Something big happened at the cross and tomb of Jesus. People die all of the time. Occasionally, rarely, people come back from
death (at least in the Bible) and near-death.
But, something happened with the death and resurrection of Jesus of
Nazareth (the “Event”) that changed the universe forever. This, I believe.
What was it? How do
we use words to describe it? How do we
wrap our limited brains around it? As I
mentioned last week (two posts ago), we use metaphors. We say what it was “like.” We admit that we cannot fully understand the
mystery of it, but we try anyway. We do
our best with prayer and humility, and have confidence in God that God will
take care of the big stuff.
So, what do the metaphors used in Scripture tell us about
what happened?
- Salvation: From danger to safety
- Redemption: From slavery to freedom
- Reconciliation: From separation to unity
- Sanctification: From ordinary to special
- Adoption: From alone to a part of the family
- Marriage: From single to a part of a loving relationship
- Washing/Cleansing: From dirty to clean
- A seed growing: From “dead” to alive, unfruitful to fruitful
- Resurrection: From death to life
So, from this variety of metaphors, we can see that Christ’s
work takes us from “bad” (danger, slavery, separation, ordinary-ness, alone,
dirty, dead/unfruitful, death) to “good” (safety, freedom, unity, specialness,
part of a family, in a loving relationship, clean, alive/fruitful, life). Somehow, the death and resurrection of one
man accomplishes this for the world!
How do we think about
the Work of Jesus in our own lives and in our own world? What bad do you see in and around
yourself? What bad do you see in the
world? Do you think these things can
help describe the “bad”? What is the
opposite, “the good”?
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