Reflection: Mysterious Contradictions

To be an offsider of Jesus, what a privilege! Imagine being one of his disciples. Exhilarating, exhausting, unpredictable, confronting, costly, bemusing. Bemusing indeed. Jesus’ lifestyle and message were so … well, upside-down.

Like the contradiction of the crucifixion. Scan the milling crowd and you’ll see only one of us; only one of Jesus’ closest friends was there at the foot of cross. The rest of us just couldn’t stomach a crucified Messiah; our hero-turned-‘nobody’, cursed by God. But John was there. Eyewitness to a God who stoops. John saw God accomplish the salvation of his world not through power and glory but through weakness, suffering and shame.

It makes sense, when you think about it. Looking back on our three years tracking with the Master, how often did he praise the powerless, help the helpless, fill the empty, honour the humble, restore the impotent, calm the tormented, forgive the sinner, give life to the dead?!

Things are not what they seem … What seem to be valuable (human piety, wisdom, philosophy) are in fact worthless, and what seem weak and negligible (the experience of suffering, temptation, awareness of sin and failure) are in fact God’s precious work to humble and then save the sinner. *

See, God’s signature way with his world is that very contradiction of the cross. When it looks like he’s a looser is precisely when he’s accomplishing his greatest victory.

Prayer:

Thank you, Lord and friend, for taking on the humility of humanity, the torment of temptation, the oppression of our sin and the torture of our curse … for our rescue and the renewal of your treasured world. Thank you for bringing me to my knees, sensing me of my sin, and enlightening me with that hard-won salvation. Thank you for the cross.

*Graham Tomlin