Humanity Testifies

Notes From the Pastor...

A Holy Week parable:

Two men die and go to heaven.  One was a sinner; the other, considered a saint.  When they come to the pearly gates Peter asks them both: “Which of you lived a Christ-like life?”  In proud posture the saint spoke up first, “I abandoned, rejected and despised my flesh.  I continually tried to live a purely divine life.”  The sinner sheepishly turned his eyes downward and mumbles, “I messed it up so many times.  I tried to be better, but I kept tripping over my humanity. ” “Oh I see,” said Peter to the saint, “Well by your confession, you dreamed of equality with God but you neglected to be Christ-like.”  And to the sinner Peter replied, "You lived in Christ-likeness, not because you sinned but because your humanity testifies that you were lowly, weak and dying of a sinful nature – just like Christ.” 

In the multiplicity of spiritualism around us today we are taught to despise the weakness of our flesh and strive for divinity, and those who reach this level of enlightenment, they are considered saints.  But this is not the story of incarnation.  “There can be no theology of the incarnation which does not become a theology of the cross,” says Jurgen Moltmann.  Therefore, as Martin Luther suggests, at the cross God descended into our sinful nature, even our death, not so humanity can become divine, but so humanity may disbelieve their false notions of divinity and be given a new humanity in the community of the crucified Christ.  This is what Paul speaks of in 2 Corinthians 12 when he quotes Christ as saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

So may you come to know God in the lowliness, weakness and dying of Christ.  May you love the one who lived in true humanity: abandoned, rejected and despised.  And may you obscenely find hope in the crucified.

Grace,
Pastor Ryan