That is the God for me! The Second Sunday in Lent

"No matter how deep our darkness,
he is deeper still." --Corrie Ten Boom (1892-1983), from the depths of a Nazi death camp

I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe is the one Nietzsche ridiculed as 'God on the Cross.' In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?

I have entered many Buddhist temples and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away.

And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness.

That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us.

--John Stott (1921- ), Anglican theologian

next posting: Wednesday, 8. March 2007