God Crosses the Frontier
God crosses the frontier
It is a real one
On one side, God
All majesty, holiness, righteousness
On the other side, Man
The sinner, the one made of flesh
Whose very flesh
Places him in opposition
Between the two
A yawning abyss
Only God can cross this frontier
Only God, the Creator and the Lord
The One who can only hide His face from Man
Now become so dreadful
But still with faculties to receive and know his God
Man cannot imagine how this God,
Infinitely beyond the abyss
Contacts him, touches him, finds him
The accused one, humbled and judged
Now received and reclaimed
Spoken to as a friend, even so utterly affectionately
Now called child.
The Strangeness of This Event
It was not self-evident
Should he drink from this cup?
This decision, not taken lightly
Only with great difficulty
He himself had to win through
Had God forsaken him?
What do we think –
Of the darkness that came at that hour
The rending of the veil of the temple
The earthquake which shook the rocks
Opened graves!
Anticipating its own end
The cosmos shuddered
At the strangeness of this event
It had to take place
It did take place
What a scandalous reversal!
The Son accepted in fear and trembling
The hard thing that he must do
To deliver us from divine judgment.
Man Is Nothing
Man is nothing
Without the grace of God
Man is the covenant breaker
But God is everything
He gave his Son, reconciling the world
Unto Himself
God does not intend for Man
To be nothing
He, too, may be everything
But in his own place
Newly created and grounded
From Above
In the end, in the atonement
He becomes God’s man
Man Can Have Peace with God
Man can have peace with God
But how? On what basis?
Only one answer: by the Word of God
In Jesus Christ
By faith in him, awakened by the One
Who quickens faith so mysteriously
We confront a great riddle
How? On what basis?
It is only by the grace of God
This coming to Man by God
Comprehensible only to Him
The atonement, accomplished by This One
Who stoops to us
His sovereign act
Owed neither to Himself nor to us
Yet, it has taken place, made manifest
Willed and accomplished by God
True because willed by Him.
Jesus Christ is the One
Jesus Christ is the One
Who bears our sin
He answers for it
He does not stand far away
Yet we are not mere spectators
Of this alien work
Hardly affected, crowded out
Of our place
He represents us
Our sin rests on him
He takes it with divine authority
He forgives us
We recognize ourselves in him
In him we find ourselves
For the first time seeing truly.
Wisdom in the Night
The wisdom of the night
Issues in folly
It walks the unbroken road
Knows its cause, sees the operation
But it does not give the command to halt
This is the road of those who forget
Their Creator, eyes firmly to the ground
Why can’t we remember
What has been forgotten?
At the end of our wandering in the night
Lies death.
The Sin Forgiven is Now the Old Thing
The sin forgiven is now the old thing
The essence of all that is old
Something which is past, done with
No longer present
Without any future
Forgiveness of sins
This is the central meaning
Of the divine action of Jesus Christ
Forgiveness of sin requires his passion.
