the space between ..

3 days out and tensions are building, not only in the city of Jerusalem where everybody's congregating from all over to commemorate the Passover and the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, but also within You ..

the tension's building within You - this tension of the intention in the mind of God to free humanity finally, completely, and too the tingling in your flesh, anticipating the likely crucifixion to come in days, and the tremendous weight, the sin of all humanity over all time laden on You, the scapegoated Lamb, and violently thrust into You, and You become sin .. 

You become sin!  ! ??     ?

what a conflicting thought, what a paradox .. what incomprehensible tension - that the one in whom dwells all the fullness of God in a human body becomes sin .. there is no greater contradiction, no greater unholy imagination .. 

it's the very One through whom the imagination of God was created in all its fabulous variety and color and sound and image, finally and most intensely exhibited in the image of the human image of the invisible God ..         that very One now imagines himself pierced with nails, staked to a tree, spread naked for all the world to gawk and mock and jeer, and violently unload their own guilt .. 

there is no greater condemnation than that the creator of the universe visited creation in person, and was not only not recognized, but was rejected, condemned, assaulted, and executed .. the Creator was executed by the Imago Dei, the God-images, the being created to be like God

..

" .. their cheers as I entered the temple, "Hosanna! Save us now!", are prophetic in their own right ..
I wonder what will be their response when I'm taken and arrested and charged and accosted and threatened .. "

..

' While he was in Jerusalem for the Passover Feast, many of the people believed in him because they saw the signs he was performing. But Jesus, knowing in himself what they all were like, did not entrust himself to them. He didn't need anyone's testimony about anyone because he knew human nature, and needed no one to tell him what humanity was like. ' (Jn 2.24,25)

more servants please ..

o how we love to extol and to exalt, to bow low and to scrape at the feet of those in our religious tradition, those especially gifted, learned, and privileged to stand out-front - the likes of preachers, popes, and prophets, and ivory-towered intelligentsia ..

it's a sad and tragic practice
it assaults the integrity of the person to whom it is directed
   pulling at the cloth of their humility as if to disrobe ..
and too, it lodges in the minds of us plebes that there are lords among us
   besides the LORD YaHWeH
      whom we serve as Lord

this is a serious matter .. it is a tensile force, stretching the adulated one to lengths they were better not asked to reach
   pedestaling them
   when what was asked of them by God was to magnify the glory
      of the god we call God ..
glory misplaced is our problem
   for we so love to posture people, us christians
   and to be postured, us humans 

have we not seen?
have we not heard?
   long long ago
   that we are not designed to be glorified ..
      although we are destined for glory

this preening and cooing over the accomplishments of our siblings is preface to many Falls, and we are beginning to see their outcome, to watch in our increasingly publicized camera-ed atmosphere the tragic tumbling of our Humpties ..
   and the whole world looks on in bewonderment

what a violation of the very God we claim is god !
we preach God's integrity and trustworthiness
   and then we position, one after the other, little gods
      dressed-up in our praises and adorations
      on the altars as ripe sacrifices
         for the Adversary to draw blood
   and the whole world looks on         bewondered

when will we learn?

i came to this place in the wake of the ravi zacharias ordeal
   (of course there are many others, but this one held space for me personally)
may it be the seedbed of our repentance

the other prompt - reading reviews offered on a book by the also-famous Walter Brueggemann, for whom i have much respect ..
the book is Tenacious Solidarity, and i read those reviews on amazon's website
   (you should read those reviews yourself for context)
   folk just curtseying and bowing everywhere
.. our own royalty

while bodycams are exposing some of the horrendous injustices of our policing forces, our generally shrinking private spaces are lending our lives to more public surveillance, and the secreted sins of our 'clergy' are spilling like so much vomit all over the lectern
   unraveling the 'glories' of the ones we blow-up with all our hot air
   and offer up to be sacrificed to our gods

i understand that a book needs to be promoted, but the excessively laudatory comments were nothing but scarping at the feet of the author they endanger
   may God keep him

Matthew 23.1-12 says much about this sort of hypocrisy
   and that from the mouth of Jesus himself
you should read it ..

that's why the prophets don't stand within the camp
   but outside the Commons
   apart from the highlights
so their Voice can be seen to be not-of
   uncoddled by the people who love idols

"O christianity .. how i would embrace you
   as a hen gathering her chicks 
but you simply will not" ..

you are enamored by the flash and the glare of your sequined robes
   in the bright lights of your idolatry
..
turn
time to turn back
   to shed those robes
   don the sackcloth, and anoint with ashes fitting for repentance

we don't need more gods

we need more servants