11 April 2014 - human dignity

11 April 2014 - human dignity

Who rescues the life or the poor from the power of the wicked?  The LORD! 

Jesus faces circumstances so bleak that there is no human hope.

The breakers of death surged round about me,
the destroying floods overwhelmed me;
The cords of the nether world enmeshed me,
the snares of death overtook me.

He hears the "whisperings of many:"

“Terror on every side!
Denounce! let us denounce him!”
All those who were my friends
are on the watch for any misstep of mine.
“Perhaps he will be trapped; then we can prevail,
and take our vengeance on him.”

He faces in full the hopelessness of the human condition apart from God.  This hopelessness is all the world has apart from God. It is all we have apart from him.  It is futility which ends in death.  The difference, for Jesus, is that he is not apart from God. 

But the LORD is with me, like a mighty champion:
my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph.
In their failure they will be put to utter shame,
to lasting, unforgettable confusion.

The Father hears the cry of Jesus, who, though rich, becomes poor for us (cf 2 Cor.9).  The LORD is with him.  Became this proximity to God makes him unlike anyone else in history, when Jesus faces the hopelessness and despair that are the results of sin it is hopelessness and despair themselves that stumble and are put to shame.  Death itself is now fit for mocking.

Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?” (cf 1 Cor. 15)

This is why we need to know that "the Father is in me and I am in the Father."  Jesus knows that it is difficult for us to believe this and even to understand it.  But it is so important that he says, "even if you do not believe, me, believe the works", 'believe what I show you even if you don't understand what I tell you.' 

Our understanding is limited in a lot of ways.  Jesus tries every approach he can to bring us to deep faith.  He knows that way have a paradigm, a worldview, and a set of expectations.  His works and signs are things which reveal the limitations of that paradigm.  They are an invitation to look beyond the way we imagine things to be.  He also appeals to things we do understand to raise our minds to things that we don't.

“Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, ‘You are gods”‘?

This is actually deep.  It isn't just an obscure verse from the Old Testament used for proof-texting.  God is saying, 'Look at just what Man is.  Look at his dignity.  Look at his rational mind and his will.  Look at his role as head of creation.  If I have thus exulted Man in the natural order do not be so surprised if I exult him further in the supernatural order by taking on human flesh myself.' 

And here is a strategy for evangelization we can learn.  We can move from affirming human dignity, which everyone claims to believe, to the source of that dignity.  We can show that the fact of that dignity cries out for a destiny beyond death and despair.

And the destiny awaits us who know that Jesus is in the Father and the Father in Jesus.  Jesus allows us all to share in his song of victory, the song of resurrection, the song of life eternal.

Sing to the LORD,
praise the LORD,
For he has rescued the life of the poor
from the power of the wicked!