From our perspective, the bloody wounds with which we punctuated his body were question marks. Our God was a stranger to us. We did not know the answer that he would give us to the evil that we did to him. From Jesus’s perspective, the bloody wounds with which we punctuated his body were exclamation marks. They are badges of forgiveness. His answer to the evil that we did to him was asymmetric - radically asymmetric. He forgave us. We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. Yet, he poured the sweet elixir of forgiveness into the boiling pot into which we baptized him in evil.
The position of prominence in the showcase of Christianity belongs to the Stigmata and the story of the Stigmata. Our God is the God who forgave us for the evil that we did to him. The Stigmata reminds us. The body and blood of the most Holy Eucharist distributes the Stigmata and its story across time and space to the children of Adam and Eve. The wise rest their understanding of God on the Stigmata and its story. The Stigmata and its story illuminate the darkness of our understanding of God in a glorious burst of epiphany.
The Crucifixion is the exclamation point that the Word of God affixed to the sentence, 'God loves us'. GOD DOES NOT JUST LOVE US. GOD LOVES US EVEN THOUGH WE TORTURED AND KILLED HIM. Wow!
His bloody wounds are the punctuation marks that our evil opened in his body. Before we knew what his answer would be to the evil that we did to him, his bloody wounds were question marks. After, they became exclamation points. There was a change in punctuation. The change in punctuation is the good knews of great joy - very good news for us.
Fear not! The script is already written. Our immutable God will not rewrite the script. God parted the Red Sea for the Jews. God will part the Red Sea of Death for us. Rejoice and be glad.
The God with the bloody wounds is as important to us as food and drink. Without food and drink, we die of hunger and thirst. Without the God with the bloody wounds, death is just as certain.
A beautiful, symbiotic dance of question and answer weaved its way through his bloody wounds to bind the Crucifixion and the Resurrection together into the conversation. Are you privy to the conversation?
His bloody wounds are the punctuation marks that our evil opened in his body. Before we knew what his answer would be to the evil that we did to him, his bloody wounds were question marks. After, they became exclamation points. There was a change in punctuation. The change in punctuation is the good knews of great joy - very good news for us.
The doctrine of the Real, but faceless, Presence of God is true - absolutely, entirely and positively. However, it is not true enough. It barely skims the surface of God. It hits the atmosphere of our understanding of God and bounces off. It is a tangent. It contributes little to our understanding of God.
The bloody wounds we opened in the body of Christ are windows that reveal the nature of God.
The current of salvation flows from godlessness to paradise through the bloody wounds we opened in the body of Christ. We can surf it to our salvation.
The payload of the thirty-three year Visit that the Son of God paid us at and about the city of Jerusalem in a region of our planet that we call the Middle East more than two thousand years ago was apocalypse. The Visit revealed to us the nature of God.