Jesus' illogical Summons

God’s love is stronger than Death.

          But we protest, because that makes no sense to us. Jesus is not logical. At least, his logic is not our logic. We do not understand the way he calculates, the methodology he uses to arrive at decisions. His values and economics unsettle us mightily. And since we do not understand his math, we distrust his motives. And since we distrust him, we kill him. It is how we survive in the world. Uniformity is the key.

Everything in this world falls short. 

It always falls short of reaching our innermost soul where our deepest scar remains. It is the place no arm can stretch to and so it always persists, red and irritating and final. But in the radical words of Jesus and his pretentious actions, souls claim to be healed; they claim rest.

I am healed there.

I stand among that smiling mass of astonished and weeping people.

We are free. I cannot believe it…we are healed.

Our minds resist him at all costs for he is obtrusive, and he asks far too much. Yet our souls crave him for he sings to them, and involuntarily, our soul sings back. We do not tell our souls to sing back, but they do. We do not want to believe him, for his words scare us. But we cannot ignore what we feel when he speaks. We cannot ignore that rush we get only when he touches us. That rush where we feel alive is found and sustained nowhere else. That is why everything else falls short.

And we know this is true.

We know Jesus is the world’s only Truth for this same Truth created the world.

And this means we know what we must do next. We must do as he did. He said he came to destroy Death that we might live. He said he came to imbibe all Sin into his very nature that our earth and our souls and our bodies and our relationships might be clean and whole and perfect forevermore. Our souls know this is true even if we do not want to believe it. It is the secret of our God, the secret of the Great Story.

Therefore, we know, sorrowfully, what has to happen next. We know where healing comes from.

We must go to Golgotha.

We must carry our cross, with him, and walk up the hill, with him. We must die, with him. It scares our minds and insults our society, but it is the only way to unity.

We know that too.

           We are never left thinking that Jesus is starting some revolution. He is below and above and outside and between every single uprising the world has ever known. He simply is living out his chapter in the Great Story. It is the road the Father gave him to walk and it is his alone to walk. It is a path unlike any other path in the world.

That is why you have Christians on both sides of every issue because the road of Christ, the road to Golgotha, the Great Story, is outside and within and around and through every other road. The road of Jesus swallows up every other road from dawn to dusk.

The world is on one side, Christ and the cross on the other. It is unlike anything else and it beckons for all to join. At the very least, it does not allow for ignorance. Abstaining from a choice is to make a choice. The cross confronts us at every turn.

Who do you say he is?

Is he alive or just a statue?

Jesus has his role in God’s plan; we have ours. But as he lived out his part, as he walked his singular path up to Golgotha, no one had any idea what he was doing; not his disciples, not the Pharisees, not the Romans. No one ever knows what he is doing.

No one knows the fullness of this Great Story…but he, the Father and the Spirit.

Maybe that is why he gets up early to pray?

They are writing forth their Great Story until it is finished and complete and nothing can deter them.

He will repair the relationship and then he will invite all his children to come home, if they want, if you want.

‘You can come home. I’m making a way for you.’ That is the message of Jesus Christ. ‘Our Father loves you, even still, this very day! He has never stopped thinking of you or asking about you or longing for you to come home. I, your brother, love you. We’ve prepared a feast for you, in our family’s honor. Please come to it…please. We just want you to come home.’

Our brother is amazing.