Tonight is for shadows. For the light of the infinite to spill over into this temporal place, for contemplation of the dark recesses where it is present only in it’s absence. Tonight is for shadows, where the movement of the heavens is played out on soil, where divinity became blood and blood spilled to earth, and the Divine grief cast its long shade over the story of our people.
Tonight is for the crushing fury of Divinity, borne out in love.
Tonight is for the intertwining of infinites. Of the measureless things, crashing into each other with fatalistic determination. Tonight is for the steps, each made inevitable by the absurdity of divine love for reckless fools. Tonight is for infinites.
For infinite glory, and perfect authority. The measure of an offense is in relation to the offended, and so, an offense against an infinite God is an infinite offense.
For infinite perfection of justice. An infinite offense requires an infinite atonement, the measuring out of retribution and recompense.
For infinite love. For each step made inevitable by the first step, the first refusal to abandon us to our impossible state, the refusal to leave us broken and infinitely indebted.
For infinite natures emptied out. An infinite atonement requires an infinite perfection, a divine perfection, emptied and humbled and folded into a man.
For infinite wrath. The fury of infinite glory violated and betrayed. The fury of love abused and neglected. The fury of a father whose children have been deceived. The fury of a wife whose lover has betrayed her.
The infinite fury the Infinite person, poured out upon the infinite nature of the God-man, who, for the sake of infinite love, bore the infinite debt of a people far from God.
Tonight is for the intertwining of infinites. Of the measureless things, crashing into each other with fatalistic determination, each made inevitable by the absurdity of divine love for reckless fools.
Tonight is for shadows. For us to pause, and remember, and grieve, and tell each other the stories of the cross, where the movement of the heavens played out on soil, where divinity became blood and blood spilled to earth, and the divine grief cast its long shade over the story of our people.
aly hawkins 4:23 pm on 14 April 2006 Permalink
“…the stories of the cross…”
I love that. Ash and I were talking a couple days ago about “theories of atonement,” but I like “stories of the cross” so much more. The beauty of many streams of Christianity is the different — and entwined — stories they whisper to us about what was accomplished under the shadow of that impossibly Good Friday: God’s wrath appeased, the Dance of God and His creation renewed, the curse of Death forever cursed, the Way to ultimate Reconciliation paved, the inevitable (yet somehow, always unexpected) victory of sacrifice over conquest. I shall never tire of hearing these stories and will always marvel that God could accomplish so much in the gloom of one Night.