What’s this blog about?
“Paradox, noun: Seemingly absurd though perhaps actually well founded statement; person or thing conflicting with preconceived notions of what is reasonable or possible.” – The Concise Oxford English Dictionary
We all know paradoxes. Things that don’t seem to fit. Places where the world seems to have gone a bit inside out. Things which run completely against your intuition. Things that leave you rubbing your eyes and saying “It can’t be… but it is!” Peacekeeping soldiers on the news. Parents who have to be cruel to be kind. The last page on the exam paper which says “This page was intentionally left blank”.
I don’t know whether you’re a Christian or not, but this blog is about what I think is the ultimate paradox – the cross of Jesus – and its implications for our lives. If you arn’t a Christian, what happened at the cross of Jesus still has very real implications for your life. You can read a brief explanation of it all here.
The cross is the place where God shows his mercy by pouring out his wrath, where the King of Kings dies like a criminal to make a bunch of criminals into kings, where Jesus saves millions but can’t save himself, where he triumphs over his enemies by dying a humiliating and agonising death, where life comes out of death and the deepest sacrilege mankind could ever commit reconciles God to mankind.
Christians themselves are paradoxical people: They are at the same time just and sinners, they can be seen here, but their lives are hidden with Christ, they live to die and die to live, they are in the world, but not of the world, when they deny themselves and seek God’s glory they’re aiming at their greatest joy.
I’m aiming here really to try to explore ways that the good news about Jesus works itself out in our day to day life. I want to find where the rubber hits the road for Christian teaching, not out of pragmatism, thinking that whatever doctrine “works” for me is the best to go with, but rather confident in the belief that sound teaching is healthy teaching – it changes how you think, feel, speak and act. I hope it helps you, and that together we can become people more and more shaped by what Jesus has done for us and what he has promised to us.
(Picture: This Space Left Blank Intentionally by Matthew Oliphant under the Creative Commons Licence)
