grief and amazement in the life of jesus

steve reminded me in a discussion following the two grace services on the prophet's story that walter brueggemann's prohetic imagination has two chapters on jesus as a prophet. so i dusted off the book and re-read those chapters. one is on grief and the other on amazement. they are truly remarkable. go and have a read... they are actually a wonderful reflection in holy week where we remember the story of christ's death and resurrection - surely a week full of grief and amazement if there ever was one!

here's a quote or two on christ's death (maybe i'll save amazement for easter sunday?!)...

It is the crucifixion of Jesus that is the decisive criticism of the royal consciousness. The crucifixion of Jesus is not to be understood simply in liberal fashion as the sacrifice of a noble man. Nor should we too quickly assign a cultic, priestly theory of atonement to the event. Rather we might see in the crucifixion of Jesus the ultimate act of prophetic criticism in which Jesus announces the end of a world of death (the same announcement of that of Jeremiah) and takes that death into his own person. Therefore we say that the ultimate criticism is that God himself embraces the death that his people must die. The criticism consists not in standing over against but in standing with; the ultimate criticism is not one of triumphant indignation but one of the passion and compassion that completely and irresistibly undermine the world of competence and competition. The contrast is stark and total: this passionate man set in the midst of numbed Jerusalem. And only the passion can finally penetrate the numbness...

...The cross is the ultimate metaphor of prophetic criticism because it means the end of the old consciousness that brings death on everyone. The crucifixion articulates God's odd freedom, his strange justic and his peculiar power. It is this freedom (read religion of God's freedom), justice (read economics of sharing) and power (read politics of justice) which break the pwoer of the old age and bring it to death. Without the cross, prophetic imagination will likely be as strident and destructive as that which it criticises. The cross is the assurance that effective prophetic criticism is done not by an outsider but always by one who must embrace grief, enter into the death, and know the pain of the criticised one.

Comments

[Simon]

Beautiful and profound Jonny - thanks.

[Kathy]

That is profound. Thanks for posting it, Jonny.