That's God
"For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form" (Colossians 2:9).
Our language is so limited. I work with words all the time, and find myself struggling sometimes to describe exactly what happens during this week...or any week. When I talk about Jesus, it's hard not to slip into either talking about him only as a human being or only as God's Son...and then lacking the language to talk about what that means, or what it means that he's both.
It's hard, because there is no one else like Jesus. He is fully God. He is fully human. As Paul said, the "fullness" of God lives in a body in Jesus. That word "fullness" literally means what it sounds like—that something is so completely full that there's no room for anything else. Picture a mug that, if one more drop of liquid were added, it would overflow. Jesus is FULL of divinity. But Jesus is also FULL of humanity. Somehow, in some way we can't begin to understand or really explain, he is, as the ancient creed says, "true God of true God" and yet "able to sympathize" with our weaknesses as human beings (Hebrews 4:15). It boggles the mind.
So bring that thought to this week, this Holy Week. When we look at the whipping post and the awful things the soldiers are doing to Jesus—from the beating to the crown of thorns to the mocking words—we have to look at that scene and cry out, "That's God!" You're beating and mocking God! When we look at the cross, as we watch them put nails through his hands and ankles, we have to watch in agony and say, "That's God!" Those hands you're piercing—they created you. They created the very wood you're nailing him to! They created the metal that has been forged into the nails that are now piercing those precious hands! That's God! And as we watch them take him down from the cross, as we watch Mary weep over her son, as we remember that just thirty-some years before, she held him oh so differently, with a choked up voice, we have to say, "That's God!" The one who sustains life is dead.
Jesus—fully God and fully human—took the worst the world had to offer. Took the hate. Took the anger. Took the brutality. Took it all—for me, and for you. That's God, the God who gives himself out of love for the sake of his creation. There isn't anything he wouldn't do or go through, including becoming human, to win back your heart.
That's God. That's the God who made me. That's the God who loves me. That's the kind of love I will never fully understand...but whether I understand it or not, I still can receive it. And be thankful for it.
Our language is so limited. I work with words all the time, and find myself struggling sometimes to describe exactly what happens during this week...or any week. When I talk about Jesus, it's hard not to slip into either talking about him only as a human being or only as God's Son...and then lacking the language to talk about what that means, or what it means that he's both.
It's hard, because there is no one else like Jesus. He is fully God. He is fully human. As Paul said, the "fullness" of God lives in a body in Jesus. That word "fullness" literally means what it sounds like—that something is so completely full that there's no room for anything else. Picture a mug that, if one more drop of liquid were added, it would overflow. Jesus is FULL of divinity. But Jesus is also FULL of humanity. Somehow, in some way we can't begin to understand or really explain, he is, as the ancient creed says, "true God of true God" and yet "able to sympathize" with our weaknesses as human beings (Hebrews 4:15). It boggles the mind.
So bring that thought to this week, this Holy Week. When we look at the whipping post and the awful things the soldiers are doing to Jesus—from the beating to the crown of thorns to the mocking words—we have to look at that scene and cry out, "That's God!" You're beating and mocking God! When we look at the cross, as we watch them put nails through his hands and ankles, we have to watch in agony and say, "That's God!" Those hands you're piercing—they created you. They created the very wood you're nailing him to! They created the metal that has been forged into the nails that are now piercing those precious hands! That's God! And as we watch them take him down from the cross, as we watch Mary weep over her son, as we remember that just thirty-some years before, she held him oh so differently, with a choked up voice, we have to say, "That's God!" The one who sustains life is dead.
Jesus—fully God and fully human—took the worst the world had to offer. Took the hate. Took the anger. Took the brutality. Took it all—for me, and for you. That's God, the God who gives himself out of love for the sake of his creation. There isn't anything he wouldn't do or go through, including becoming human, to win back your heart.
That's God. That's the God who made me. That's the God who loves me. That's the kind of love I will never fully understand...but whether I understand it or not, I still can receive it. And be thankful for it.
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