For Lent, I am preaching a series on the Sorrows of Mary. This past Sunday I preached on the Slaughter of the Innocents and attempted to take seriously the claims in the New Testament that the Incarnation is complete only when Christ is all in all things, including the creature we call time. The belief, held by many if not most Christians, that the gospel promises no matter how traumatic and terrible life is and has been, in the End, it will be ok is simply not good enough good news to honor Mary’s boy and Pilate’s victim.
If Jesus reveals both the principle of creation and the Father’s own heart, then Revelation 21.4 must prophesy neither the cessation of wounds nor the amnesia of sins suffered but rather the transfiguration of time itself.
Quite simply, I think the New Testament dares us to take the proclamation of rectification literally and apply it more cosmically than we can begin to conceive. And of course, as items within that cosmos we’re perhaps not in the best position to assess what is “natural” or possible for God. Not only do I think the scriptures demand such a conclusion, as a workaday pastor my moral intuition tells me I should have indeed gone to law school if this is not so. I have encountered too many tragedies in twenty-five years of ministry, thrown dirt on too many 2’5’’ coffins— ingested far too much chemo-poison— to celebrate a more meager promise as “good news.”
For example, I have been podcasting for ten years now— I started after my first bout with the cancer that has once again upended my life and depressed my odds in the futures market. In all that time and over so many conversations, I remain haunted by the last response Jason Jones gave to me for the final question:
“What do you want to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?”
In his memoir, Limping But Blessed: Wrestling with God after the Death of a Child, Jason Jones discusses his struggles with faith after the loss of his son Jacob in June of 2011. In our conversation with Jason he opened up about his darkest days, bargaining with God, and how he is moving forward since.
I believe I have heard no holier or more righteous statement than the answer Jason gave to that query.
Listen to the episode.
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