At Stake

"The cross of Christ is the touchstone of our faith. From the beginning it has caused offense, as we have seen in Paul’s statement that the cross is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. It is typical of American Christianity, as of American culture as a whole, to push the cross out to the margins, because we prefer a more upbeat and triumphalist form of proclamation and practice (...)

May this volume, an attempt to unfold some of the incomparable riches of Christ crucified, be a present source of strength and encouragement for those who seek to understand and receive the Lord’s gifts. May it serve the gospel of the One who suffered and died to deliver the cosmos from bondage to death, and to incorporate each and every one of us into this own full, true, and eternal humanity."

― Fleming Rutledge, "The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ"

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'If all he dark, vague voice,' I said,
'These things are wrapt in doubt and dread,
Nor canst thou show the dead are dead.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, "The Two Voices"

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Dear Kate,

What is at stake for you this morning?  What do you stand to lose for not gaining from today what is meant for you to gain?

What I've asked you just now is a perennial, key human question on its answering your life hangs in the balance.  It's not a mere "hook" to get you to read the rest of what I have to say.  It is one of the most vital insights life has to offer, mine to yours now.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish."  And we love ourselves a vision of triumph, of winning, of a better tomorrow, in words and in deeds, something we can sink our teeth in, put our hands on.  One time I was sitting in the cafeteria of one of the biggest churches in town, and after speaking to a lady about the meaning of Jesus dying on the cross, the lady stood up, pointed her finger to make a 360 around the vast space of appetizing abundance, and proclaimed the good news, "If there's nothing to gain from this God, none of us will show up here!  None of us!"

You have a dog, and so do I.  I imagine losing her, often.  I already know where I am going to bury her; every time I worked on that corner of my garden I buried her once.  I have a vision, a vision of losing, of what I stand to lose, no paws on my lap when I sit down even just for a quick bite.  A vision of death.

What is hope?  I would like to invite you to articulate that.  But I will tell you what is hopelessness.  It is having a vision of death and staying there, yes, but more fundamentally, denying, sugarcoating, concealing it.  There's a reason why we know politicians, marketers, and religious people are liars but still couldn't help to bet our life on them: they are our partners in evasion.

What carries you along in a story?  To know what is at stake, what the character stands to lose.  What carries you away in a story?  To see what is at shore, what the character swims to gain.  A story with nothing at stake is a story that no one cares to find out the payoff, let alone living in it.

"The resurrection [of Jesus] is not a set piece. It is not an isolated demonstration of divine dazzlement. It is not to be detached from its abhorrent first act[, the crucifixion]."  If we can't say what is so hopeful about Jesus' being raised from the death it's because we don't know what is at stake for Him to die at all. 

Anyone who has decided to know nothing among his fellow human beings except Jesus Christ, and him crucified, knows what is at stake.  He knows Sin and Death are capitalized, understood as Powers over which we have no control.  It's not just a catalogue of transgressions or the procession of funerals he is fussing over.   A true Evangelist bears "the gospel (Good News) of the One who suffered and died to deliver the cosmos from bondage to death," and the gain is "to incorporate each and every one of us into this own full, true, and eternal humanity."

The cosmos, everything hangs in the balance on the Man uplifted on a piece of wood.  That's what is at stake.  He's the loss on which we gain everything.

If we tells the story of Jesus like there is nothing at stake, we would likely be living the way most Christians are, hopelessly, meaninglessly, in a non-story of our own--which, no surprise, we are too ashamed to tell.  If we do get around to tell it, we tend to reduce it to what it means to us "personally," as if the story is about us believing in the irrelevant to gain a ticket to heaven or whatever peace-of-mind we hope to find in a religion.  There is no energy in the storytelling, no passion, no yearning, no bloody hill to die on, no adventure to live for, no one cares, not even ourselves in a spring morning.  How many meaningless things are we going to do today to distract ourselves from the disgrace of our slow death?

I don't want to live for what I wouldn't die for.

Yours, Alex