In the embrace of the crucified

“For worshippers of a crucified Lord, embracing God requires embracing innocent suffering: the child dying on Peed Onk, the Alzheimer patient abandoned by his adult children, the Sudanese mother unable to feed her family. A visible reminder of this Christian reality can be found in the cathedral in Wurzburg, Germany, where a large crucifix stands in a recessed arch to the side of the nave. The battered body of Christ has gaunt, Gothic features, his eyes fixed upon the viewer, his hands, pulled from the arms of the cross, extended outward in a gesture of embrace, inviting the viewer to enter. In pulling his arms from the arms of the cross, however, this carved Jesus still carries the spikes that nailed him there, embedded in his hands. There is no way to enter that embrace without feeling the iron instruments of Jesus’ torture. The loving embrace of God in the flesh necessarily involves entering the pain of that flesh. for Christians, this is how we become what God intends us to be.” Shuman & Volck, “Reclaiming the Body”, p45.

A Question of Politics… and Greek

When Paul was writing his letters, including instructions for those who were under the thumb of the government, he was writing as one who knew government persecution. Considering himself a slave of Christ, he wrote instructions to slaves; considering himself a Roman prisoner, he wrote instructions to those under Roman rule; considering himself condemned to death, he wrote instructions to those who suffered.

If Christians should continue to always be a voice of the political outsider challenging the mainstream (so Yoder, Hauerwas), what should they do if they happen to find themselves in a position of political power? This question was driven home for me by something interesting I saw in Caesarea: The inscriptions above have been excavated in ancient tax collection centres from the Byzantine (ie Constantinian) period: Here, adorning the floor, are quotations from the apostle Paul (Romans 13), warning those who enter that if they want to live without fear, they should “do good” in relation to the authorities! The voice of the Roman prisoner has been co-opted by the Roman government as a means of enforcement… I’ll let you do the translation, dear reader* – it’s quite easy Greek.

*note use of the singular

Fat Jesus

Imagine if we encountered the risen Jesus, and found him to be fat. He was picked on, after all, by being labeled a glutton and a drunkard. I’m not claiming he was fat – just wondering what issues it would raise for us.

I just read a review of a book called “The Fat Jesus” by Lisa Isherwood. It explores body issues from a feminist theological perspective. I found this so intriguing that I have ordered a book by Isherwood – but not the “fat Jesus” one… I’ve ordered her book “Introducing body theology” – because I think that “the body” is a topic surprisingly under-explored in Christian theology, and especially in my own area of Pauline studies. This is becoming more and more surprising to me, given that the body has such a prominent place in Romans, 1 Corinthians, Philippians, etc – the body of Jesus, the bodies of believers, the ecclesial body of Christ.

Have a look through the book of Romans, and you’ll notice that sin, judgement, atonement, sanctification and future glory are all described using bodily terms…

- God gave them up… to the degrading of their bodies (ch 1)
- Their throats… tongues… lips… mouths… feet… eyes (ch3)
- Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies (ch6)
- You have died to the law through the body of Christ (ch7)
- If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you. (ch8)
- We groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies (ch8)
- I appeal to you… to present your bodies as a living sacrifice (ch12)
- We who are many are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another (ch12)
etc…

…and don’t get me started on 1 Corinthians!!

Israel in Pictures

I’m back from Israel. It’s a place of great contrasts. I’ll try to capture them with a few pictures I took along the way…

Old and New
In the foreground of the first picture is Herod’s Palace in Caesarea, complete with his own private swimming pool – which now melts into the sea. The second picture, of course, shows Herod’s Temple wall.

Promise and Menace
It’s a place where the best and worst elements of humanity are on display – hopes and visions, alongside prejudice and fear. The first picture is from coastal Caesarea, the second from the Palestinian side of the wall that emphatically divides Israeli territory from Palestinian territory.

Achievement and Failure
The first picture includes part of Herod’s Temple foundation – an astonishing achievement, being easily the size of a couple of football fields side by side. The second picture was taken in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Glory and Hiddenness
The Dome of the Rock is surely the most impressive building in Jerusalem, with its famous gold-topped roof. The second picture shows a little-known room hiding in the back of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – a dark, tiny, largely empty room in which a couple of empty tombs dating from the Second Temple period can be found, just metres away from the location which is widely agreed to be Golgotha…

“We have seen his glory…” John 1:14