The Collision of God and Sin

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed," I Peter 2:24.

And what does that healing look like?

My friend Jessica recently loaned me a book, Messy Spirituality by Michael Yaconelli. I read the first few pages like an excerpt from my own soul, and my blog today is simply a few of those excerpts, a picture of what I think earthly healing, non-glorified, this-side-of-heaven healing might look like, at least for me.

"For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a godly person. Yet when I look at the yesterdays of my life, what I see, mostly, is a broken irregular path littered with mistakes and failure. I have had temporary successes and isolated moments of closeness with God, but I long for the continuing presence of Jesus. Most of the moments of my life seem hopelessly tangled in a web of obligations and distractions" (p. 10).

"What landed Jesus on the cross was the preposterous idea that common, ordinary, broken, screwed-up people could be godly! What drove Jesus' enemies crazy were his criticisms of the 'perfect' religious people and his acceptance of the imperfect nonreligious people. The shocking implication of Jesus' ministry is that anyone can be spiritual.

"Scandalous? Maybe.

"Maybe truth is scandalous. Maybe the scandal is that all of us are in some condition of not-togetherness, even those of us who are trying to be godly. Maybe we're all a mess, not only sinful messy but inconsistent messy, up-and-down messy, in-and-out messy, now-I-believe-now-I-don't messy, I-get-it-now-I-don't-get-it messy, I-understand-uh-now-I-don't-understand messy.

"I admit, messy spirituality sounds . . . well . . . unspiritual.

"Surely there are guidelines to follow, principles to live by, maps to show us where to go, and secrets we can uncover to find a spirituality that is clean and tidy.

"I'm afraid not.

"Spirituality is not a formula; it is not a test. It is a relationship. Spirituality is not about competency; it is about intimacy. Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection" (pp. 12-13).

Communion with God. The point of the cross. The point of the incarnation. Oswald described the cross as "the point where God and sinful man merge with a crash and the way to life is opened -- but the crash is on the heart of God."