Friday, November 19, 2021
Our Imaginations of God’s Justice
Are Darkened by Our Own Sin
And Wish to De-story Others.
Psalm 68:21
God will shatter the heads of his enemies, the hairy crown of those who walk in their guilty ways.
1 Thessalonians 4:14
Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.
Words of Grace For Today
Scriptures teach what everyone knows: God does great and mighty things, awesome things, wondrous and frightening things, life- and hope- creating things.
Life after the end of life, after death, seems a thing far fetched (to some if not many people.) Christians are not the only faithful people who embrace it as the hope of all hopes, grounded firmly in the centre of our faith, namely that Jesus was crucified for crimes and sins he did not commit and that three days later God rose him back to life. By this God demonstrated clearly that evil and death itself are not more powerful than God. By this God teaches that scapegoating (the killing of an innocent person in order to ‘pay’ or cover for one’s own sins) is not something favours. Rather God prohibits it just as God prohibits killing, sacrifice of people, especially children, and a host of other acts all too common among people, acts which all destroy other people, good people, by robbing them of life abundant.
Even though God prohibits these sinful, life destroying, de-storying actions, humans still commit them profusely. The hope in life after death includes the promise that in our new life, sins will be dealt with justly and with grace, and all will be free from oppression, abuse, and de-storying. The Pslamist puts this image graphically: God will shatter the heads of his enemies, the hairy crown of those who walk in their guilty ways.
There are few people, other than those who know they qualify for such an end, who would not hope that their enemies would cease to be.
God’s grace is more complete: God promises that God’s and our enemies will definitely cease to be … to be our enemies, for God will save them and convert them. They will sit with us among the children of God.
We pray: come soon, Lord Jesus, that our enemies will be defeated and we will live in peace. And they will know your peace, freeing them from their obsessions to de-story other people.
This is our story …. Let it be known far and wide.