We Have Seen His Glory
With LeRoy moderating, we're looking at Peterson's section on "The Glory," pp. 99-108. It is worth noting that this is in the section on Creation--I'm not sure we typically make the connection between God's glory and God's creation.
I was struck by P's connecting glory and the Cross: "But this glory must now be reimaged and received and entered into as Jesus reveals it: Jesus ignorable, Jesus unimpressive, Jesus dismissed, Jesus marginal, Jesus suffering, Jesus rejected, Jesus derided, Jesus hung on a cross, and--the final and irrefutable indignity--Jesus dead and buried. All this is included in the content of 'we beheld his glory'" (p. 101).
Kinda changes the way I think about "the Glorious Church"...
posted by Brian Emmet @ 2:19 PM
5 Comments:
I've been thinking on these thngs over the weekend, thinking about "glory" and bearing the cross and how they might be related. Obviously they ARE already interconnected, because Scripture declares that they are, but they are often disconnected in our thinking and experience. About as far as I've gotten is the thought that the church tends to fall into one of two ditches: we either so emphasize the "It is finished!" aspects of the Cross that the Cross comes to make no continuing demands of us. Therefore we focus, or misfocus, on the supposed benefits that are ours in Christ and through his cross--healing, prosperity, sense of peace. (Not that things like this are bad, or that they are not in fact ours in Christ!)
The other ditch is an over-focusing on what I need to do, the demands of the Cross as understood primarily from my perspective. This tends to drive us to an over-focus on asceticism, spiritual disciplines, introspection--again, not that any of these are inherently bad, or unnecessary, just that our focus shifts from what Christ has accomplished onto what I "need to do."
But I'm still struck by how God's glory is connected to Christ's Cross--"these light and momentary afflictions are working in us an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs them all" (2 Cor 5) is one way Paul puts it. I think the church in the West is missing so much reality (= "glory," KABOD, weightiness, substance, that which is solid/real)...
Who can help me out here?
Give me a few days, please. My string is attached, but I need to engange my brain. The past week (Tuesday - Tuesday) has been very intense. I will share more later. Blessings to you, LeRoy and Brian, and all the other "listeners." GLORY to God!
Randy, keep that string tied on/in!
Arre you familiar witht the Reformation's distinguishing between a "theology of glory" and a "theology of the cross"? I think many US evangleical churches may preach a theo of the cross, but actually practice a theo of glory... and i think the way to get after this is to look at how we address suffering and the presence of evil. For a small example, why has no contemporary Christian worship lyricist (at least to my knowledge) ever done a rendition of Psalm 77 or 88--why can't we ever sing a 'sad' worship chorus? For many, those two words, 'sad' and 'worship' simply can never go together. Why do we find it so hard to talk about the intractable problems (ongoing illness, poverty, addictions, lack of work, etc.) faced daily by folks in our congregations? Why have we developed almost no ways to actually practice 'confessing [y]our sins to one another'? Instead, we tend to confess with one another to God--and not that we shouldn't do that, too, but we leave out the 'to one another' part.
Maybe our small-ish, somewhat marginal,insignificant, non-mega-, not-up-to-best-practices churches are not the shame and sham we sometimes feel them to be? Maybe some/much of the approach to church growth represents a theology of glory rather than a theology of the cross?
What do you think?
A couple of thoughts in response to L's good questions. I think Luther said that it is not our job to seek the cross, the cross will find us. In other words, we are not to make ourselves suffer as if thereby we make ourselves closer or more acceptable to God. Suffering is, after all, a response to evil (suffering is not evil, but it is the result of evil), so we shouldn't seek out suffering. does this sound valid to you?
Second, I think one of the ways that I obey, at least partially, some of the Scriptures L referenced is by coming alongside people in their suffering. maybe this sounds like a cheap way out, but i am noticing how costly it can be for me simply to be patient with folks who are suffering, especially when thheir suffering does not appear to have a solution anytime soon. So the guy in our church--mid-40s, always kind of been the runt of the litter, 2 or 3 failed marriages, works as a dishwasher, never held a job for a year--it's hard to just sit with him in what he suffers. And I don't see a ready solution soon, which means our church benevolence fund will likely need to carry him financially from time to time. It's hard to not simply get mad at him--after all, much of his life is his own doing--tell him to shape up or ship out, grow up, etc. Not that we don't need to help him assume as much responsibility as he possibly can for his life, but also seeing that there may be limits to that, which will cost the rest of us a little bit.
Does this sound like really small potatoes, or a convenient avoiding of something more basic?
I've also been noticing how much suffering there already is in my church. I'd say that all things conisdered, we're a reasonably healthy place, with lots of seasoned believers. We've really been pretty free of the petty church squabbles that drain so much time and energy. At the same time, we've got several folks wrestling with depression, obsessive-compulsive stuff, maybe one or two bipolar folks... some difficult marriages, lots of difficult kid situations, especially many older kids not at all walking with Jesus...job-related (overwork and/or underemployment)--I think you get the idea. Now perhpas none of this really 'counts' as suffering for Jesus--none of it is the direct result of our witness, but then again I'm not sure I want to start to categorize suffering as more or less spiritual. But perhaps it is a kind of suffering for Christ in that these are people who are seriously trying to pursue a life of discipleship, and find that a daily struggle.
I think as we're really willing to get to know each other, be with one another, try to learn something about bearing one another's burdens, esp. the burdens that don't look like they're going anywhere anytime soon, perhaps that is a way in which we enter into and even participate, albeit briefly and even somewhat supeficially, in the sufferings of Christ. And I can honestly say that there really is a glory in doing this--it's not necessarily the glory of the dramatic healing or the instantaneous deliverance (real and valuable as those are), but maybe it is something of the glory of the cross...?
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