Incarnation is Hard Work

We constantly compare ourselves to others. In fact, it seem we are indeed quite good at praying without ceasing, so long as our prayer is like that of the Pharisee in Luke 18:11.

However, rather than finding our identity in the distance we can put between ourselves and others who are less successful, our deepest identity is rooted where we are like all other people - weak, broken, sinful, but sons and daughters of God.

This matters deeply to me, as I have recently been wrestling with ambition and the perceived need to achieve. Sometimes I mistakenly take thoughts like the above to allow, or even require, laziness. But, rightly understood, this shows me that hard work should come as a result of our love for others and the concomitant desire to serve them, and is not necessarily rooted in the desire to distance ourselves from other in order to compare. When rooted in love, this work is the recapitulation of the incarnation - an act that brings us to intimate closeness in Christ.

Hiding in Bold Exposure

"And only when the clear sky again looks through the broken roofs (of Cathedrals) and down upon grass and red poppies on broken walls - only then will I turn my heart again towards the places of this God."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zurathustra"

Many mourn the fall of Christendom, either through wails or battle cries or forwarded emails, but others celebrate it. Neitzsche and I would both fall into this latter category, though for fundamentally different reasons.

I see that now we have nowhere to hide but in Christ, and he, in our hiding, constantly pushes us out into the world in a new bravery birthed in love. Therefore the crumbling walls of cathedrals mark a time of enormous potential for a truly surrendered, and thus truly embodied, faith of boldness.

Good Friday

May you grow to love the God-man who lived our life and died our death. May you know the victory he has won as he took all the evil that rebellious powers could pour out, absorbed it and rendered it powerless. And may his courage take root in you and enable you to live for God and the salvation and healing of those around you.

Multidirectional

"The church as an often fallible human organization needs our forgiveness, while the church as the living Christ among us continues to offer us forgiveness."
- Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

Healing requires forgiveness, and forgiveness must both be offered and received in order to heal.

Trespass

Hear this well: God is looking on us right now in love. Whatever else we may feel colors his vision, is wrong.

But, why is this love so difficult to accept, especially when it is impossible to live without? Perhaps it is exactly because it is impossible to live without, and there is something inside all of us obstinately bent towards death.

If our life is death, then death is life.

Let us trespass in the realm of death.