But that proud Paynim forward came so fierce

And full of wrath, that with his sharp-head speare

Through vainely crosséd shield he quite did pierce,

And had his staggering steede not shrunke for feare,

Through shield and bodie eke he should him bear…

–The Faerie Queene I.iii, Edmund Spenser

It is well in reflection to consider our trials, it is well in meditation to ponder Holy Writ, in discourse to compare doctrines, in reading to glean from the thoughts of the wise, in debate to match wits with our opponent, in reason to work out a pathway through the philosophical mists; but worthy though these things be, they quickly begin to lose their appeal when the Christian comes to the house of God to sing and pray.  When I allow the worship team to gently draw my thoughts away from the cares of the world, and along with my brothers and sisters I lift up my being in utter abandon and adoration, I find no pleasure in anything but the name of my Savior.  The joy of the vision we are given as we gather to render our lives before our God in the glory of music can only be surpassed by the scintillating prospect of what it will be like when we do so as part of a world that resounds to our praise in the resonant frequency of the New Creation.  Only such an ensemble can express what it means to us to have a relationship with Jesus Messiah, and it is my hope that there will be people in eternity who are assigned to this duty exclusively (besides, that will keep them out of the way of those of us who are tasked with building the infrastructure of the Kingdom… J ).  There is no purpose of worship greater than to bring us into the presence of Jesus.

This is a singular experience.  As we noted in Colossians on Sunday, Christ cannot be juxtaposed with any other religious or political leader.  We cannot weigh who he is or what he has done over and against any other person.  Because the problem is precisely that: he is a person.

For God to be a person means that you no longer have the divided loyalty that must eventually enter into the purview of every leader’s rule.  When the body politic over which they preside reaches a size sufficient to begin taking on its own characteristics and preferences and finally culture, it becomes increasingly evident that the leader is not indicative of the nature of the corpus.  The wise governor knows this, and has the humility to accept the obedience of his followers without feeling the need to embody them in himself.  But it is not so with the Church.  We are Christ’s body as surely as he is our head, and it is only in him that we find our real identity.  To such an extent is this found to be true, that it is possible to look at the life and work of Jesus and know what the Church is supposed to be – even though it is not always evident from our actions.  He is the image of the invisible God into which we are together being made, a mystery beyond comprehension.

For God to be a person means the universe was permanently skewed in the Incarnation.  He who was at the center of all things, figuring in the councils of the Trinity before time, present at Creation, visible only in glimpses throughout the Old Testament, the very expression of the power and glory of the Father; he it was who was born a poor Jew in a backwards, conquered country during an era when the only other interesting thing happening in the world was Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  And that certainly wasn’t happening in Bethlehem!  This is why you cannot simultaneously be intellectually honest and noncommittal about Christianity.  The claims made by the carpenter’s son you grew up with meant he was either the Potentate of Time made flesh, or he was a blithering idiot.  There was simply no other category for him.  In his wake the laws of Nature were set aside, the prisons of paralysis and blindness and sin were shattered, the halls of ecclesiastical power leveled, the timekeeping of history itself changed, the Temple shaken and the curtain of the Holy of Holies torn asunder.  His was not a life that could be ignored, then as now.  The awed murmur of the centurion at the cross, Vere Dei Filius erat iste, is the confession that will someday come from every tongue.

For God to be a person means that the security of the existence of all things was thereby put in jeopardy.  If Jesus is the one in whom all things hold together, and if he entered Adam’s lineage and was born of a woman, then the curse of death was upon the world when it came upon him.  I think this is something of what Peter was talking about when he said angels long to look into the things that are announced to us in the Gospel.  It must have seemed to them like the death-knell of every living thing when Jesus became a man.  But the prophets knew in their souls what the angels did not.  Jeremiah said God was setting before his people the way of life and the way of death; not one or the other, but one that leads to the other.  It is necessary that the Law be fulfilled in order for our salvation to be accomplished.  It is necessary that one man die for the sins of the people.  And it is necessary that those people follow him through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, feeling the tension of a living sacrifice, if they would attain the resurrection from the dead.

For God to be a person means that the fullness of the Eternal was pleased to dwell in the frame of a man.  If Solomon’s temple in all its splendor could not contain the glory of Jehovah, it is surely even more remarkable that a finite being – and one created for mere stewardship at that – should be the means Christ should choose for his conquest.  It is still more remarkable that this conquest should take the shape of reconciliation with all things, whether on earth or in heaven.  Why should not he have demonstrated his perfection and complete worthiness to rule, and then taken up the iron scepter to judge the world for its rejection of him?  Yet he did not.  Jesus instead reached out to the world, and in a way that the noblest of us would scoff at.  He said of his tormentors, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  I have a hard enough time forgiving people when I think they a) understand how badly they have hurt me and b) really do want to be forgiven.  This is a reconciliation that is far beyond anything that is within me to think or do.  It is a reconciliation that must be worked out by the power of his Spirit in me.  And when his final judgment does come, it will show to all the world how truly he did offer his Gospel of peace.

This peace was made by the blood of his cross.  No other way could have shown forth the generosity and love that came from the heart of God to us.  Sans Loy in bloody lines was written on the shield we raised in our rebellion against him; and yet it was to this same Law that Jesus appealed for our redemption.  Under its relentless auspices he lived a sinless life, not only keeping himself from error but giving himself completely to righteousness, and he did so for a single purpose: to ransom those the Father had given him from the punishment we had brought on our own heads.  And when he had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.  For by that single offering he perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

And what a sanctification it is!  Though we are delivered from the power of sin, we are not delivered from the heat of its conflict.  The pain of a broken world, the reproach of our own flesh, and the onslaught of our pitiless enemy all combine to fan the flames of our crucible until the precious metal of our faith is purified into an offering that is pleasing to the Lord.  I have always thought it ironic that some look on the cross as a superstitious symbol of protection, an amulet to ward off adversity.  If anything the sign of the cross is a wide-open invitation for hardship.  It is a visible declaration and a direct identification with the sufferings of Christ which, if we knew the paths it would lead us down, we would probably never have taken on ourselves.  But it is also in those direst moments, when our steed falters beneath us and the weapon of our attacker overcomes us, and the symbol of the cross itself is thrown down before our eyes; in those moments when our very system of doctrine and Christian beliefs comes crashing down around our heads in the revealed weakness of our faith, that we come to know that our eternal hope is more than our most dearly held convictions.  It is more than ourselves and more than the world we live in, and we may dare say that it is even more than truth itself, for the source is greater than that which proceeds from it.  Our faith is as Rick said, at the end of all things, a Person.

Brothers and sisters at Holy Cross, arise from the ground of your defeat! and to those around us who vainly look to the Christian life as leverage for the realization of meaning and power and reputation and all the other secondary desires of our hearts, let us bring the question we have asked ourselves: What will you do with Jesus?

JV

Artwork: Bayeux Tapestry

Author: Jeremy Vogan

My name is Jeremy Vogan. I live in Staunton, VA with my wife and four kids. I love to write, and seek to honestly explore the intellectual and emotional implications of following Jesus as a deeply broken person in a twisted, cruel world that is full of veiled beauty and meaning. Writing is part of how I faithfully look for Jesus Christ to someday make all things new. I'd enjoy hearing your feedback! JV