God With Us

This post is part of the January 2011 Synchroblog on ”The Manifestation Of God”. This month’s synchroblog is inspired by The Season Of Epiphany, which runs from January 6 to the day before Ash Wednesday. You can find a list of all participants at the end of this post.

I have a strong proclivity for posts about sin, I realize, but it’s on my mind today. We’re embroiled in a national debate about violent political rhetoric and shocking acts of violence and I’m sitting down to write a post about the manifestation of God. They don’t have to be related but I think they are. I see an intersection in sin.

I think about sin in expansive terms. It’s what Christ was born and died to redeem but it isn’t just personal fault or failing. It’s a creation-wide, pervasive condition of corruption. It is death itself, read as widely and deeply as possible.

Personal moral failings arise from this corruption and we call them sins. It isn’t enough to say that Jesus died for our sins, though, unless he also died to destroy the power of sin itself. A death that only covered personal moral failings would be a wasted effort. Or corruption is much deeper. Jesus had to die to destroy the power of death, the source of our personal sins. The wages of sin is death, Paul tells us, but elsewhere he also says the sting of death is sin.

I’ve been accused of a negative anthropology over this kind of talk. I don’t agree with the assessment. Human beings are essentially and fundamentally good, created in the image of God. The image of God in each person is corrupted and obscured–maybe even erased–and we are steadily dehumanized.

The recent talk about violence and violent rhetoric brought the ravaging and dehumanizing effects of death to mind. Death annihilates life. The vitriol and hatred Jared Loughner had for Gabrielle Giffords manifested itself in violence and a total disregard for his fellow human beings as he fired into the crowd. This is sin. It is death unleashed on the world. I call it evil.

Where is God in this situation? I’m waiting for a manifestation. I believe, of course, that God is weeping with those who mourn, including the family of Jared Loughner. And I believe that God is with Gabrielle Giffords as she recovers.

But I also see the Holy Spirit moving among us and I see us refusing to listen. Public debate about violent rhetoric has come down to the left blaming the right and the right asserting that the left is just as bad. I’ve heard arguments that violent metaphors are inappropriate and arguments that they’re just metaphor. I’ve heard the argument that Loughner was a lone nut and I’ve heard the (justified) assertion that if Loughner had been a Muslim, he would not have been considered a lone nut. I’ve heard everything but self-reflection. I’ve yet to hear anyone take responsibility for something she said and shouldn’t have said.

In the plainest terms possible, I see conviction in the desperate bid to shift blame. The collective anxiety we feel in the face of this event is about sin–not just Loughner’s sin but our sin.

In Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus says:

You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

The same sentiment is put more simply in 1 John 3:15: “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.”

Loughner’s crimes are different from ours in degree, not in kind. God is manifest in our uneasy recognition that something deeper and more ancient than we can name is wrong and we cannot fix it without the healing power of the Holy Spirit.

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Mike at Simply a Night Owl What to do?
Beth at Finding Ground A Robust Universe Includes the Botched and Bungled
Jeff at Pilgrimage of the Heart Epiphany: The Manifestation of God
Jeremy at Till He Comes Pagan Prophecies of Christ
Mark at Mark Time Manifestation of God
Minnow Speaks When God Shows Up
Alan at The Assembling of the Church A Day I Saw Jesus
Ellen Haroutunian Stories of Epiphany
Liz at Grace Rules God Breaking Through Moments
Steve at Khanya Theopany: The Manifestation of God
Sarah at Emerging Mummy In Which Annie Opens the Door of Her Heart
Christine at Godspace We Have Come, We Have Seen, Now We Must Follow
Blessing the Beloved Paralysis in His Presence
Katherine at A Voice in the Desert Who is God?
Peter at Emerging Christian Epiphany Outside Theophany (Outside Christianity)
Kathy at The Carnival in my Head Orphans

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