'Christianity' not 'Biblicism'

I have to remind myself of this often…

It’s called ‘Christianity,’ not ‘Biblicism.’ 

The nature of God is specifically revealed in Jesus,
his birth, life, death, and resurrection;
not widely in the Bible.

The Bible is the cradle of Christ Jesus
the anointed one
God’s final Word.

The Bible points towards Christ. 
But it includes a lot more than that. 

You can find whatever god(s) you want in the Bible.
You can find a God of wrath
or indifference
or nationalism
or ethnocentrism
Etc.  

But you can only find the true God
the God of Love
in Jesus the Christ.

Jesus reveals to us
what God-in-human-flesh looks like.
Jesus shows us how this God moves.
This movement is always cruciform. 
Or downward.

No one escapes this downward, cruciform movement of Christ.
Not kings or queens
or paupers or princes
or sex workers or adulterers
or colonizers or tax collectors.

To even the most despised,
Jesus moves downward towards them all.
Jesus, the almighty God made flesh
kneels downward to them
in service, care, concern
and ultimately
restoration.

Without Jesus, God is an abstraction.
With abstraction comes disorientation.
So we create a legalistic God
who functions according to our will
who aligns with our worldview;
an exaggerated projection
of our egoic selves
so that we may gain control
over this hidden god.

This god doesn’t really love…
Rather, this god ‘favors’.
This god doesn’t offer grace…
Rather, this god offers reward and punishment.

When dealing with the god of abstraction,
we end up creating an idol
who looks like us
on our worst days.

Yes, we can find the God of love throughout the entire Bible-
Old Testament and New…
But Jesus brings this abstraction
into human flesh.
He is God, given a face
and hands
and feet
which become punctured
and lacerated.

On the cross, God doesn’t control.
He doesn’t snap his fingers
and make our so-called problems go away.
Rather, he knows our root problem
isn’t our assailant ‘out there’
but our assailant inside
who keeps love at bay
and projects our disdain
onto our human siblings.

This inner assailant
creates the idol gods
that we employ
to justify our wrath.
But the god
who doles out wrath on them
will always turn on us.

God, as Jesus
will not play that game
and instead,
dies to it.

It’s as if Jesus says,
”I’d rather die
than uphold this abstract punishment system in the sky
that you want me to uphold.”

When you wonder what God is up to,
how God moves,
or what God is doing…

Look to Jesus.
The lover
the redeemer
the restorer
the resurrection
the truth.

And no further.
Amen.