We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
The Witness of Graffiti (Rocks Crying Out)
On this eve of Easter, we wanted to share something that fit the mood of the time between the crucifixion and the resurrection. D.L. Mayfield wrote this striking piece on the longing for the Kingdom of God in the midst of overwhelming brokenness. We thought it was the perfect reflection for this day suspended between grief and celebration.
From her reflection:
I think Jesus meant it all: that his coming, his way, his kingdom was marked both by celebration and anguish. He knew, more intimately and more deeply than we could ever imagine, the joy of his father’s heart and the suffering of what happens when we purposefully thwart it. He knows about me, my neighbors, this city—how the redemption is so real and good and possible (the rocks cry out) and how the hearts of the broken are barely holding on, while we keep trying to build our own safe fortresses high above the muck (the rocks cry out). He knows it all; and perhaps this is what he was thinking as he looked over Jeruslalem and wept.
In my neighborhood you can’t walk a block without seeing paint splashed on the walls. Some are joyful, hopeful and prophetic. Others are chilling, territorial, anguished. The rocks are crying out, just as Jesus said they would.
Related Reading
How is the Bible “God-Breathed”?
The historic-orthodox church has always confessed that all canonical writings are “God-breathed” (1 Tim 3:16). But what exactly does this mean? How could God guarantee that the writings that his “breathing” produces are precisely what he intended without thereby undermining the autonomy of the agents he “breathes” through? In other words, did God breathe the…
Would God Kill a Baby To Teach Parents a Lesson?
Question: We have a group of guys that are going through your book “Is God to Blame” and a question came up that I would be curious how you would look at it. In the beginning of the book you ask the question “do you really think that God kills babies to teach parents a lesson?”…
What I Am, and Am Not, Doing In These Blog Posts
In this post I’d like to try to help some potentially frustrated readers by explaining what I am, and am not, trying to accomplish in this series on the violent portraits of God in the OT. First let me explain something. My forthcoming book, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God, fleshes out and defends a…
Was Jesus Really Human Like the Rest of Us?
Did Jesus really live as a human like you and I do? Or did he walk around with special divine powers that we don’t have? In the previous post, I introduced the question: How was God both fully God and fully man? I explained the classical model of the Incarnation which views the incarnate Jesus…
Atonement: What is the Christus Victor View?
Most western Christians today understand the atonement as a sort of legal-transaction that took place between the Father and the Son that got humanity “off the hook.” The legal-transaction scenario goes something like this: God’s holiness demands that all sin be punished, which in turn requires that sinners go to eternal hell. The trouble is,…