Christology is the pursuit to understand
and reclaim the person, pneumatology, and purpose of Jesus as a messianic
device. The idea of Jesus as a messianic device is important as a deus ex
machina of the anthropological snare of substitutionary atonement. This
atonement type suggests that Jesus serves as a replacement /substitute for
sinful fallen man. Jesus takes not only place But bears the weight
of sin in the stead of humanity.
Christology in this light places Jesus as the ultimate foil to sin and
sinfulness. Jesus us the ultimate foil because he is man enough to feel and yet
God enough to heal. Jesus is the ultimate foil because he is man enough to see
and yet God enough to save. He is the ultimate foil because he is man enough to
suffer and yet God enough to suffice. Jesus is deus ex machina ,or God in
the machine. Jesus solves the problem that was too big too bold and too
bad for us to solve alone. Jesus is the answer to the unsolvable problem that
rest in the fabric of man.
The problem is how can a holy God love sinful man? This problem is solved
through the reconciliation of man through Jesus Christ unto God. Jesus
exchanges and interposes himself for us in order to transform
us. The enemy of freedom is defeated not through violence but
through sacrificial love. Jesus becomes that which we cannot bear to
birth that which we must become. James Allison calls this sacrificial love the
exposition of violence.
But what happens when we subvert the identity of Jesus? What happens when we
live in a culture where everybody is ok? What happens when Jesus is
reduced to a motivational marionette? We reduce his life to cannon fodder in
context and catastrophe in praxis. We preach the gospel as if we are theological
snake oil salesmen pushing an existential experience that makes us feel good
but rarely causes us to actually be good. This
experience can’t be stamped with the label of worship because nothing is
surrendered. Worship will cost you but playing worship will exhaust you.
We play musical chairs with membership moving our affiliation when we lose that
special feeling. We fall in and out of
love with preachers like newly minted American idol contestants. And we drop doctrines faster Kim drop Kris
only to get Kanye.
This
is not to say that church should be boring or dry. I like engaging
preaching, the rhythm and artistry captured in the exchange between
preacher and congregation. But I am not a fan of life coaches,
motivational Muppets or prophets for profit. Preach a word if you’re
gonna preach, I don't need the first three chapters of from "Good to Great",
can do without delusional relationship advice from people who have no
empirical data, oh and miss me with the thinking like a man. We have hustled
the Gospel of Jesus Christ unto no end. In our attempt to make Christ fit
culture we have lost the revelation that Christ recreates culture. Jesus takes
a blind man that found himself on the fringes of society and re-introduces him,
not as a seeing blind man, but as an avatar for liberation through revelation. The
blind man sees clearly but his first vision is Jesus. The sighted blind man
cannot return to nomenclature because the blind man who now sees, understands
what the modern reader misses, Christ is not a captive to the rules of the
machine he is the key to escape the machine. Christ does not twist and cajole
himself to the pressures of culture he reaches into culture and reworks what
culture could be.
Christology is in
crisis because “give me Jesus” no longer satiates the pallets of his followers.
And why should it when we replace Jesus with “mo money mo money mo money”? Christology is in crisis because instead of
looking for a savior we don’t even think we need to be saved. And if we don’t need
to be saved surely we don’t need to be led. And if we don’t need to be led than
what exactly are we following? The never ending cycle of self-satisfaction
tells us that if we buy more we will love ourselves more and if I can just love
me more than I will have the solution. If
I can just do more for myself I can finally be happy because I am the problem,
oh but im also the solution. Just one more pay raise will get me ten
thousand square feet so I can put all those people who keep taking my happiness
from me , on the other side of the house. Just one more car and then everybody
can know im successful. Just one more
surgery and I can finally be happy with my face. Just one more relationship and
all of my loneliness will just float away. The solution for all of our ontological tension,
I am happy to say, is just do more for you. Thousands of years of philosophical
musings and thought for what marketers can show you in a thirty second
infomercial.
My friends you are
not the solution. Sorry! it pissed me off when I discovered that I am not the
solution either. I so wanted to be the solution. I needed to be the solution. I
dream at night about walking up to my problem and giving it a dragon upper cut
(google it) just demolishing my problems because I’m the solution. I would be
an awesome solution. (A guy has to dream) It exhausts me to no end to keep digging
inside myself for solutions that don’t answer my questions. The end of all my digging
just creates more desperation, wanting and anxiety. Where is Jesus ? Why can’t we see him ? Why won’t
he heal us if he is here? We can’t see him because Jesus comes to give we
follow him, but we come to take. Jesus
is not found in the act of taking in life he is found in the act of giving. He gives his life away and we reduce his
sacrifice to pitiful paltry punch line preaching. Jesus asks his disciples to
give up everything and follow him but what does it cost to follow Jesus today? Does it
cost everything to follow Jesus today? Today is cost even more to follow Jesus
because you have to actually try. Putting forth effort is so 1993.
Please do not sell
your cars, houses, or cash out your 401k and move to Middle America with a
commune where you sell jam on the road side.
But learn your neighbor’s names. Don’t take to the streets with bullhorn
telling people to repent for the “end is nigh”. Do take the time to say hello
to people you pass in your goings and comings.
Don’t pull a “seven pounds” and donate all your organs while you are
still using them. Do hold your neighbors hands. Don’t stop celebrating holidays
cause now your too holy. Do celebrate every day because Now you serve a Holy
God. Don’t get all mystical and spooky, that’s
just weird. Do talk to people, I mean really stop and talk, yes I mean those
uncomfortable talks that exhaust you.
Give your life away. Yes it’s
uncomfortable, yes it’s exhausting, yes it’s a pain. But when you give a hug
you get a hug. With each act of kindness we reclaim a little more of the face
of Christ put enough acts together and we see him clearly to love him dearly.
With each act of giving we see that God is not pulling a biosphere standing
over us looking on our condition but doing nothing to help. God is deus ex
machina , inside the machine with us pushing and pulling us. So give a little
bit, but you know that might hurt a little.
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