““Who are you, Jesus? Identify yourself! Friend or foe?”

”I am your friend not your foe.””

Jesus invites us to friendship with God. He wants to accompany us as we make our escape through the Valley of Tears, across the Red Sea of Death, which is the worst and the last of our crosses and into the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey . He wants to be with us as we pass through hostile territory . He wants to stand with us in the scrum at the line of scrimmage in the middle of our dire predicament in the Valley of Tears as we do battle with our crosses. Our crosses are the hammer that drives us through the Valley of Tears towards the anvil. The anvil is the Red Sea of death. Without a miracle, our destiny is to be crushed between the hammer and anvil. Without a Savior, we are doomed.

The Conversation about God is dead

God is not dead. Indeed, God is very much alive. However, the conversation about God is dead. Killing the conversation about God is tantamount to killing God. The enemies of the Church know this. The Church does not.

The God who forgave us after we tortured and killed him is the elephant in the room. The enemies of Christianity talk about the tchotchkes on the shelves but not the elephant in the room. Are you an enemy of Christianity either intentionally or unintentionally? Do you talk about the tchotchkes on the shelves but not the elephant in the room? What percentage of the conversation do you devote to the tchotchkes and what percentage do you devote to the elephant? You may claim to be a Christian. You may think you are a Christian. But, in reality, you are an enemy of Christianity if you ignore the elephant in the room. The enemies of Christianity bury the elephant of Christianity in the tchotchkes. The tchotchke hide him from us - obscure the nature of God from us - turn a clear, high fidelity representation of the reality of God into a fuzzy, low fidelity representation.

Jesus dropped a bombshell of revelation about God into the Valley of Tears. It exploded on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. The incandescense of the explosion illuminated the darkness of our understanding of God in a glorious burst of epiphany. On the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection, Jesus opened a window through which we can catch a glimpse of the nature of God from here in the Valley of Tears.

Our baptism of Jesus was the apocalyptic vehicle that Jesus used to carry the revelation about the nature of God to us.

We baptized Jesus on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection . Into the boiling pot of his baptism, we added the bitter herbs of torture, suffering, killing and death. To the pot, Jesus also added an ingredient. He did not add the bitter herbs of revenge, retribution or retaliation. Instead, he added the sweet elixer of forgiveness . [By the way, what ingredient do you add to the pot?]

Compare the ingredients that we added to the pot of Jesus's baptism and the ingredient that Jesus added to behold the radical difference between creature and Creator. Our God is different than us. In the baptism of Jesus, creature and Creator were compared. The comparison highlighted the radical asymmetry between him and us . Wow! Praise and thank God that our God is different than us.

Other imagery besides the imagery of baptism can tell the story of what happened on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection.

We tortured and killed him. He suffered and died. He did not stay dead and he did not stop loving us. He emerged from the dead still alive and still in love with us. That he did not stay dead is the proof of the power of Jesus. Nobody emerges from the dead. He did. That he did not stop loving us is the proof that our conception of divinity as power is incomplete. Divinity is also love. Omnipotence makes God powerful. Love makes God perfect. Power begets respect. But love begets love.

The evil that we did to him lit the fuse to the atomic bomb of retribution, retaliation and revenge . However, it did not detonate . It did not explode. Why? Love. Love turned the bomb into a dud.

In the scrum at the line of scrimmage on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection, Jesus engaged the evil that we did to him. He did not engage evil at the head of an army; he engaged evil to recruit an army. The only weapon that he used in the fight was the anti-weapon of forgiveness . Our almighty God thought forgiveness was his best option in his confrontation with evil.

Forgiveness is the earthquake at the epicenter of Christianity. The aftershocks of the earthquake still rumble across the face of the earth. The earthquake of Christianity still causes us to tremble .

Forgiveness set the world on a new foundation - a foundation of love.

Therefore, can we devote at least fifty (50%) percent of the conversation to the elephant? Is fifty (50%) percent too much to ask?

Make your escape with him on the trail that he blazed

Fools try to blaze their own trail through the wilderness, across the Red Sea of death and into the Kingdom of God. The wise pass through the Valley of Tears with Jesus on the trail that Jesus blazed. Follow him. He is the way . "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me." . To rescue us from our dire predicament in the Valley of Tears, God built an escape route, defined it with holy places, made a map of them, established a Church and entrusted the map to the Church. The Church has the map and knows the way. The job of the Church is to facilitate the escape not to frustrate it, filter it or foul it up . The escape of the new Exodus through the evils of the Valley of Tears is primary. Nothing else matters. Everything else is secondary. Anything that interferes is suspect . “Nobody left behind" is the motto of the escape. "Neither saint nor sinner” .