True Theology

"True theology makes its bed in the house of human need.

 

Pain drives the most profound questions of God – and God is found by the afflicted.

 

 Alienation creates the desire for reconciliation – and God reconciles the prodigal. 

 

Oppression leads mankind to question the relationship between God’s character and their practical situation – and God reveals himself to the dehumanized. "

~Tim Reed

Dreadful Privilege

Dreadful Privilege

by Tim Reed

My life drips with dreadful privilege

Hastily scrawled elegant solutions

Scars of mind from all this forward motion

Theseus' deaf ear to silent, shouting revolutions





 

Good Friday - Lady Julian's 4th Showing

     

Good Friday - Lady Julian's 4th Showing 

II Corinthians 2:14-16
 But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?

     Although I usually like to share my own work, I should like today to share an excerpt from an author that has been incredibly influential in my thinking and Christian life. Lady Julian was a 15th century English mystic, most famous for her work "Revelations of Divine Love" and a proponent of unity of will and affection with God. 

     As we enter Good Friday and the time of Christ's passion, it seems only appropriate to share this, her 4th revelation of divine love, where she sees an image of Christ on the cross and writes a humble theology about the blood of Christ. I hope that your heart takes hold of the truth presented here, though it be in somewhat archaic language. 

The Twelfth Chapter:

   After this I saw beholding the body plenteously bleeding, in seeming of the scourging, just as thus : the fair skin was broken full deep into the tender flesh, with sharp smitings, all about the sweet body : the hot blood ran out so plenteously, that there was neither seen skin, n[or] wound, but as it were all blood. And when it came where it should have fallen down, there it vanished : notwithstanding the bleeding continued a while, till it might be seen with advisement. And this was so plenteous to my sight, that me thought if it had been so in kind and in substance for that time, it should have made the bed all on blood, and have passed over all about.

    Then came to my mind, that God hath made waters plenteous in earth to our service, and to our bodily ease, for tender love that he hath to us. But yet liketh him better, that we take full [w]holsomely his blessed blood to wash us from sin, for there is no [liquid] that is made that liketh him so well to give us : for it is most plenteous, as it is most precious, and that, by the vertue of the blessed Godhead; and it is our own kind, and blessedfully overfloweth us by the vertue of his precious love.

    The dear worthy blood of our Lord Jesu Christ, also verily as it is most precious, as verily it is most plentuous. Behold and see the vertue of this precious plenty of his dear worthy blood. It descended down into hell, and brake her bonds, and delivered them all that were there which belongeth to the court of heaven.

    The precious plenty of his dear worthy blood overfloweth all earth, and is ready to wash all creatures of sin which be of good-will, have been, or shall be. The precious plenty of his dear worthy blood ascendeth up into heaven in the blessed body of our Lord Jesu Christ: and there is in him bleeding, praying for us to the Father, and is and shall be as long as us needeth. And evermore it floweth in all heaven, enjoying the salvation of all mankind that be there, and shall be fulfilling the number that faileth.