"Jesus matters for Christians because he was for us the decisive disclosure of God." | "The notion of Jesus' death as a substitute for our sins was not found in the first 1000 years of Christianity." Just two quotes from an extraordinary "Lent Event" Forum with Jesus scholar Marcus Borg.
When someone shares in our suffering, somehow the knowledge that we are not alone, that there is someone out there who knows the pain that we are going through, the knowledge that we are cared for by someone who truly knows our pain comforts us and gives us the strength we need to endure our suffering. To be alone in our suffering is the most terrible thing that we can imagine. The Good News that God is LOVE means that LOVE will not let us suffer alone because LOVE is determined to suffer with us. Working in, with, and through those who have experienced our pain LOVE is able to enfold us and say, “I know, my child, I know.”
I’d like to invite you into a conversation we’ve been having at the First Presbyterian Church of San Rafael these last weeks of Lent, a conversation about evolution and faith. We’re not talking about a six day creation, with God resting on the seventh. I really, really hope that argument’s over and done with. No, we’re talking about evolution as the way in which everything unfolds in all of creation. We are looking at a creation that evolves and opens towards unity, or shalom, in the presence of God.
Our personal journeys through Lent are associated with a symbolic wilderness, but we need not wander there without direction. “The Way” is the