Even though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not regard our debased understanding of divinity as something to clutch. What do I mean by our debased understanding of divinity? I mean seeing God in a pagan way: powerful, self-serving, manipulative, perhaps capricious. Far from being contrary to the being of the one true God, it is the essence of God's being to be self-emptying.
Nonetheless, we hold that one of God’s attributes is omnipotence. What does it mean to say God is omnipotent? Yes, it means God is all-powerful. What it often means is that God can and does use power coercively to get his way. But in reality, God chooses the power of powerlessness.
This is why, from a Christian perspective, it is utterly silly to be worried about God striking you with lightening or the Church falling down because a sinner entered. Here’s news: sinners have been entering the doors of this church for 40 years and it’s still standing!
Christ’s cross shows the power of powerlessness. Saint Paul discovered this, which is prompted him to exclaim, “when I am weak then I am strong.”1 This what Jesus means when he tells us: “Take up your cross and follow me.”2 You can't trust God more than when you relinquish control, even to the point of loving and doing good to your enemies as well as bearing wrongs patiently.
Christ on the Cross, Leon Bonnat, ca. 1874
Today especially, we worry that the political power of Christianity weakening. Why? Jesus never sought to take control of the Roman Empire or even the small Roman province of Palestine. At every turn, Jesus rejected calls urging him to seize and/or exercise power, including when he was chided: “If you're the Son of God, come down from the cross!”4 He even had to deal with this after the resurrection when his still clueless disciples ask “are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”4
No nation is a Christian nation even if, maybe especially if, it claims to be one. As Christians, one of the biggest threats to our faith is its usurpation for political purposes. Success in this only succeeds in dividing the Body of Christ, thus compromising the Church’s witness.
Another name for the power or powerlessness is agape. Agape,a Greek word, refers to self-sacrificing, self-emptying love. Power is divine love radiating from Christ's holy cross. Here at Saint Olaf parish, we are blessed to have the large crucifix over the altar. What seeing this should put us in mind of is “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”5
A Christian understands that she succeeds by failing. To paraphrase Saint Paul: where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.6 For God’s will to succeed in your life, you must fail. As Jesus said to some scribes and Pharisees: “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”7
Our refusal to accept God’s humiliation on the cross as the fullness of divine self-revelation renders us little more than pagans. Triumph only comes through failure. Nonetheless, we remain success-oriented.
Jesus tells us our riches and ease are obstacles to God’s Kingdom, not sure signs of God’s blessing. But we persist in our pursuit of wealth and luxury. Jesus tells us to love and forgive one another, to build community, but we're quick to walk away when things aren't to our liking. But then, we only sacrifice for what we truly love.
My dear friends in Christ, on this Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, let us recommit ourselves to following Jesus along the path to glory. The path of glory is a different way than the path of glamor.
1 2 Corinthians 12:10.↩
2 Matthew 10:38; Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23.↩
3 Matthew 27:40.↩
4 Acts 1:6.↩
5 John 3:16.↩
6 Romans 5:20.↩
7 Mark 2:17.↩
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