27

In the same way that the birth of Christ is a reversal of human norms so too is the redemption. "God comes into the very midst of evil and death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And by judging us, god cleanses and sanctifies us with grace and love." In the very places we feel lowest and furthest from God, those are the very places God finds us. We can find comfort in that thought, and move away from fear towards an understanding that there is hope!

Week 3, Day 5: World Judgment and World Redemption

Close to you I waken in the dead of night.
And start with fear -- are you lost to me once more?
     Is it alwasy vainly that I seek you, my past?
I stretch my hands out,
and I pray --
and a new thing now I hear:
"The past will come to you once more,
and be your life's enduring part,
through thanks and repentance.
Feel in the past God's deliverance and goodness,
Pray him to keep you today and tomorrow."

The poem printed above was composed by Bonhoeffer during the last year of his life, probably during his last weeks at Tegel prison in the suburbs of Berlin. After his time at Tegel, Bonhoeffer was moved to the Gestapo headquarters in downtown Berlin, followed a few weeks later by a move to the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. By April 1945, Bonhoeffer had moved once more, to the Flossenburg concentration camp. It was at Flossenburg that he was executed on April 9th.

One thing I have always found striking about Bonhoeffer was the calm way in which he writes. The aforementioned poem starts out with an uneasy feeling, where the writer awakens in fear, but ends with a feeling of God's deliverance and goodness. It seems Bonhoeffer really believed his redemption was drawing near!

On the day of his execution, the SS doctor that witnessed Bonhoeffer's execution wrote that Bonhoeffer was “devout . . . brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds . . . I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” Bonhoeffer's final message to his friend George Bell had a similarly submissive tone: “This is the end, for me the beginning of life.”
Quotations from USHMM


"If we want to participate in this Advent and Christmas event, we cannot simply sit there like spectators in a theater and enjoy all of friendly pictures. Rather, we must join in the action that is taking place and be drawn into this reversal of all things ourselves."

Week Three, Day Four: Look Up, Your Redemption is Drawing Near

²⁸Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Luke 21:28

The example of the trapped miner is an appropriate one. Trapped underground, feeling like all hope is lost, suddenly there is a sound from above. The miner looks up, hears and sees his rescuers and replies "here I am!" In many ways, we too are trapped and looking "down." You can begin with the Advent season and think about all the ways we "look down," but extend it outwards to the entire year. In what ways are we "looking down?" We are concerned with so many things that we get caught up in our ways and our wants. There is a fine balance to strike, though. Should you spend all of your time "looking up," ignoring the things of the earth? Probably not! I heard a saying once that seems to apply to this situation "keep my feet on the ground but my head in the clouds." There are things that we should concern ourselves with in our temporal place, but even greater are those that are to come. Look up from time to time!

Week Three, Day Three: Becoming Guilty

18 Come now, let us argue it out,

says the Lord:

though your sins are like scarlet,

they shall be like snow;

though they are red like crimson,

they shall become like wool.   

Isaiah 1:18

The Bonhoeffer reading for today comes from a sermon delivered to a German-speaking congregation in London during the brief period in which Bonhoeffer lived there. This sermon is one of only a handful that survive from that part of his ministry. The entire sermon focuses on the Magnificat, the hymn of Mary that we read last week. While rereading the sermon, on particular passage stuck out with reference to our theme today:

"When we reach a point in our lives at which we are not only ashamed of ourselves, but believe God is ashamed of us too, when we feel so far from God, more than we have ever felt in our lives, than and precisely then, God is nearer to us than he has ever been. It is then that he breaks into our lives. It is then that he lets us know that feeling of despair is taken away from us, so that we may grasp the wonder of his love, his nearness to us, and his grace." Sermon on the Magnificat

It is clear to me that Bonhoeffer is talking about guilt here, specifically the acceptance that we are all guilty of something. That low point can be a very lonely place, where we feel incredibly far away from everything. What is comforting, though is the reminders we have been getting all along: the places we don't expect to encounter God, the places that feel most far away or dark or dirty or unhappy are the very places that we do encounter God. God is the God of the oppressed and the downtrodden, but also the God of the guilty:

"Christ the son of a poor working man’s wife in the East End of London! Christ in the manger . . . God is not ashamed to be with those of humble state. He goes into the midst of it all, chooses one person to be his instrument, and does his miracle there, where one least expects it. He loves the lost, the forgotten, the insignificant, the outcasts, the weak, and the broken. Where men say, 'lost,' he says 'found;' where men say 'no,' he says 'yes.' Where men look with indifference or superiority, he looks with burning love, such as nowhere else is to be found. Where men say, 'contemptible!,' God cries, 'blessed.'" 

 

 

Week Three, Day Two: Taking on Guilt

16 Then someone came to him and said, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?’ ¹⁷And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ ¹⁸He said to him, ‘Which ones?’ And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; ¹⁹Honour your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ ²⁰The young man said to him, ‘I have kept all these;^* what do I still lack?’ ²¹Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money^* to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ ²²When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Matthew 19:16-19

Last night we had a wonderful conversation about redemption and guilt. Guilt is a hard subject. You don't want to dwell on things in the past, but it is important to recognize the things that hang up your life. In the Methodist tradition, salvation from the guilt of sin is termed "justification." In his sermon entitled Justification by Faith, Wesley wrote:

"The plain scriptural notion of justification is pardon, the forgiveness of sins. It is that act of God the Father, hereby, for the sake of the propitiation made by the blood of his Son, he 'showeth forth his righteousness (or mercy) by the remission of the sins that are past.'"

The entire sermon is worth reading, but the takeaway from this portion is pardon. We are pardoned, by God, through Christ. As we discussed last night, we need to look up from time to time, if only to recognize that we aren't in control of everything. Again, John Wesley:

"Thou who feelest thou art just fit for hell, art just fit to advance his glory; the glory of his free grace, justifying the ungodly and him that worketh not. O come quickly! Believe in the Lord Jesus; and thou, even thou, art reconciled to God."

Week 3: Redemption

God lets it be known today so that we may all the more passionately, all the more eagerly, seize the promise of grace, so that we might recognize that we do not stand before God in our own strength, lest we should perish before God; that in spite of everything God does not desire our death, but rather our life”  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom

"What about the 'good and evil' about which Christ will ask us on that final day? The good is nothing other than our asking for and receiving his grace. The evil is only fear and wanting to stand before God on our own and justify ourselves. To repent, therefore, means to be in the process of turning around, turning away from our own accomplishments and receiving God's mercy. Turn back, turn back! The whole Bible calls us to joyfully turn back--where? To the everlasting mercy of God who never leaves us, whose heart breaks because of us, the God who created us and loves us beyond all measure." 
 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The idea of redemption refers to deliverance from sin and in the Christian context is the result of the revelation of God in Christ. In today's readings, guilt is the major stumbling block that is overcome in Christ. According to Psychology Today, "guilt and its handmaiden, shame, can paralyze––or catalyze one into action. Appropriate guilt can function as social glue, spurring one to make reparations for wrongs." I am fascinated by the idea of "paralyze or catalyze." Either you let your guilt paralyze you, rendering you unable (or unwilling) to repent, or you let your guilt catalyze your actions. You do something. One of my professors at SMU, Dr. Billy Abraham, would always say "it's time to either fish or cut bait." You have to make a decision. In the second Bonhoeffer quote, this decision is very clear: we must "[turn] away from our own accomplishments and [receive] God's mercy." Redemption is always available to us. God's mercy is ever present and everlasting, but we have to turn around and turn away from ourselves!