A Big Hug (flickr photo by jen_maiser)

Richard Wurmbrand writes,

Jesus saves not only from sin, but also from the solitude that oppresses so many. You will enter close communion with the saints of all ages, the angels, and more: you will walk continually in the companionship of the Lord Himself. You will also find loving brethren and sisters in the faith.

Wurmbrand highlights an aspect of the gospel that is sometimes overlooked. Salvation is so often considered in terms of afterlife and heaven vs hell that we lost sight of the promise of relationship. While the culture continues clamoring for diversity, the Christian faith affirms genuine diversity by confessing faith in the Triune God who is particular and universal at the same time.

In Christ, the barriers to genuine relationships of reciprocal love are demolished. In the cross, the Jew and the Gentile become one new man. This is not simply two groups becoming one but all particularities, all diversities, and possible distinctions that might divide: male and female, rich and poor, black and white. The distinctions of race, culture, gender, and class block true mutuality in human relations. We see this in Romeo and Juliet, the political theatre of every age, and even the Hatfields and McCoys.

One barrier that we rarely consider is the historic barrier (which Wurmbrand addressed). One age is often in contention with another age. The present judges the past with unsympathetic and anachronistic arguments, while failing to actually listen to those who we now consider less advanced than us.

In the Cross, relations across time and space are united. Now we love in and through the cross of Christ. This mutuality is not based on my own will or advanced ethical state of being but on the redeeming action of the creator in the midst of His creation. As Rene Girard has explored in his thoughts on scapegoating throughout history, God in Christ becomes the other, the scapegoat for all our human striving.

By trusting in the scapegoat, I am freed from the prison of my own superiority or inferiority. I am freed to love one who is unlike me, who disagrees with me. And as Wurmbrand writes, I am bound in familial relation with others in Christ who span the ages. I am part of an extended family that even as we learn how to love one another, we are learning how to love all of creation.

Do we fail? Of course. The church has never lived up to the call or promise of true reciprocal love in Christ. But because we have failed in the past and still fail in the present, we do not abandon the call, the hope, the standard in Christ. Rather, we press on toward the mark of our high calling in Christ. May we rest in His love and move in His love and act in His love as a people embraced by the great Father who has embraced His family by His Spirit and is transforming us in His love.

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